The Based God

After much scrambling and anticipation, the Caliber staff met Lil B (who goes by the full legal name of Brandon McCartney and the full artist’s name of Lil B “The BasedGod” – quotes mandatory) in front of the CVS on Telegraph and Parker. It was the day of the International Soccer Match, meaning traffic was at an all-time high and parking was scarce around campus, but “The BasedGod” told us over the phone that he was going to park in his “secret spot” — which, despite the exclusive-sounding moniker, turned out to be the CVS parking lot. Though he was liable to have his car towed according to the signs in the lot, Lil B, who brought his own cameraman and carried a duffle bag, didn’t seem phased about the fate of his car itself. “My laptop’s in here, and it’s got a lot of rare and unreleased material,” he told me, explaining his hesitancy to leave it in a car that could very well be absent upon his return.

I first met Lil B in 2012, when, after much repeated direct messaging on Twitter, made plans to shoot a music video at a good friend’s house. I had assumed that such an extraordinary encounter would be a one-off situation. However, due to the fact that I had his phone number and Caliber has a very persistent staff, here he was. He didn’t skip a beat; the conversation flowed as if we had spoken regularly between my time as a barely-driving high-schooler and a rising sophomore at Cal.

In preparation for our “walking dialogue” en route to the location of the photo shoot, I had written some pre-made questions, but I quickly abandoned them upon recalling just how strikingly personable “The BasedGod” was – and how interesting our conversation was going to be. Our dialogue was so natural, in fact, that it began with a relic related to our prior encounter: the ad-libs in the background of the song he had filmed two years prior.

Caliber: It’s been a while since we first met in 2012. Back then, you were trying out some new ad-libs, namely “mmmm,” “damn,” and “aah” – branching out from “swag” and “woop” –, which have been used extensively for the past two years. Now I have to ask: what’s the inspiration behind the “Figaro!” ad-lib in “Rick Ross?” On reddit, people were going crazy for that.

Lil B: Salute to reddit man. That, as usual, was just Lil B sending trends with the music and pushing boundaries in order to stay ahead of the game. A lot of people seemed to really love that “Figaro!” But that’s just me pushing the boundary of art and always wanting to be the first person to do stuff.

C: What makes you feel like a certain line just needs an ad lib?

LB: A lot of my music is audio-visual; I see my songs visually as well. It’s like writing stories, poems, or movies – you’re trying to elicit a reaction. When you combine those, namely with my Based music videos, the juxtaposition of the ad-libs’ sound with their visual impact is just the final piece of the song’s puzzle. These are feelings; I like to put emotion in a lot of the songs that I make and the art pieces I create.

C: Do you do that in ways other than ad-libs?

LB: Yeah. Even the choice of the beat or the way I present my voice overall on the song. It definitely is an extremely conscious decision when I do it. That’s on my written songs, though. My Based freestyles are some of my freest points. I don’t do them as much as I used to in the MySpace days, but they were real powerful for me at the time and they kept me going when I was struggling. They were a great way for me to be honest. Sometimes, the actual act of spitting them helped me to figure out how I was feeling in the first place.

In our last encounter, we hadn’t really had a chance to chat like this. Although I had personally observed his engagement with his craft two years prior, it was incredible to hear in words just how cathartic the artistic process was for Lil B. The level of thought, planning, and emotion that Lil B clearly put into his work makes naysayers – who claim that there is no artistic process in the first place – seem remiss in insisting that Lil B puts forth no effort into his craft.

As a dedicated fan, I was well aware of the attention he put into his songs; a particular example I brought up was the beautifully-rendered Band of Horses sample he used on his song “She Don’t Love Me,” as did producer Plain Pat on Kid Cudi’s “The Prayer.” While the presence of the same sample on these two tracks was nothing more than a coincidence, our conversation turned toward a reoccurring theme of Lil B’s career: people flat out copying him, or, as he so eloquently put it, “stealing his swag.”

C: Your influence on the rap game in general is crazy. People really upped their ad-lib game after you did. No one gives you the credit you deserve. Are you bitter, or is simply knowing that you are that influence payment enough?

