The 2016 XXL Freshman freestyles are officially done and dusted for the year – now it’s time for the cyphers, and first up is a hat-trick of hip hop’s finest: Desiigner, Anderson .Paak & Lil Dicky.
For anyone scratching their head right now, each year XXL matches up artists from their Freshman class along with a DJ, and together they film a freestyle cypher. The result is always entertaining, whether or not some perform better than others. To kick things off this year, this trio of buzz-worthy emcees are paired up with DJ Drama.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWL_hD26tUA]
Each raps in turn over a beat by Natexcharity, with Desiigner up first. He looks a tad nervous which is no surprise given his recent much-maligned XXL Freshman Freestyle, and he kiiiinda cooks it in a few places, but it has to be said that his voice is damn pleasant to listen to.
Anderson .Paak takes the opposite approach to Desiigner, opting for a clear narrative even if he’s going much slower. It’s funny, fresh, and super impressive, especially considering .Paak is really a singer, rather than a rapper. Best bit? Lemonade lemonade baby unfaithful/What more can I say?/I’m fucking the fleshlight to cope with the pain.
Lil Dicky doesn’t go for long (HA), but his flow is really consistent. Idk though, maybe this is just me but his middle aged dad Hawaiian button-up t-shirt and geeky maths-nerd curly hair made this part a bit uncomfortable.
Seems like they might agree. Credit – XXL
To each their own, though – who do you reckon came out on top for this?
Image: XXL
Lil Dicky sat down with CNN to conduct an interview in which he expresses his lack of attention concerning the political climate, and also to continue his agenda for greater sexual education.
The Save Dat Money rapper managed to inject his particular brand of humour into the short CNN released clip, by immediately talking about how uninformed he is to even be discussing the current US election, suggesting that the only thing he knows for sure is that one of the candidates is possibly a “super-villain”, before elaborating that he is OBVIOUSLY talking about Donald Trump.
“I’m actively uninformed in the sense that I make no real effort to inform myself and it’s a shame. This particular instance we have like, a super-villain. Donald Trump, seems like, and I’m so uninformed that I’m talking out of my ass, but I do feel like I’m right in thinking that he is a super-villain, he seems villainous. So I guess there is more at stake, and maybe I will feel more inclined to understand how this can possibly happen.”
Lil Dicky then gives CNN a mild plug by musing that instead of actively wasting time checking on frivolous shit, he could just look at the CNN website and get an update on what’s going on in the world. “I have the time and energy to check ESPN.com every 15 minutes, and nothing new has occurred,” explains the rapper, “and instead of checking ESPN why don’t I go to CNN and get like, a run down.”
The Professional Rapper artist then goes on to talk about a subject which has come up in the past and seems important to him, practising safe sex. Lil Dicky had recently featured in an ad for Trojan condoms, and the fact that he has brought up the importance of condom use and opening dialogues about STD’s again, in a CNN interview, shows that he wasn’t just out for a quick pay check and believes in the subject’s importance.
“I think as a society, we’ve gotten incredibly laissez faire about wearing condoms. And there’s a whole other thing that I’m going to attempt to do about the destigmatization about genital herpes because I think that disease is so overly stigmafied. Like I know people with herpes who haven’t been on a date in two years because they can’t have that conversation during crunch time.”
Regardless of your feelings about the rapper’s quirky humour and rhyme spitting ability, Lil Dicky does bring up two important problems that need to be held up in a spotlight and dealt with before they become rampantly untreatable, STD’s and Donald Trump.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvHYWD29ZNY]
Image: Billboard
Rapper Lil Dicky is the new face of Trojan condoms and safe sex, featuring in a hilarious new ad by the renowned condom brand.
The $ave Dat Money artist explains that as a rapper he is very much in the perfect position to be an advocate for safe-sex, since he has, “sexual opportunities thrown at his feet regularly at this point.” And even though he acknowledges that for most guys in a similar position that would be awesome, he instead finds sexual encounters “stressful” because of their many possible consequences.
To demonstrate the point, he recounts a story featuring his friend, Jordan, who recently had sex with a girl in a club bathroom without using a condom. Lil Dicky lists off a number of reasons why this is a terrible idea, citing that “one in five people have herpes,” as well as pointing out that Jordan isn’t making anywhere near enough money to support a child, and hammering the point home by asking his friend, “How does it feel to go to work tomorrow with HIV?”
