Lil B, The Based God

Lil B, the self-proclaimed "Based God", is currently the most controversial popular musician. Any time Lil B is mentioned online, it's certain to bring a swarm of divisive opinions and there doesn't seem to be much room between "loving" or "hating" The Based God.

He doesn't provoke this kind of furor through traditional pop music means, either. Utterly sincere references to Satanism? Crotchless leather pants? Lyrics and song titles ripped straight from the titles of B slasher movies? That's all kids stuff. Who really pays attention to the kind of people that get outraged over that stuff anymore? Instead, Lil B provokes by utterly ignoring the boundaries of good taste while maintaining a massive, rabidly devoted cult following who loves him for it.

Let's get this out of the way. Lil B is not a "good" rapper. Most of the time, he mumbles incoherently and even if you do manage to pick out his lyrics they still tend to be more or less nonsensical. Most of his subject matter is money and bitches but taken to such a ridiculous degree it feels like it's a parody of mainstream hip-hop culture ("bitches suck my dick 'cause I look like Carl Winslow", "bitches suck my dick 'cause I look like Fran Drescher", "bitches suck my dick 'cause I look like JK Rowling", "ho fuck me/ ho fuck me/ bitches suck my dick 'cause I look like Master P"). He can go from one line that's actually fairly strong and insightful to bars upon bars of indecipherable stream of consciousness. His beats are often messy and poorly produced. His hooks can be nothing more than repeating the last name of a celebrity over and over and the name of the celebrity often has nothing to do with the song ("Cyrus, Cyrus, I'm Miley Cyrus"). In addition, he also puts out numerous "basedtracks" with the silliest premises, like "I Cook COOKING MUSIC ANTHEM". And, of course, "swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag, swag..."




Not to mention, the guy is pretty charming and seems genuinely sweet and is a genius and dedicated internet marketer. He isn't exaggerating when he says he conquered Myspace and Facebook, he built his devoted fan base through ferocious social media self-promotion.

See, it's.... difficult to talk critically about Lil B. If you read a review of any piece of his work, the reviews seem to be more about Lil B as a cultural figure than an EP or a song or and album. It's because Lil B's work, in addition to referencing pop culture very heavily, is a very self-referential artist. Not to mention, he kind of demands you to take him as a whole, and not just multiple pieces of a whole. Between his cult fanbase and the self-referential nature of his music, the Lil B catalogue has become kind of its own mythology. He's The Based God and his music is based. Based is the term Lil B has given to just not giving a single fuck.

And that brings us to another reason why critically analyzing Lil B in terms of "good" or "bad" is a fairly useless endeavor because on his own artistic terms he sets no bars. Lil B and his fans simply don't care what haters say because irony and poor taste are simply an intoxicating playground to roll around in. His most vocal critics can often just end up looking like massive fools, clinging bitterly to outdated and meaningless definitions and rules of how to create art while completely missing the point. Because say what you will, Lil B and his fans are having a lot of fun.

Whether he's a rap dada genius, the greatest practical joke in current music, the worst rapper ever, or just the head of a brilliantly cynical online self-promotion campaign all seems to hardly matter.

He brought 4Chan the "Based X" meme. For that alone, he needs to die.

Except for Based Deng. The only man Based enough to be officially Based.

Whatever the hell that means, I just like Eternal Deng threads because they drive Miami cockgarglers mad.  

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Lil B and his fans simply don't care what haters say because irony and poor taste are simply an intoxicating playground to roll around in.

You may have just summed up That Thing that makes me want to punch them all so badly. Thank you, I'd been unable to put my finger on it.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Whether he's a rap dada genius, the greatest practical joke in current music, the worst rapper ever, or just the head of a brilliantly cynical online self-promotion campaign all seems to hardly matter.

Right. So why is he worthy of discussion again?

Though I'll spot you the phrase 'brilliantly cynical'. That seems to sum him up rather well, I probably just don't mean it as complimentarily as you do.

heddie wrote:

Right. So why is he worthy of discussion again?

