Kendrick Lamar thanks 
Lil B, and here is why

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

How the underground 
artist has transformed 
rap music’s landscape

By SHAYAN SHAFII

For The Daily

Kendrick Lamar almost never 

tweets. When he does, it usually 
has something to do with either 
his music or one of his TDE label-
mates. But this week, he gave a 
completely 
unprompted 
shou-

tout to Bay Area rapper Lil B on 
twitter. The phrase “Thank you 
BasedGod” appeared not once, 
but twice in the less than 140 
characters tweet, where Ken-
drick showered Lil B and Lil 
Wayne with praise. The tweet 
leaves many conservative hip hop 
heads with mixed feelings: why 
is the creator of To Pimp a But-
terfly showing love for the dude 
with songs titled “Pretty Bitch” 
and “What Dat Mouth Do?” 
According to Kendrick himself, 
for “teaching us how to swagg in 
videos”. And he’s right. Under-
ground rap before Lil B looked 
like shit. Back in 2009, popular 
mixtape-hosting 
website 
Dat-

piff was cluttered with backpack 
rappers who oddly competed for 
the worst Nas impersonation. 
The advent of Lil B, although met 
with strong resistance, forced cli-
ché mixtape rappers to reconcile 
with the fact that rap was chang-
ing. Looking back from 2015, the 
current hip hop climate has been 
largely built by an unsung hero in 
the form of a guy with dirty vans 
and zero radio hits.

Before even getting into the 

music, it’s important to trace the 
evolution of visuals in rap music 
over the past six years. Lil B has 
been on twitter since 2009, and 
he’s had the same avatar since. It’s 
a photo of him wearing a multicol-
or silk coat with no shirt under-
neath; he gives a faint smile while 
flexing his iced out ring and now 
iconic tats. Virtually every quirky, 
bizarre Internet rapper that’s 
come out since has been nothing 
but an attempt to recreate that 
photo in life and song. All you have 
to do is watch a Migos video, a Riff 
Raff vine or any photo of Young 

Thug fully clothed. B has also 
been wearing gender-breaking fits 
from the start, but no one made a 
fuss of rappers wearing women’s 
clothes until Kanye West wore a 
women’s Céline shirt during his 
2011 Coachella performance, or a 
skirt (kilt?) during his Watch The 
Throne tour the same year. Based-
God had quietly been curating 
these developments in rap years 
earlier. Furthermore, the only 
time Lil B has had the nation’s 
attention was last week when he 
appeared on ESPN’s SportsNation, 
donning earrings, a sun hat and a 
white lace top. 

And then there are the videos. 

Earlier in the summer, A$AP 
Rocky dropped his drugged out 
visuals for L$D, but guess who 
premiered it on his behalf? Pay-
ing homage, Rakim got Lil B to 
premier the video by being the 
first to tweet the link. The video 
itself, with Rocky roaming the 
streets in exaggerated colors and 
warped depth can draw direct 
comparisons to many of Lil B’s 
earlier videos, but it’s not the 
first time Rocky’s art could be 
described as based. Rocky (and 
subsequently the rest of the 
A$AP Mob) blew up after the 
2011 release of Live.Love.A$AP, 
which Clams Casino (prominent 
Lil B collaborator) produced a 
third of. One of the foremost 
identifying features of Rocky 
on this tape is his perception of 
himself: a self-described “pretty 
boy” who signed a three million-
dollar deal off Internet buzz. 

Naturally, this poses questions 

that are difficult to answer. Why 
do so many artists get away with 
based tendencies while catching 
mainstream success? Why is Lil 
B celebrated only ironically while 
the artists that spawned in his 
wake climb the Billboard charts? 
Why do people hate Lil B while 
their favorite rappers adore him? 
We know the answer isn’t behav-
ioral, because so many of his fledg-
lings exhibit the same behavior 
while gaining widespread respect. 
Thus, the answer lies somewhere 
in his rugged, sprawling, unpol-
ished discography.

The problem with Lil B is 

accessibility. His Wikipedia page 
lists 58 different mixtapes, solo 

albums and collaborative efforts, 
but that doesn’t even begin to 
scrape the surface. The reality 
is he has hundreds of projects 
floating around the Internet, 
some boasting over 100 songs. I 
routinely download 5 mixtapes 
at a time and don’t discover hid-
den gems until months later. For 
fans, the act of following his 
music is almost as fun as listen-
ing. The excitement of keeping 
up with Lil B’s output is part of 
what creates his cult fan base; 
there’s a new music video every 
week, a new song every day, and 
a new tweet every hour. This is 
ultimately what distinguishes 
him from the likes of A$AP 
Rocky 
and 
ILoveMakonnen: 

there are barriers to entry. You 
can’t just YouTube him and settle 
on knowing Wonton Soup. He has 
so much content on the Internet, 
that he makes you work to be a 
truly informed fan. There’s no 
such thing as a lazy Lil B fan.

