Lil B

Brandon McCartney, performing as Lil B, draws equal influence from Prince and 2Pac. The unconventional and driven rapper fully harnessed social media to establish himself as a digital-era star, building an intensely devoted audience and shaping a wave of subsequent rappers and hipsters while remaining unsigned to any major label. He promotes an upbeat worldview he calls his “Based” philosophy, using his songs to advocate positivity and acceptance. Lil B likewise applies the same term to his freestyle approach, and although much of his enormous catalog feels spontaneous, his more deliberate tracks address weighty themes, especially those involving society and the information age. Despite the broadly uplifting tone of his work, darker elements surface in certain tracks and in occasional clashes with other rappers or basketball players. Indie-rock and experimental listeners have embraced him, earning extensive attention from Pitchfork and The Wire. Among his most praised rap projects stand 6 Kiss (2009), the polarizing I’m Gay (I’m Happy) (2011), and Black Ken (2017), while he has also released unexpected efforts such as the spoken-word new-age album Rain in England (2011) and instrumental sets like the jazz-tinged Afrikantis (2022).

Lil B first rose through the Bay Area collective the Pack, tied to the hyphy movement, which scored a hit with the sneaker-celebrating song “Vans.” Following the group’s 2007 album Based Boys, he pursued solo avenues by teaming with fellow Pack member Young L on SS Mixtape, Vol. 1. Fresh solo tracks appeared regularly on his MySpace page, and by late 2008 he began testing the limits of online excess, flooding the web in an all-out campaign. Just as the prolific and unfiltered Lil Wayne dominated the mixtape circuit, Lil B dominated the internet, generating at least 155 MySpace pages that interconnected into one vast work. Early aliases including BasedLord and BasedGod accompanied streaming audio of Lil B freestyling over well-known beats.

As the page count increased, both the music and the rapper’s style grew more exploratory. Detached spoken-word passages over techno beats contrasted with the candid blog entries Lil B posted concurrently, some resembling motivational writing and others serving as heartfelt calls for racial solidarity. In early 2009 certain unconventional tracks gained traction, notably the gabba-techno cut “Shoot the Bitch Bra” and the dubstep-flavored “My Baby.” March brought the more refined “We Can Go Down,” whose video reached conventional outlets such as the BET network. A month later Lil B introduced his artist-networking platform Bang Ka Dang, featuring a fresh song and video on the landing page; the striking selection was the reflective and uncertain “Am I Even Really a Rapper Anymore?”

The 2009 mixtapes I’m Thraxx and 6 Kiss showcased hazy, atmospheric beats from Clams Casino and helped lay groundwork for the cloud-rap style. That same year Lil B issued the book Takin’ Over by Imposing the Positive! and sustained his nonstop flow of mixtapes, videos, and based freestyles that encompassed party anthems, dance tracks, celebrity salutes, and more introspective material. Rain in England, a motivational spoken-word set over new-age synth textures, arrived on CD and vinyl via the experimental imprint Weird Forest in 2010, marking one of the rare Lil B recordings issued physically.

In 2011 Lil B declared plans to title an upcoming project I’m Gay as a gesture of respect toward the LGBTQ community. After receiving death threats he altered the title to I’m Gay (I’m Happy). The ensuing controversy generated added exposure, yet the release remained one of the strongest entries in his swiftly growing catalog. In 2012 he issued the instrumental new-age album Choices & Flowers under the BasedGod moniker; it climbed to the Top Ten of Billboard’s new-age chart and was followed later that year by Tears 4 God. Also in 2012 Lil B dropped the genuinely odd indie-rock single “California Boy,” promising a full album of the same name.

He maintained his high output with expansive mixtapes such as the 34-track God’s Father and the 101-track 05 Fuck Em. His growing cult following and consistently positive demeanor led to invitations for motivational talks at major universities including MIT and UCLA. The socially aware anthem “No Black Person Is Ugly” appeared in 2014 and drew widespread praise. That same year Lil B released the basketball-focused Hoop Life, which included a diss track directed at NBA star Kevin Durant, with whom he had clashed since 2011.

In 2015 Lil B and Chance the Rapper issued the joint mixtape Free Based Freestyles. After the late-December arrival of Thugged Out Pissed Off, however, Lil B fell unusually silent, issuing no new material in 2016 apart from a feature on Clams Casino’s major-label debut 32 Levels and a guest spot on E-40’s The D-Boy Diary: Book 2. He resurfaced in August 2017 with the long-awaited Black Ken mixtape, entirely self-produced and containing only one guest verse, from iLoveMakonnen. He extended his pattern of lengthy self-released projects with 2018’s Platinum Flame and 2019’s The Hunchback of BasedGod.

The 101-track 30 wit a Hammer surfaced at the start of 2020, followed by several other massive releases that year, among them Hoop Life 2, which incorporated the full two-hour University of Florida lecture. Santa and Red Flame After the Fire both appeared in 2021. In 2022 Lil B put out Frozen, The Frozen Tape, the comparatively concise Thraxxx Kiss (with Keyboard Kid), and Call of Duty Task Force. He also produced Afrikantis, an instrumental album seemingly shaped by jazz, Afrobeat, Donkey Kong Country soundtracks, and the Bay Area at large—one track bears the name of Del the Funky Homosapien, while others reference various towns and locales.