Lil B facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lil B
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Lil B in 2011
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Brandon Christopher McCartney |
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| Born | August 17, 1989 Berkeley, California, U.S. |
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| Years active | 2004–present |
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Brandon Christopher McCartney (born August 17, 1989), professionally known as Lil B and as his alter ego the BasedGod, is an American rapper. Lil B has recorded both solo and with Bay Area group the Pack. His solo work spans several genres, including hip hop, new age, jazz, indie rock and choral music. He describes his work as "based", a term which denotes a lifestyle of positivity and tolerance; and is noted for his extensive use of social media to build an online cult following.
Contents
Early life
McCartney grew up in Berkeley, California, and attended high school at Albany High in Albany. He adopted the name Lil B, and began rapping at age 15 with San Francisco Bay Area based hip hop group The Pack. After two locally successful mixtapes, at the peak of the Bay Area's hyphy movement, the group's song "Vans" became a surprise hit. The song was ranked as the fifth best of 2006 by Rolling Stone magazine. The strength of "Vans" led the group to release the Skateboards 2 Scrapers EP, featuring a "Vans" remix with Bay Area rappers Too $hort and Mistah F.A.B. In 2007, Lil B and The Pack released their first album, Based Boys.
Music career
2009–10: Solo success and collaborations
On September 24, 2009, Lil B released his first digital album, I'm Thraxx, via independent label Permanent Marks. On December 22, 2009, Lil B released his second digital album, 6 Kiss, to critical reception. On March 25, 2010, Lil B released his debut mixtape Dior Paint. On April 3, 2010, Lil B officially signed to fellow artist Soulja Boy's label SODMG Entertainment. On May 7, 2010, Lil B released a mixtape entitled Base World Pt. 1. On July 5, 2010, Lil B released a collaboration mixtape with Soulja Boy entitled Pretty Boy Millionaires. Lil B had recorded over 1,500 tracks as of July 2010, including hits "Like A Martian", "Wonton Soup", "I'm God", all of which were released for free. On September 21, 2010, Lil B released his debut studio album, Rain in England, through Weird Forest Records; it was described by The Guardian as "a beatless, Beat poetry-style set where Lil B, voice a-quiver with earnestness, ponders love, beauty and all the bad things in the world over naïf new-age synth washes".
2010–present: Mixtapes
On December 29, 2010, it was announced and confirmed that Lil B apparently signed an album deal with Amalgam Digital. On July 10, 2011, Lil B released the EP Paint, through his label BasedWorld Records.
On January 18, 2011, Lil B released his fourth digital album entitled Angels Exodus, through Amalgam Digital. On April 14, 2011, Lil B announced that his next album would be entitled I'm Gay, which caused a degree of controversy. On June 29, 2011, Lil B released his fifth digital album, I'm Gay (I'm Happy), through Amalgam Digital; the album entered the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart at number 56 and the Heatseekers Albums chart at number 20 for the week of July 16, 2011.
On May 17, 2012, Lil B released his first instrumental album, Choices and Flowers, under the alias "The Basedgod". On September 16, 2012, Lil B released a rock single entitled "California Boy". On December 30, 2012, Lil B released his second instrumental album entitled Tears 4 God, also under the alias "The Basedgod".
On December 24, 2013, Lil B released the mixtape, which contained 101 songs. On June 1, 2014, Lil B released a mixtape entitled Hoop Life, which would be known for containing a track entitled "F*ck KD" that called out NBA player Kevin Durant. On October 14, 2014, Lil B released the mixtape, featuring the song "No Black Person Is Ugly." On July 19, 2015, Lil B and Chance the Rapper announced that they recorded a new collaborative mixtape.
Lil B was featured in Terror Jr's remix of their song "Come First" released, in 2017.
On August 17, 2017, Lil B released Black Ken, describing it as his "first official mixtape." The mixtape reached number 24 on the Top Heatseekers chart and number 44 on the Independent Albums chart for the week of September 2, 2017.
Artistry
Lil B and music critics refer to his rapping style as "based", a word that Lil B also uses to describe a positive, tolerant lifestyle. "Based" is a reclaimed word, as described by Lil B in Complex:
Based means being yourself. Not being scared of what people think about you. Not being afraid to do what you wanna do. Being positive. When I was younger, based was a negative term that meant like dopehead, or basehead. People used to make fun of me. They was like, "You're based." They'd use it as a negative. And what I did was turn that negative into a positive. I started embracing it like, "Yeah, I'm based." I made it mine. I embedded it in my head. Based is positive.
Rapping technique
Slate columnist Jonah Weiner labeled him as one of a "growing number of weird-o emcees", calling him a "brilliantly warped, post-Lil Wayne deconstructionist from the Bay Area". Musical critic Willy Staley described Lil B's work as "variegated", because it ranges from critical parodies of the hip-hop genre to "half new age, half spoken word". He further notes that Lil B draws from a large variety of genres, especially those not commonly used by other rappers. In an interview with Staley, Lil B agrees with this analysis, saying, "I can do 'Swag OD' but then my favorite musical artist right now could be Antony and the Johnsons. That's the difference between me and these other rappers, and other musical artists in general."
Other ventures
Author
Takin' Over by Imposing the Positive! is a book written by McCartney and published through Kele Publishing in 2009. The book is a collection of and written in the form of e-mails and text messages, and is written in such a way that the author is e-mailing the reader. Subjects include positivity, optimism, and living what he calls a "Based Lifestyle". The book was passed out in an unscripted NYU lecture in March 2012. On March 30, 2013, McCartney announced that he was in the process of writing his second book.
Motivational speaker
Lil B has given motivational lectures at several colleges, including MIT and Carnegie Mellon University. They are generally focused around his personal experience in life and current events. On May 28, 2015, the rapper gave a lecture at UCLA, where he touched on subjects like money, the media, technology, space, awareness, and love.
Basedmoji and vegEMOJI apps
Lil B launched the "Basedmoji" app on January 16, 2015. On January 17, 2015, Lil B released "vegEMOJI", in cooperation with vegan company "Follow Your Heart", despite the fact that Lil B is not yet a vegan, he has stated that he is cutting down on his consumption of processed foods, and that he is "ashamed of eating meat".
Personal life
On January 16, 2015, Lil B's apartment building in Contra Costa County, California, caught on fire early in the morning on Thursday after an electrical fire spread through the building. Lil B and six other people were saved by 15-year-old Mateo Ysmael, who ran through the building to wake everyone up.
For the 2016 U.S. presidential election, he endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, citing his civil rights record.
Selected discography
- 6 Kiss (2009)
- Rain in England (2010)
- Angels Exodus (2011)
- I'm Gay (I'm Happy) (2011)
- Choices and Flowers (2012)
- Tears 4 God (2012)
