Lil B

best artist alive? I would like to hear your opinions!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAxtVz_60_8

I genuinely enjoy some of Lil B's music and I can dig the rest of it as some sort of weird art project/deconstruction of rap tropes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK90mVG22ME

halp how do embed

this generation is sooooo ironic isnt it.

  On 8/23/2013 at 12:41 AM, Deer said:

this generation is sooooo ironic isnt it.

nah i think lil b (like a lot of stuff from the last couple years) is more of a response to irony, where it's like "yeah our generation grew up with nothing but trivial mass-produced pop culture & we're getting old enough to realize it, but that's okay because it doesn't actually matter"

  On 8/23/2013 at 12:41 AM, Deer said:

this generation is sooooo ironic isnt it.

I am not a fan of Lil B but I think you misunderstand it. I don't think his deal is irony, at all.

The man is incredibly prolific. He makes like 100 tracks a month if not more and most of them are shit but he makes the occasional gem. He's relentlessly positive, and believes in himself to an almost fanatical degree. He kinda knows he's crap, but he says 'fuckit, imma make it anyway'. He will rap about any random thought he has, and then he'll put the track out there. No-one in EKT have the cojones to do that.

Basically he's a really positive guy who's full of self-belief. And although I don't like 99% of his music I can get behind that, and so can plenty of other people, hence the #basedgod movement.

Regards Lil B's prolificness, he is a good demonstration of the fact that the old media distribution models aren't the be all end all anymore. You can put an album out every month if you want to, and still get popular/have a persona/feel artistically fulfilled

I've had a lot of back & forth over whether or not being so completely unfiltered is a good thing, but I do think it takes guts to open yourself up like that

  On 8/23/2013 at 1:51 AM, Cryptowen said:

Regards Lil B's prolificness, he is a good demonstration of the fact that the old media distribution models aren't the be all end all anymore. You can put an album out every month if you want to, and still get popular/have a persona/feel artistically fulfilled

:sup:

i'm with you on the undecided - i'm really not sure if it's good or bad to go in that direction, but it's definitely brave.

*holy h frick the quote function on this forum is unintuitive*

Well on the one hand, a genuine desire to share the things that move you (which is bout what I'd call a personal definition of art, at the moment) is good. And it would follow that doing it on a frequent basis would be more good. You'd break down personal neurosis holding you back, and essentially get in the habit of opening up & expressing your true feelings

On the other hand, it can be very easy to get into a rut, where you feel the need to continue releasing things because that's what you do, and it stops feeling like a passion project and more like "okay we're having macaroni again tonight". Sometimes it's best to step back & consider what it is you really want to say before you start talking (this goes for newbies as well, because all too often eager youngins start putting things out there before they've really tapped into their expressive voice, and sometimes they never do because of this)

Also an immense, mostly unedited body of work can be daunting to the consumer. The cream doesn't always rise to the top (see Tonetta's hundreds of songs, & how the ones with 10 views are about as likely to be good as the ones with 10 thousand)

  On 8/23/2013 at 1:38 AM, kaini said:

 

  On 8/23/2013 at 12:41 AM, Deer said:

this generation is sooooo ironic isnt it.

I am not a fan of Lil B but I think you misunderstand it. I don't think his deal is irony, at all.

 

The man is incredibly prolific. He makes like 100 tracks a month if not more and most of them are shit but he makes the occasional gem. He's relentlessly positive, and believes in himself to an almost fanatical degree. He kinda knows he's crap, but he says 'fuckit, imma make it anyway'. He will rap about any random thought he has, and then he'll put the track out there. No-one in EKT have the cojones to do that.

 

Basically he's a really positive guy who's full of self-belief. And although I don't like 99% of his music I can get behind that, and so can plenty of other people, hence the #basedgod movement.

 

Fair enough but my comment was not towards him (i actually kind of respect him), its towards the people saying stuff like "best artists alive" and "best ever", i believe they are being ironic.

Of course its all subjective so maybe they actually think lil b is the best musician ever, but im skeptical, specially in today's worldweb where liking things in a ironic way is the cool thing to do.

  On 8/23/2013 at 1:38 AM, kaini said:

 

  On 8/23/2013 at 12:41 AM, Deer said:

this generation is sooooo ironic isnt it.

I am not a fan of Lil B but I think you misunderstand it. I don't think his deal is irony, at all.

 

The man is incredibly prolific. He makes like 100 tracks a month if not more and most of them are shit but he makes the occasional gem. He's relentlessly positive, and believes in himself to an almost fanatical degree. He kinda knows he's crap, but he says 'fuckit, imma make it anyway'. He will rap about any random thought he has, and then he'll put the track out there. No-one in EKT have the cojones to do that.

 

Basically he's a really positive guy who's full of self-belief. And although I don't like 99% of his music I can get behind that, and so can plenty of other people, hence the #basedgod movement.

