This article was originally published in EMMIE Magazine, UW-Madison’s print music publication. You can read it in its original format - and with Ava Albelo’s wonderful art - here!
The clock winds down to zero,
and Kevin Durant stands defeated, hands on his hips. Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Western Conference Finals is over and his Oklahoma City Thunder have just missed a trip to the championship. In the weeks that followed, sports talking heads searched for answers: did the Thunder choke? Was the Warriors’ Steph Curry just too good? Was KD incapable of hanging with the best of them? There was no consensus. But real ones knew: Kevin Durant was under the Curse of the Based God.
Back in 2011, the Based God, more commonly known as Lil B, laid down a curse on the NBA superstar, tweeting, “KEVIN DURANT WILL NEVER WIN THE TITLE AFTER HE SAID ‘LIL B’ IS A WACK RAPPER.’” KD had gotten close, reaching the NBA Finals in 2012, but could never get over the hump. Perhaps feeling bad for the OKC star, perhaps simply having gotten over his grudge, Lil B generously lifted the curse after the end of the 2016 season. Call it ridiculous, call it corny, call it stupid. All you need to do is check the stats — in the two years that followed, KD won back-to-back championships.
But there’s a lot more to Lil B than basketball wizardry. In 2009, he uploaded his first mixtape, I’m Thraxx. By the end of 2010, he had released over 1500 songs. The next year saw nine more Lil B projects (2012 had 16). Going into the mid-2010s, Lil B was king of the internet. Fans took to Twitter to declare their love, where “Thank You Based God,” often abbreviated TYBG, quickly became a catchphrase. The artist’s online activity matched his release pace. Uploads on MySpace and DatPiff were accompanied by Facebook memes and DIY music videos on YouTube. There was no mistaking Lil B’s approach: he was not a conventional artist, and he refused to do things the conventional way. He would not sign to a label, he would not box in his sound, and if you thought he was gonna wear baggy pants, you were dead wrong.
Lil B’s style didn’t — and still doesn’t — fit the old-school expectations of hip-hop. Much of his music has an amateurish, lighthearted feeling: his delivery often borders on rambling, his choices of subject matter are odd, and his lyrics can be hard to take seriously (on “Breath Slow,” he drones “SpongeBob BasedGod, you’re so funny”). However, there’s a sense of earnestness in Lil B’s music beyond his punchlines. His philosophy, being Based, is the spiritual center of his work. To be Based is to be yourself, spreading love and positivity wherever you can. The Based God pursues this ideal relentlessly. See “I Love You,” a love song dedicated to all Lil B’s listeners. From any other artist, the saccharine delivery would probably sound corny, but after you’ve heard any other part of his catalog, you know the lines “I love you / Yes, you can cry to this / Yes, I love you too” come straight from the heart. It’s an acquired taste, but before you know it, you’re eagerly awaiting the next “yesss” ad-lib.
At first glance, Lil B’s fame might appear to be a trivial cultural offshoot of the early 2010s, an oddball whose cult following briefly — and inconsequentially — shot his popularity into the stratosphere. But his impact would prove that he was more than a fad. Often referred to as cloud rap, Lil B’s euphoric, lo-fi style was developed alongside peers Viper and SpaceGhostPurrp, who were equally inclined to pack their release schedules. As the decade marched on, cloud rap would be brought to the mainstream by artists like A$AP Rocky, whose massively popular 2011 mixtape Live. Love. A$AP featured verses from SpaceGhostPurrp and was produced by frequent Lil B collaborator Clams Casino.
While Lil B is far from done — his latest venture, Afrikantis, dropped last December — he’s got some new contemporaries. Perhaps the best successor of Lil B’s hyperprolific style is Rochester’s RXK Nephew, who’s been putting out music alongside longtime friend Rx Papi since 2019. He shares Lil B’s love for YouTube, often uploading multiple tracks per day. His followers express the same cult enthusiasm that backed Lil B’s rise, flooding his comment sections with praise (or simply “RXK RXK RXK RXK RXK”). Much like his Internet-based predecessors, RXK Nephew isn’t super picky about his production, often crowd-sourcing beats from Twitter. This approach means his catalog is full of different sounds, ranging from 808-dominated trap beats to four-on-the-floor house instrumentals. His vocals keep up with the variety: “Slitherman SOLO set” opts for a metal-esque growl, “Beam On Ya Toes” features a signature whisper on the chorus and “Nephew B.I.G” sees the rapper screaming at the top of his lungs. But sending Neph a beat doesn’t spare you from criticism. The last minute of “Blackberry Touchscreen” is dedicated to making fun of its instrumental: “They should’ve sent this beat to Ja Rule or Fat Joe to do a Verzuz / Can’t wait till this beat end, this s—t got my ears hurtin’.”
Neph jumps from topic to topic without hesitation, never afraid to throw in a non sequitur (“Modern day Prince without his ass out!”), letting his thoughts guide him through the beat on the spot. He’s prone to tangents, often looping an entire beat to make sure he can say what he needs to say. These tendencies are highlighted on Crack Therapy 3 standout “American tterroristt”, a ten-minute epic with lines like “Vaccine got us mutatin’ / F—k it then imma go take it”, “Explain to me why the f—k Benjamin Franklin stood his ass up on the roof”, and “Who the f—k is that white man Santa Claus?”
While there’s over a decade between the start of their careers, Lil B and Neph aren’t as far apart as the years might suggest. Lil B publicly declared his support for RXK Nephew back in 2021, calling him “the new generation and the future of music.” The admiration goes both ways. Neph’s lyrics are full of references, “walk in that b—h like Based God!” for one. It isn’t hard to hear Lil B throughout RXK Nephew’s work, whether it’s a name drop or a similar stylistic flourish. Take a listen to “Frames” off Till I’m Dead, Neph’s most recent album; you just might hear a familiar name.
Fourteen years after I’m Thraxx, Lil B’s fingerprints are all over hip-hop. Using the internet as a launchpad for a musical career is no longer the move of an outsider. Recent years have seen SoundCloud sensations like Juice WRLD and Lil Yachty find their place in the mainstream, and social media is more essential for an artist’s image than ever. The sounds Lil B helped create back in the 2010s haven’t gone anywhere, either. Swedish collective Drain Gang, Yung Lean, Viper and the Based God himself are still carrying the torch of cloud rap, and his DIY ethos lives on in the work of Milwaukee artists like Certified Trapper and AyooLii. And as for RXK Nephew? He joined forces with Lil B in 2022, rapping over one of his beats on “Who Did What Again.” Every year takes us further from the start of Lil B’s career, but his influence — and presence — remains strong. Forever and always: Thank you, Based God.