Because artists like Lil B, pop controversial provocateurs whose fame, cultural persona, and art become a kind of mythos only really come once about every decade or so.

I'm going to put it this way. Lil B IS what Lady Gaga has so far only proven capable of trying (and she tries very fucking hard) to be. Whether he knows it or not.

So I was hoping maybe you, me, Reep, and whatever other artsy fartsy hipsters here could.... I dunno. Futz around talking about Dada, artistic intention, fame, music, what it means to be "good", the purpose of music, whatever else can even be tangentially related to Lil B. Mikey will jeer from the sidelines.

Or we could just watch another Clopper thread melt, I guess.

heddie wrote:

Though I'll spot you the phrase 'brilliantly cynical'. That seems to sum him up rather well, I probably just don't mean it as complimentarily as you do.

Oh, I didn't mean I think he's "brilliantly cynical". I'm saying that's another perspective I've heard regarding him. I don't think he's cynical at all. The guy seems fairly genuine and enthusiastic and positive. Which I honestly think is quite refreshing, as hippy-dippy as his songs can get. Especially since it seems that nowadays the easiest way for a rapper to break mainstream is to aim a surly diss at some more popular musician.

Oooh, I do so love discussing dadaism (although i doubt i have anything new to really say about it :c).  Goodness knows popular culture is just going crazy with the irony and bizarro meta-irony ironic irony, I wonder sometimes how the original dadaists would feel about the process of unwinding irony from sincerity from parody that goes into interrupting some of this stuff.



Man, this is like if instead of a urinal with a fake name on it Duchamp submitted a trapper keeper with a Lisa Frank unicorn on it to the Society of Independent Artists exhibit I swear.  I just... wow.  I need to put this on a cd and listen to it whenever I drive anywhere forever.

Mr. Doobie wrote:

His most vocal critics can often just end up looking like massive fools, clinging bitterly to outdated and meaningless definitions and rules of how to create art while completely missing the point.

Yeah p sure there is in fact no way to crit a lyric like "bitches suck my dick 'cause I look like JK Rowling" with out looking like an idiot.  I mean it seems the only real response to that is to lol and move the fuck on.

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Mr. Doobie wrote:

His most vocal critics can often just end up looking like massive fools, clinging bitterly to outdated and meaningless definitions and rules of how to create art while completely missing the point.

Yeah p sure there is in fact no way to crit a lyric like "bitches suck my dick 'cause I look like JK Rowling" with out looking like an idiot.  I mean it seems the only real response to that is to lol and move the fuck on.

Does this mean that this "Dadaism" is defined as pointless shit that makes SO LITTLE SENSE it's impossible to objectively call it bad. Like a version of Blue and Orange morality?

Never heard of him.

I thought that was understood, Mikey. The entire goal of Dada is to be the like opposite of art, or at least the opposite of what people think of as art. A lot of Dadaists were in it to challenge and create a discussion about the nature of art, many were in it to discredit art as an institution, most of the were bitter, bitter people living in a post world war world.

The fact many people dismiss art, or at least modern art, as being bullshit because they have vague memories of seeing a bike wheel attacked to a stool at a museum once is all according to plan, I think. Every time someone says all art is crap a Dadaist gets his wings c:

Never heard of him either. Lines like "bitches suck my dick 'cause I look like JK Rowling", might be post ironic irony, but if it's meant to get my back up, guy's failed, big time. Just looks like desperation pushed through a poor language translator.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Lil B, the self-proclaimed "Based God"....

"Based God"? Judging by that YouTube clip you've posted, I'd say "Basehead" is more like it.  

Reep wrote:

I thought that was understood, Mikey. The entire goal of Dada is to be the like opposite of art, or at least the opposite of what people think of as art. A lot of Dadaists were in it to challenge and create a discussion about the nature of art, many were in it to discredit art as an institution, most of the were bitter, bitter people living in a post world war world.

