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