Although the video is designed to be funny and light-hearted, it nonetheless raises some important issues about the importance of practising safe sex and using condoms. Dicky even suggests that by using a condom you’ll probably enjoy sex more since it’ll give you the peace of mind you need to stop yourself from freaking out halfway through and thinking about the horrible STDs you might be contracting.
“The way I interpret ‘pleasure of protection’ is peace of mind. If I was in the middle of sex with no condom, I couldn’t enjoy it. All I would be thinking about is what massive, life-hurdling disease am I contracting right now? Not, ‘Oh my god, this vagina is so wet and slick.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW7e_-JRvmM]
Image: Billboard
Lil’ Dicky‘s stock just continues to rise. From aspiring comedian to up and coming rap sensation, the Philadelphia native has crafted his own lane in the comedic rap stakes, and he looks set to continue his euphoric ascension well into 2016.
Dicky has joined Snoop Dogg on the resident stoner’s YouTube series GGN, where serious conversation is intertwined with a backdrop of marijuana smoke and Snoop’s corny one-liners.
This is of course not the first time that the two have combined however, with Snoop delivering a rather unique feature on Dicky’s breakthrough release Professional Rapper. Snoop portrayed a music executive, as the two rap back and forth depicting a job interview with Dicky’s street-cred hung out to dry.
The mainstream attention exploded when Dicky released $ave Dat Money, which featured surprise appearances from none other than Fetty Wap and Rich Homie Quan. The video itself has garnered over 25 million views, and his established Dicky as a household name in hip-hop conversations.
Despite praising Dicky’s technical ability and lyricism, Snoop seemed most impressed at Dicky’s efforts to film the $ave Dat Money video for free, even poking fun at his own production crew.
“For free?! I need to work with you more more often you know how to shoot shit for free. I need to get rid of all these motherfuckers with these high ass prices…y’all shooting bullshit for a fee”
Dicky states that the moment he mentions to anyone his affiliation with Snoop Dogg, he always disappoints them by revealing that he has never lit one up with the king of the weed himself. Clearly he is hellbent on rectifying this situation, as the two immediately converse as to their favourite way to indulge in the sticky icky.
It’s clear that Dicky is utilising his connections to the fullest, and if he keeps chopping it up with legends of the West Coast, who knows what 2016 will have in store for him.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK4_JyDkET4]
Image courtesy of GQ.
Rapper Lil Dicky earlier today released his latest video for his album Professional Rapper. The premise: How can he make the most epic rap video for no money.
Apparently, pretty easily.
The video begins with Lil Dicky proposing his concept via door knocking and intercom to Beverly Hills mansion owners and seemingly falls short, until one nice lady opens up her doors for him and his crew. What follows, is 8+ minutes of hilarity and not a bad track.
Featuring a Lamborghini, a yacht, a hijacking of T-Pain‘s own music video shoot, Lil’ Dicky certainly accomplishes his goal. With over 600,000 views on youtube within just 15 hours of the video posting online, it looks like the internet has a new hip hop force. The track itself is full of self-referential humour and toes the line of parody in the realm of The Lonely Island and Jon Lajoie but still offers a crisp, well crafted and clever rap song.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvHYWD29ZNY]
And if there is one word to describe Lil Dicky, it’s exactly that: clever. The song is like a beefed up, blinged out version of Lajoie’s Everyday Normal Guy, and the video is the same. The production values are great, the song is fun, and pulling it off is quite an achievement.
One can only wonder if T-Pain is feeling a little like Kanye right now, after his video which surely cost a fortune, might be outshone by a clip that cost nothing to make ALA OK GO‘s VMA winning video.
I’ll keep this short in the spirit of $avin’ Dat Money, but either way, Lil Dicky has provided us with some pretty decent entertainment recently, and if he keeps it up his videos will be highly anticipated by rap fans and regular folk alike.
