By Daniel Morey
In the greater scheme of things, rappers are seldom credited with starting a linguistics experiment, but Lil B (birth name Brandon McCartney) transcends the greater scheme. Or does he?
Lil B started his rapping career with a San Francisco area rap group known as The Pack. They rose in notoriety with the single “Vans”, a hyped up rap anthem about the famous skateboarding shoe. Since then, Lil B grew in fame through the use of Myspace, where artists could post up to 5 songs on their page. As a workaround, he created over 100 Myspace accounts, all of them linking back to his main page. Over the course of a few years, he released *676* *songs*, all of which were then compiled into what is the biggest mix tape ever. During the Myspace years, Lil B invented his own following. In
his songs he referred to himself as The Based God, the God of his new, almost religious, line of thinking. The songs are repetitive, using the same lyrics, same structure and sometimes the same beat, yet his fans flocked to the Based movement.
When Lil B finally came to the forefront, many were confused as to several things: “What is Based?”, “Who is the Based God?”, “Why does Lil B keep saying he looks like other people?” and “Why does he say swag so much?”. Most say that Lil B is terrible. His raps are repetitive, loud, using awful beats. Others speculate that this is exactly what B intended. They believe that all of his Myspace music was satire, mocking other rappers for producing such terrible music. Perhaps he is even mocking modern slang by using a nonsensical word (“based”) that was not assigned a meaning, but has rather acquired a meaning over time by the users of the word and those who hear it.
But what evidence do we have to substantiate this theory? While Lil B has never released a statement regarding it, if you watch interviews you start to see something unusual; a very well spoken, eloquent, and positive person, which is mostly alien to the rap game. Upon first finding this video, I was baffled. It led me to search some more of Lil B’s stuff, eventually coming across the “Age of Information,” which features music drastically different from the likes of his Myspace mix tape; he actually *raps*. But what makes this impressive is not necessarily the raps, but juxtaposed against his hundreds of other songs shows that this is all an experiment. He intentionally made the worst music he could, but included some elements to market to the masses, thus holding up a mirror to the public and saying “This is what you are told to want, and for some reason you do.” He is blatantly mocking his own fan base. But at the same time he could be mocking fans of so called “positive” hip-hop with his other songs, by showing us that if something has a positive or “deep” message, that it is accepted by a certain demographic of fan.
Lately, B released an album to the widespread criticism of critics, rappers, the public and Gay Rights organizations. The “I’m Gay” album was one of Lil B’s positive albums, with conscious songs (that is he hes not mocking us with them) and abnormally good production and content. Somehow, though, this release became an experiment in linguistics and subsequently society as a whole. B says that the album title is saying “I’m Happy”, using the antiquated meaning of “gay”. Despite this information, people still sent him death threats, which only goes to prove that words only have the power that we assign to them; “based” has no meaning, yet Lil B still says it and people assign it a meaning. Like wise with the “I’m Gay” album, he is commenting on society saying that we get so stuck in what we’ve been told, that we refuse to listen to the very artist who created the album. Or he could just be doing this for media attention for his new album, it’s a toss up.
I consider Lil B to be an artist. He is an artist in a musical sense, but also as a living, breathing comment on society, regardless of whether that was his intent. He is looking at us square in the face and saying “This is the music that you like, but why should you like it?” His songs are chocked full of ridiculous sayings, but people openly accept it and never think that hes completely kidding because they are so used to the way that “normal” rappers act that they can’t see how truly ridiculous Lil B truly is. Even if B isn’t trying to do this (and I believe that its entirely intentional), he is still causing a small group of people to look at the social norms and wonder why they are that way. An artist makes you look at something and ask questions. In that case, even if Lil B is completely serious about his music, he is still an artist, albeit an accidental artist.