Well, the way I understood the general idea was that a culture that created something as horrible as the first world war had no inherent value, so art also had no value, thus artistic standards were meaningless. A toilet is just as much art as the Mona Lisa or whatever.

But then, Dada was a diverse movement with a lot of different manifestos that probably interpreted the movement differently. Essentially, it was deconstructionist. That's all anyone needs to know.

I think the most.... valid criticism I've heard of Lil B is that the hip-hop tradition is very political in nature and very centered on the black underclass. What Lil B is doing is taking an art form that's always been a voice of the ghetto and given it to hipsters. Which is kind of valid, in a way. There's no doubt that in the past decade hip-hop has certainly crossed over into the mainstream and that it tends to be the artists that are not political in nature who have had the most crossover success.

But at the same time, I feel like blaming the artist is a kind of "shoot the messenger" deal. If Soulja Boy or Green Day or whatever other musicians are making millions by playing radio friendly versions of outsider genres were playing political music they most likely would not be buzzing, so the point becomes moot anyway because we'd still be left with "Lauryn Hill's next album will not do as well as Nicki Minaj's".

Chris91 wrote:

"Based God"? Judging by that YouTube clip you've posted, I'd say "Basehead" is more like it.

Actually, that's pretty much where he got the term from. He claims when he was growing up people were always saying things to him like "you're so based" as a negative. He took that and re-appropriated it into a positive.

Mr.Doobie wrote:

Well, the way I understood the general idea was that a culture that created something as horrible as the first world war had no inherent value, so art also had no value, thus artistic standards were meaningless. A toilet is just as much art as the Mona Lisa or whatever.

Oh, yeah, that too, absolutely.

Mr. Doobie wrote:

I think the most.... valid criticism I've heard of Lil B is that the hip-hop tradition is very political in nature and very centered on the black underclass.

Psh, yeah I can imagine being upset about that, but a body would be hard pressed to convince me that the change over from rap as a political tool of poor black folks to rap as being bitches and money was the fault of this one guy.  Shit, country was a tool of certain sections of the working class to make political statements with as well and it turned into a genre classified by blah and rednecks.  I think that process might be inevitable.

Unless you construct music that is so fundamentally unappealing on every level the mass media would never bother appropriating it...

Reepicheep-chan wrote:

Unless you construct music that is so fundamentally unappealing on every level the mass media would never bother appropriating it...

We were so close with dubstep...

Mr.Doobie wrote:

I think the most.... valid criticism

IDK man when your music is harder to listen to than it was to make there might be a few valid criticisms scuttling about your feet.

Hawaiian Shirt wrote:

We were so close with dubstep...

Goddamn it, we're so close to beating that thing altogether.

theHedonist wrote:

IDK man when your music is harder to listen to than it was to make there might be a few valid criticisms scuttling about your feet.

Well, that begs the question of why. If he would have put more time and effort into making music that is even more difficult to listen to. Is the lack of effort a bad thing? Or is your music being difficult to listen to a bad thing? Both?

And certainly, Lil B and Suicide are difficult to listen to for completely different reasons. Personally, I wouldn't even term Lil B as difficult to listen to, and I think we might have a different idea of what makes a certain musician difficult.

Not only that, but in the case of Lil B it's not so much his music but about the entire mythos. I mean, you can talk about GG Allin's music all you want, but music is only part of the package. The music was ingrained in his personality, his philosophy, his cult following, outsider reaction, and the poo-throwing. It's just Lil B isn't a rapist.

It just dawned on me that you people are arguing about the details of a bunch of up-their-own-ass hacks that decided that being deliberately awful was 2DEEP4U because they thought modern art was a joke or some shit, and in doing so MADE MODERN ART A COMPLETE JOKE. It's to the point where you can shit onto canvas, call it a scathing critique of postmodern disestablishmentarianism punkcoretrash and morons will call it good because they want to fit in by not fitting in.

How did this happen?

Because people with a great deal more money than sense would pay for it.