This week has had more good videos than we could fill a lazy morning hangover with, but luckily for you, we have narrowed it down to the cream of the crop. With something for everyone, these clips will get your weekend off to the right kind of start. Get clicking below:
Lil Dicky – Save Dat Money
This nine-minute jaunt is actually more like a short documentary, and is goddamn hilarious. The unconventional white boy rapper takes to the streets of L.A. to complete his music video, as the title would suggest, for as little money as possible. He talks his way into swanky locations including the opulent home of an old lady, a McClaren dealership, and a yacht, and picks up a few guests along the way. The clip features half a verse from Fetty Wap (because a full one would be too expensive?) and appearances from the Broad City gals, Kevin Durrant, Sarah Silverman, and T-Pain to name a few. With lines about signing up for free trials, getting Netflix logins from his cousin and coffee refills it’s a laugh out loud track we can all identify with, but what’s more, the guy can actually rap.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvHYWD29ZNY]
Wavves – Way Too Much
Have you ever wondered what happens when you mix Wavves’ high energy brand of surf rock with underground wrestling? Probably not. But here is the answer anyway. The clip for first single Way Too Much, off upcoming album V, explores the violent and bloody world of Underground Empire Wrestling in Los Angeles, where play-acting and skits are about as realistic as the smiling characters at Disneyland. The inspiration for the clip came from frontman Nathan Williams infatuation with the sport, and sheer surprise at attending one of the events. “They had a baseball bat with duct tape wrapped around it, and thumbtacks stuck in there, and they were hitting each other in the head with it,” he recently told Rolling Stone. Yeh, it’s pretty gnarly, but the kind where you can’t look away.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPdx7Il9DrM]
Deerhunter – Breaker
Deerhunter have released a second track from upcoming album Fading Frontier and it’s another sublime trip down lo-fi lane. The band’s own Bradford Cox and Lockett Pundt directed the clip that accompanies the release, and have accomplished a psychedelic, lazy Sunday, melted ice cream sort of feel. It’s also the same time they have performed vocals ont he same track. The strangely hypnotic visuals depict the band members faces transposed over the top of each other with a layering effect, spliced in with washed out colours and patterns. The song itself is all kinds of good, and a tantalising taste of what the album will hold when it’s released on October 16th.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCVWrqxyt3Y]
Mazde – Pitch Black feat. LissA
Mazde makes music with a cinematic quality that tells a story with its slow moving electronic frames. It is fitting then, that the video for Pitch Black is shot with all the grandeur of a film. Each frame is a photo in an album tracing the steps of a couple as they move through the motions from meeting to heartbreak. The story itself is pretty formulaic but when narrated by the vocals of LissA it becomes more than your standard love story. The strength lies in the direction from David Engledo, who translates the bittersweet emotions of the track into a self contained narrative. The 21 year old Berlin based producer is set to support Odesza on his upcoming Europe tour, so I am sure we will be seeing plenty more from him in the future.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBsqtCnf7Kc]
Willow Smith – Why Don’t You Cry
Willow Smith continues to etch her way as an artist with latest clip for Why Don’t You Cry. The song itself has the makings of a hit with charging synthesisers and an emotionally rich vocal track, and continues to explore the singer’s exploration of self-discovery. The opening sequence sees Smith arguing with staged parents about going to a party before releasing all that angst in a series of thrashing dance sequences and gut wrenching shouts under the watchful eye of an ethereal twin. When she succumbs to the howling line “why don’t you cry?” with a release of tears, it is with a smile before a mirror, advocating crying as a release. It’s a heady and passionate number, and probably her strongest to date.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSVdGh3iylc]
Ibeyi – Stranger Lover
Ibeyi is a duo made up of the twin daughters of Beuna Vista Social Club drummer Anga Diaz, and they have been making all kinds of waves with their self-titled debut album. With the clip to accompany stunning track Stranger Lover, they further cement their eclectic style. It’s a little bit world music, a little bit soul, a little bit jazz. The simple clip shows the faces of the two women grabbed and moved by masculine hands with motions that tread the line between passion and violence. The black back drop at times hides the silhouettes of the sisters before revealing them in their natural beauty with all that wonderful hair. It is a stirring and lovely exploration of femininity firmly rooted in their cultural upbringing.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLfuR7m2uFk]
Love Signs – Not Used to Losing
With their latest video, Brisbane’s Love Signs take us on a journey to a set reminiscent of The Virgin Suicides. It’s an eerie high school movie feel with a distinctly Australian bent. As the all female four-piece sit in bleachers from their home city, pulling roll-ups between their teeth, there is a real twang of nostalgia for slow moving summer days. It takes almost two minutes to reach the oh so catchy chorus, but it’s well worth the wait, with harmonies straight from the 50’s and an 80’s beat to match. As the scene transitions between karaoke rooms, malls and abandoned warehouses it’s a hazy, dreamy stroll through the fun and poppy sound of this fourtet. I want more.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6EiFsIGHSY]
With over 250,000 followers on his Youtube channel, US rapper Lil Dicky, real name David Burd, has become an increasingly formidable presence on the video-sharing platform throughout the past two years. He’s now setting up to move beyond Youtube and into the mainstream of hip-hop – and he’s kicking things off with a new video, before diving right into a forthcoming full-length album.