The man has a ridiculous 

work ethic, but his downfall in 
achieving mainstream success 
is that he does not entertain the 
notion of quality control (which 
is not a bad thing artistically). 
He doesn’t even stop and fix a 
song if he messes up recording. 
There are countless instances of 
Lil B losing his place, or outright 
bringing his rapping to halt mid-
track to collect his thoughts. But 
if Lil B had a leaner discography, 
he still wouldn’t have become a 
relevant figure in mainstream 
rap. The nature of his influence 
on modern rap is in his relentless 
output and all the crazy shit that 
comes with it: the inspiration to 
be yourself, coming from a dude 
who thinks he’s Ellen Degeneres, 
Miley Cyrus and Jesus Christ at 
the same time. Sadly, this was 
the only way it could have hap-
pened. The man who fathers 
most of the rappers and trends in 
the game, is inherently unable to 
enjoy the same mainstream suc-
cess as his successors. While Lil 
B remains a villain in conserva-
tive circles of hip hop culture 
and an enigma to casual rap fans, 
those who can accept the shift-
ing face of rap truly appreciate 
what he’s done for the culture. 
Thank you BasedGod.

‘Human,’ maybe

TV REVIEW

By KIM BATCHELOR

Daily Arts Writer

The British-American science-

fiction series, “Humans,” follows 
a group of artificially intelligent 
robots 
called 

Synths 
who 

are 
different 

from the other 
Synths who are 
manufactured 
and sold com-
mercially. These 
Synths are spe-
cial because they have the ability 
to think on their own and to feel.

The episode is a bit of a slow 

burn, focusing on the intro-
duction of the world in which 
Synths exist and the characters 
rather than action. The dialogue 
is important, though, and if the 
audience has difficulty under-
standing English accents one 
ought to consider closed captions. 
The interpersonal interactions 
are what drive the show.

The main protagonist, Anita 

(Gemma Chan, “Secret Diary of a 
Call Girl”), is a member of a special 
group of Synths who have been 
kidnapped and reprogrammed. 
She is struggling with resurgent 
memories 
and 
emotions 
dur-

ing her assignment to a family. 
Gemma plays the role with dig-
nity and poise, making her perfor-
mance believable. Despite this, she 
invokes an emotional response in 
the viewer as we sympathize with 
Anita’s plight.

Colin Morgan (“The Fall”) 

plays a Synth supporter named 
Leo who travels with and protects 
the group of Synths as his fam-
ily. In fact, it was his father who 
created these Synths. His char-
acter is hard to get a read on as 
Leo plays everything close to his 
chest. This is a self-preservation 
technique, but as a result it is diffi-
cult to figure out what his motiva-
tions are as a character and access 
him emotionally. He comes off as 
stand-offish and vaguely threat-
ening. Hopefully, more backstory 
will be given on why these Synths 
are different, how they are related 
to Leo and why they are on the 
run in the first place.

The family dynamic built by 

the Hawkins family, consisting 
of Joe (Tom Goodman-Hill, “Mr. 
Selfridge”), Laura (Katherine Par-
kinson, “The IT Crowd”) and their 
three kids is humble and believ-

able. Because of the subtlety with 
which these actors perform, the 
dialogue between the parents 
and their kids isn’t forced. This 
is particularly true for Lucy Car-
less (“Code of a Killer”) in her 
portrayal of teenage Mattie. Mat-
tie is a brilliant hacker with a bad 
attitude towards Synths. Despite 
her typical teen angst she actually 
really loves her family and it’s her 
character that forms the glue that 
bonds the Hawkins together. Also, 
Sophie (Pixie Davies, “Utopia”) is 
incredibly adorable.

The father and son relation-

ship 
built 
between 
George 

Millican (William Hurt, “Dam-
ages”) and his Synth, Odi (Will 
Tudor, “Game of Thrones”) is 
heartbreaking. George relies on 
Odi’s memories of his deceased 
wife, Mary, because he can-
not remember her himself, but 
Odi is getting older and begin-
ning to breakdown. Despite 
Odi’s inability to connect with 
George on an emotional level, 
the viewer can’t help but root 
for the pair to stay together. To 
lose Odi would be, for George, 
to lose the rest of his family.

A stand out performance comes 

from Emily Berrington (“24: 
Live Another Day”) in the role 
of Niska, a Synth who was stolen 
along with Anita and forced into 
the role of Sex Worker. Despite 
the fact that it must be both physi-
cally and emotionally painful for 
her, Niska refuses to turn off her 
pain receptors, stating, “I was 
meant to feel.” And as she feels 
pain, so does the audience.

“Humans” has many referenc-

es to classical AI/Robot theory 
and literature, sighting the Three 
Laws of Robotics by Issac Asimov, 
which prevent a robot from harm-
ing a human, and the Technologi-
cal Singularity, in which AI is 
capable of recursive self-improve-
ment and humanity is made obso-
lete. Beyond this it also brings up 
moral and ethical philosophical 
debates to consider. For example, 
already in our own world robot 
girls are being created in Japan, 
are sexbots in our future too? And 
at what point would a robot be 
considered conscious enough for 
such an act to be considered rape, 
as it surely was to the character 
Niska? What is consciousness? 
What is a human and who has 
rights? What makes us different 
from machine?

6

Thursday, July 2, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

A-

Humans

AMC

Series Premiere