LB: Lil B has pioneered a lot of the stuff that is going on with hip-hop in today’s age where we’re at. I agree, with regards to the positivity and the accessibility of artists. Artists that are coming out nowadays are more comfortable. The thing is, though, they’re copying me in that everyone now wants to be positive. How could I be mad at that?

C: The fact that you haven’t gotten annoyed to the point of taking any sort of action is amazing to me, though. Let’s be real: you invented “swag” for all modern intents and purposes. The word “swag” or “swagger” was used in hip-hop before Lil B, sure, but you brought the modern connotation to the forefront. Would you actually mind just a little more recognition?

LB: I’ve been a victim of that all my life. “Swag” was stolen from me, amongst other trends that I set. But the true fans know; the good people and real people that really study where things come from and really understand who are the real tastemakers with style go back and find out where these things come from. To know that those types of people exist is enough. I know that I’m definitely working on that mainstream takeover now, though. It’s cool though; I know things will come to light eventually. The people that really like Lil B and understand Lil B’s music are really forward thinking. When someone says that they like Lil B, I’m really interested in hearing about their personality and the stuff that they’re interested in – just because you have to, by definition, be a forward thinker

C: You’ve certainly inspired a whole generation of rappers who are more and more comfortable with diverging from the norm and being themselves in the booth. What do you think of the newly-defined crop of “weirdo” rappers like Young Thug and Yung Lean who draw such obvious influence from Lil B.

LB: I love it! I just came back from Atlanta. I was talking to some of the locals out there, and a lot of people are rooting for Young Thug. They really like him.

C: Would “The BasedGod” ever do a collaboration with Leandöer or Thugga Thugga?

LB: Of course!

C: I feel like you and Young Thug could do a track with you just doing your crazy ad-libs and him doing his legendary squeaking! I would listen to it and people would buy it!

LB: (Editor’s note: Lil B produced about 6 seconds’ worth of Young Thug squeaks before answering this question.) Exactly! It’s coming my brother. Shout out to young Lean too, he’s touring the states now! We’ll definitely work soon. I love what him and Young Thug are doing.

I was a bit confused. I listened to Lean and Thug, both respectively Young, but I was confused as to what Lil B meant by what they were “doing.” They undoubtedly drew some influence from “The BasedGod,” and I was sure he appreciated their sound and the fact that he influenced their work, but what did he mean by what they were doing? It turns out that his appreciation went beyond the music and into how they promoted themselves.

C: Do you mean what they’re doing musically?

LB: Of course I love the music. But what you have to realize is that these rappers popularized their unconventional sound with the Internet, and I feel like Lil B has transformed what people expect from the Internet and shown that it is possible to make oneself known through that medium. Even artists who are already well-known on the TV and the radio are now coming to the internet.

C: Do you see it as the future for artists?

LB: I do. But I’m still excited about keeping newspapers and magazines alive, especially smaller ones that show local support and demand for the things they write about. We need to keep those great platforms alive.

Talking about the Internet’s incredibly dynamic nature brought us to the subject of online beef: beef, or feuding between rappers, has been a significant part of rap since the early ’90s, and taking rap disputes to Internet seemed the only logical progression of this trend. Lil B, with his casual and at-times facetious approach to hip-hop, has been the target of hip-hop artists who think the genre is much more serious than Lil B is making it and take offense to his casual approach. I brought up his most recent song, titled “Rick Ross,” the song containing the abovementioned “figaro!” – which was a diss to Quavo, a member of an Atlanta rap trio called Migos. The beef had started due to Lil B feeling Quavo, like many other rappers, had stolen his swag and, thanks to his amazing capacity for rapid output, Lil B had the diss song and video out on YouTube in hours.

C: You stated that your latest song, “Rick Ross” was a Migos diss. Obviously, you have no problems with the big boss Rick Ross himself…what spurred you to bring his name into the beef, even if just in the song’s title and chorus? That’s a pretty bold move, to write a diss song towards an up-and-coming rapper using one of the biggest names in rap in the title and the refrain.

LB: First, let me make this incredibly clear: I don’t have beef with Rick Ross. Shout out to MMG, shout out to Rick Ross, Wale just followed me on Twitter – he’s a thinker. Respect to him for pushing the positivity in hip-hop and continuing to promote his message no matter what. Free Meek Mill – we were XXL Freshmen together. He exceeded the competition, went crazy, and did more than anyone.