Burd started his rap and video career two years ago with his first upload, a rap parody of The Lion King. He didn’t really stick with parody though, and instead started writing raps and shooting clips for his tracks based around his life and personal experiences. His video for Ex-Boyfriend, a track about running into his girlfriend’s gorgeous, fit and well-endowed ex, clocked more than a million views in 24 hours, and today has more than 10.5 mil. While yes, Burd achieves a harmony between his flow and comedic lyrics, which is very impressive and entertaining, it’s also the subject matter that makes him so enjoyable to listen to. While other rappers are writing about their rich lifestyle or their hardships, Lil Dicky sits in the middle. Whether he’s rapping about having a night in instead of going to the club, being a white guy, being Jewish, getting way too stoned or getting way too wrecked at a pre-drinks – it’s fun to listen to. They’re stories, like one you might hear from a friend – but instead of taking ages to tell and maybe not getting the point across, Dicky kills it in a rap track.
That’s where his latest track and video come in. Professional Rapper is Dicky’s pitch to Snoop Dogg (what an amazing feature), the head of Rap Game Inc., to show him what he’s got and give him a shot. Snoop asks for a brief summary of Dicky’s history, and when he asks “So real shit you ain’t never had to struggle for much?” he replies with a very different perspective on why he wants to rap.
“I wouldn’t say it like that, we just had a different kind of trap / Well I ain’t never had a tool, but I had to be the man at school / like I was doing shit I had to do so when I finished undergrad, I’m cool and I can get the job I wanted / and I saw it quick all the flaws that be coming when you grow up like that / know you been racing them rats, you ain’t been making them raps.”
He admits that he got his career started with saved Bar Mitzvah money, and that though he didn’t have nothing to lose, the fact that he gave everything up to pursue rap shows that he wanted it real bad. And then he says that wants to do it differently.. He lists point after point about why he’s good and why he’s going to be successful. His flow is crazy, his rhythm is never predictable, his lyrics are clever, and “nobody else be doin’ funny type rap.” Though Snoop is wary, Dicky goes on to say that he’s doing this because he just wants to be great, and that he’s just going to keep trying because it’s something he loves. He wants to show other people that that “you ain’t gotta be resigned to the highway/ you can make a path while these motherfuckers drive straight” – and Snoop gives him a shot.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlU4FuIJT2k&w=560&h=315]
I really respect this. I would have watched this video five or six times the night I found it, just because I thought the track itself was insane, the video is great, and because I just really respect the message.
Lil Dicky seems like a different kind of rapper than we’re used to. Though other musicians and performers have gone the funny route (something he addresses in another track – “Better stop comparing me to Andy Milanokis / Andy Samberg, Adam Sandler, man I swear it’s so obnoxious / I don’t care about the rarity of care-free sone topics / The hilarity and parody is not what’s got you noddin’ when I write”), this track alone has made me respect him as a person, and I really want him to succeed. His first album, Professional Rapper, dropped the same day that this track was released, and I bought it as soon as I heard this.
Lil Dicky’s chasing his dream as hard as he can, and aside from the fact that I like his music – I want him to succeed because I feel like he could be a symbol for not doing the usual shit and doing it well, and that’s something that needs to be promoted more often.
Buy Lil Dicky’s album here.