 

yes to a degree but also autism.

autism.

  On 8/23/2013 at 12:37 AM, chartnok said:

best artist alive? I would like to hear your opinions!

far from it. i kind of think of lil b the same way i think about weird al yankovich: he's funny, i get it, i like it, but one, two maybe three things from him and i've heard enough. the only difference with lil b is that i actually think is exactly the type of thing he mocks because his delivery is so poker faced it betrays that self-admittance of parody and leans more heavily towards being an actual rapper- especially if you consider his freestyle where he sounds like he's actually taking it seriously

in short: i like him. but i like actual music better

  Quote

i like him. but i like other music better

he definitely knows what he's doing. if you don't believe me;

dude's also a shaman. if you don't believe me;

...sometimes the music is actually good too (and no, not only when Clams is producing)

see this is my problem. if i think of his music in the context of being a troll or in terms of his current oeuvre, yes- that was great. but it's only good in the same way you tell someone "good job" if they draw a straight line for the first time if all they were drawing before is squiggly lines. if we're to consider this a serious rap song, it's a medicore one.

it actually reminds me of the time they cast paris hilton in 'house of wax' and everyone got excited that they saw her die they swore they'd go to another film where she was killed. i guess it never occurred to them that she was just acting and getting paid REALLY well for it

  On 8/23/2013 at 5:16 PM, Nebraska said:

if i think of his music in the context of being a troll or in terms of his current oeuvre, yes- that was great. but it's only good in the same way you tell someone "good job" if they draw a straight line for the first time if all they were drawing before is squiggly lines. if we're to consider this a serious rap song, it's a medicore one.

He does have songs where to my ears the flow is pretty on it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg1YAbq8gb8

But yeah maybe the fact that he's in experimental/joke mode 90% of the time makes these serious tracks seem better than they would if they came from any other established rapper.

Vocals aside, his stuff is a nice overview of the current cloudbeats scene because he'll rap over anything and everything people send to him, if he likes it

u are gettin sleepy. little b is music. little b is music. little b is music.

when i snap my fingers you will awake refreshed and believing little b is music.

Not sure if it counts for best, but he's one of my favourite living artists. Everything he does escapes clear definition.

One thing that frustrates me is that Sensational aka Torture was much more complicated phenomen of this sort in hip-hop, but nobody knows him outside specialist's circle.

I really love Lil B and was trapped in Based World for most of 2012. What got me was the beats he chose, the old school styles he pays homage to (you can tell he LOVES hip hop), and his promotion methods (NON STOP twitter, tumblr, facebook and now instagram. also a bunch of Youtube vids). He is also completely happy with existing outside of a record contract and just playing shows/releasing tapes. His Youtube views also say something about the current hip-hop/rap audience (his silly/cooking tracks get 100,00+ views but his serious raps get half as many).

It's a very aggressive unique and "punk" approach to rap.

He can def. rap on beat tho: (Illusions of Grandeur 2 is one of his most solid recent tapes in my opinion)

[youtubehd]NE1KoPDKVEo[/youtubehd]

Another Fav:

[youtubehd]6FzN2dobwR0[/youtubehd]

  On 8/23/2013 at 5:31 PM, Cryptowen said:

 

  On 8/23/2013 at 5:16 PM, Nebraska said:

if i think of his music in the context of being a troll or in terms of his current oeuvre, yes- that was great. but it's only good in the same way you tell someone "good job" if they draw a straight line for the first time if all they were drawing before is squiggly lines. if we're to consider this a serious rap song, it's a medicore one.

 

He does have songs where to my ears the flow is pretty on it

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg1YAbq8gb8

 

But yeah maybe the fact that he's in experimental/joke mode 90% of the time makes these serious tracks seem better than they would if they came from any other established rapper.

 

Vocals aside, his stuff is a nice overview of the current cloudbeats scene because he'll rap over anything and everything people send to him, if he likes it

 

i understand that there are some songs where his flow is on point, but is that all that's required to make a good rapper?

and i completely agree with you that his stuff is a good overview of the current cloudbeats. but you know what? so is a lot of social commentary, reviews, rants etc. what lil b does is basically the same thing a lot of people do when they state their point, rant on a blog, messageboard, vlog or twitter about the current state of hiphop. he just does it by making bad music to reflect the bad music we've become accustomed to.

and that's great. but simply commenting on bad rap music by making bad rap music doesn't make you a good rapper.

btw: i just want to state that "i'm the king of new york"

Proof the Lil B is not serious about rapping:

I think he has too many albums.

  On 8/25/2013 at 3:35 AM, Jur said:

I think he has too many albums.

*mixtapes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ySGblQmT9Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m7gMKLMkqE

choon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srP5twK-9Dw

Okay, it's okay...

Also,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VR9IZ6IjWg

I recently downloaded a very large amount of Lil B, and I've been enjoying a lot of it.