C: I see – you just used his name for emphasis. Still, with the number of rappers stealing your swag, was there any reason for dissing Quavo in particular?

LB: I say what I want. With this music, I say what I want, and when there’s something on my chest, rap-wise, music-wise that needs to be said, I definitely will say it and use whatever words and names I need to in order to get my point across. Don’t get it twisted though, I definitely got love for Quavo; things just needed to be said.

This prompted me to bring up an interesting detail I had noticed through years of following Lil B’s rap beefs: even when he released a diss song, he made it clear – usually through Twitter – that it was all on wax and nothing personal. With Quavo, for instance, he was quick to give a supportive Twitter shout out to his diss song’s target, along with the entirety of Migos, shortly after the release of “Rick Ross.” Looking back on his past beefs with rappers like Joe Budden and The Game, this cordiality paid off.

C: All the rappers you’ve ever beefed in the past now with say only great things about you, even older cats like Joe Budden and The Game. How do you exert such a strong influence on them? Could they just not deny “The BasedGod’s” presence?

LB: With Lil B, even when it’s beef, it’s love. That’s 100 percent true, because my core is positivity. Though my songs might get crazy, I’m not doing anything with the intention of spreading violence, negativity, or hate amongst anyone. While it’s definitely nuanced, hip-hop really is the platform for love. I use my fame and star-power to bring people together and bring less judgment to the genre.

C: Beef is, in essence, conflict. Do you think you could apply this approach towards sending a message regarding some of the world’s more serious, tragic, and longstanding conflict?

LB: I don’t know everything that’s going on, but I’m gonna say this. “Free Palestine, but also Free Israel.” I have love for both sides, and I just wish I could come in and say “Hey guys, I don’t know what is going on, but I love both parties. What can I do and how can I use my music to heal, and how can I be a medium and hug all of you and explain stories of pain on both sides, but also stories of love?” To necessitate extreme hate, there has to be love present somewhere, even if it isn’t between the fighting parties themselves.

The concept of “the rap feud” prompted Lil B and I to discuss large-scale, worldwide conflict, but the conversation eventually returned to conflict on a smaller and less dangerous (and more Based) scale: the backlash that Lil B received on reddit. A member of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for years, Lil B finally created a reddit account, helpmelilb, and began to post in the /r/hiphophheads subreddit. However, it was clear the response to “The BasedGod’s” reddit presence was very dissimilar to responses he had received on other online platforms. Reaction to the helpmelilb account started out the same way: people were praising Lil B just for being his quirky self, but most users see reddit as more of a substantive discussion platform than Facebook or Twitter. At a certain point, people grew annoyed by what they deemed to be Lil B’s overly zealous self-promotion and a lack of contribution to the community discussions. Even people who were initially throwing out “Thank you BasedGod”s left and right grew tired of it. I asked Lil B whether or not he was shocked by this disparate response on a medium – the Internet – on which he built himself and has always been insanely enthusiastic about his mere presence.

C: Were you surprised when people on /r/hiphophheads, the largest hip-hop subreddit, eventually grew tired with your posts?

LB: I know a lot of people see reddit as a closed-off “internet sanctuary,” and see the hiphopheads subreddit as a venue for artists to get their name out there. It was surprising because I’m unsigned and see myself as a “rebel” and a part of the underground. Even though I can go anywhere and people recognize me, I’m still technically underground.

C: You’ve already got your name out there, though. You have a huge following on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You even have both a Wikipedia article and a KnowYourMeme explanation page; “Thank You BasedGod” is a part of the modern Internet lexicon.

LB: They were kind of talking to me like I was taking advantage of their platform and was going to oversaturate their subreddit with the “mainstream” “BasedGod” hype you see on Twitter, and I definitely respect that. It was definitely a really unique experience with reddit too; it felt like people were trying to report me for no reason so the mods would ban or delete me.

C: Isn’t that their right, though?

LB: Yeah, it is. The experience on reddit actually showed me that everyone has different feelings, and their own sanctuaries that they might not want to have breached. I respect that and I’ve found a balance, and there are a lot of people on reddit that love me and are pushing for me. Same with the forum KanyeToThe – they love me over there. Shout out to Kanye, though, we still haven’t had time to get together and work on some music.