Music / Lil B

Thank You Based God

Call me Obama BasedGod!

Lil B, "I Own Swag"

Lil B "the BasedGod" (born Brandon Christopher McCartney, August 17, 1989) is a Berkeley, California-based indie rapper. Formerly a member of Bay Area group The Pack, Lil B has focused on his solo career from 2009 onwards. Lil B is well-known for being a prominent yet extremely polarizing fixture of Swag Rap, using social networking (particularly MySpace and Twitter) to build a large online fanbase, and his highly-memetic music.

Lil B is extraordinarily prolific in terms of his musical output, and has released the vast majority of his work as free mixtapes, and has collaborated with a number of other rappers including Soulja Boy, Cormega, and Lil Wayne.

Some of Lil B's well-known songs include:

• Vans (as part of The Pack)
• Wonton Soup
• Ellen Degeneres
• I'm God
• I Own Swag
• 30 Thousand 100 Million (with Soulja Boy)
• Grove St. Party (with Lil Wayne)
• Fuck KD
• No Black Person is Ugly

"THANK YOU BASED TROPES":

• A God Am I: Calls himself "BasedGod".
• Be Yourself: According to Word of God, "based" refers to embodying this trope and, in doing so, spreading love and positivity.
• Boastful Rap: Of the surreal variety. Lil B has claimed that he looks like Jesus, compares himself to Ellen Degeneres, Paris Hilton, Bill Clinton, and Justin Bieber, to name but a few.
• Broken Record: Most of "4 Me". I know yo bitch wanna ho for meeeeeeeeee...
  • Tends to happen a lot on his cooking songs.
• Celebrity Song: Many, many examples...
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Conscious Hip Hop: Illusions Of Grandeur and I'm Gay.
• Epic Rapping: There's a song on the 05 Fuck Em mixtape called G.O.R. (God of Rap) that is 10 minutes long, probably the longest song the Based God has ever made.
• The Gadfly: Known for saying things just to get a rise out of people; might go into Troll territory depending on who you ask.
• Genre Mashup: Just enough to qualify for this trope. Some of his earlier mixtapes such as Dior Paint and Rain In England are much more spoken word monologues over Ambient-style instrumentals than actual rapping. Example: "TV to the Internet".
• Have a Gay Old Time: Subverted with his album I'm Gay - he really did mean in the older definition for "happy".
• Intercourse with You: Many, many of his songs involve him engaging in intercourse with your or someone else's significant other, with some in more explicit territory(such as "I'ma Eat Her Ass").
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Has an adopted tabby cat named Keke who he has musically collaborated with.
• Loudness War: Moreso on his more recent mixtapes, but a lot of his songs are distorted and bass-heavy. The bad vocal mixing doesn't help.
  • Violate That Bitch is a notable case. The vocals and beat are distorted to the point where there's points where Based God's vocals can barely be heard.
• Me's a Crowd: Not in the physical sense, but in an interview with ''Complex'', Lil B has claimed that he views himself, Brandon McCartney, and the BasedGod as separate entities.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: "KeKe The Adopted Tabby Cat MAKES HISTORY! FIRST ANIMAL IN HIP HOP!"
• Product Placement - "Vans", one of first songs he worked on to get airplay.^note The song was released by Berkeley rap group The Pack, of which Lil B was a member before he became well-known for his solo work.
• Race Fetish: "I love Asian girls" from the remix of "Ellen Degeneres".
• Real Men Wear Pink: Lil B is known for, and proudly proclaims, his love of short shorts and tight pants. From "I'm God":

  ''"Bet I'm the only goon nigga in these tiny pants"

• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: To NBA player Kevin Durant of all people, whom he cursed to never win an NBA title after Durant tweeted about not understanding Lil B's popularity. Lil B has also challenged Durant to a one-on-one game of basketball and released a diss track titled "Fuck KD."
  • Lil B finally put an end to his curse on Kevin Durant when Durant moved to the Bay Area-based Golden State Warriors (whom Lil B is a big fan of).
  • Lil B also put a curse on Durant's former teammate James Harden when Harden started doing the cooking dance and failed to acknowledge that Lil B invented it.
• Stealth Parody: His cooking songs are undoubtedly this, as they are based on satirizing rap stereotypes and making fun of hip-hop conventions. There are loads of people who take him at face value and think he's being serious without having heard any of his actual attempts at rapping like Illusions of Grandeur.
• Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks: "I'ma Eat Her Ass". SCRUMPTIOUS!
  • Other examples include "Azz Up", "Shake Ya Booty" and "Twurk It Like Dat".
• Stylistic Suck: Big time. His songs are distorted to a dizzying degree and most of his lyrics consist of (intentionally) lazy rhymes and clumsy flows.
  • He also produced a movie entitled Rich Nigga Click. It's... what you've come to expect from Lil B.
• Swag Rap: The Trope Codifier.
• Theme Naming: The "Flame" series of mixtapes. A number of his mixtapes include the phrase "based" as well.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Lots of his song titles and lyrics frequently have the word bitch in it. Most pervasively on songs like "Pretty Bitch".
• Title-Only Chorus: Happens a lot on his cooking songs. "Justin Bieber", "I'm Miley Cyrus", and "Bitch I'm Bill Clinton" are great examples of this.
• Tone Shift: Illusions of Grandeur is generally a much more serious work than most of his output, with lyrics focused more on his petty criminal past and life in a poor urban community. Unlike most of his other mixtapes, there are almost no "cooking" songs.
  • Rain in England, I'm Gay (I'm Happy), and Angels Exodus, like Illusions of Grandeur, are all also more serious tonally, have almost no "cooking" songs whatsoever, and are more new age-inspired.
  • Choices and Flowers is entirely an instrumental album.
  • In general, the "Paint" series of mixtapes is more ambient and spoken-word styled, with more introspective lyrics and nary a shout of "SWAG" or "WOOP" to be found.
• Verbal Tic: Extremely often, with shouts of "swag", "WOOP", "BasedGod" "chef", "knife", and "cook" in between lines.
  • He also goes "Mmmm", "AAAAGH", "OKAAAY" and "YESSS" quite a bit.
  • As of 2014, add "FIGARO!" to that list.