Brandon McCartney is just 31 years old, but jokes that he’s nearing his 40s. When I ask the Bay Area icon what his longtime moniker means, he simply says “love.” He seems to mean it. No other artist I’ve ever interviewed has texted me to call me “hun,” or ended an interview with an “I love you.” And though many assume the B in Lil B stands for based—hence his relationship with the Based God—surveying the music industry today it might as well stand for blueprint.
Lil B’s influence on modern hip-hop may not be obvious to casual rap fans, but it’s become impossible to neglect, whether his 61 mixtapes are in their rotation or not. When McCartney was dodging the beat during his verses in the early 2010s, many of his peers were more concerned with technicality. Before most knew what developing an online brand meant, Lil B was creating what he calls the “first music meme” and building a presence beyond his “pretty bitch music.” And when Lil B was putting out an abnormal amount of material—occasionally opting for 100 songs on a single project—others hadn’t yet realized the potential of a seemingly never-ending release schedule.
But the game has changed. Lyricists rapping around the beat are now harder to avoid than the beat itself. Humor and memes have sparked some of the most successful songs of all time, including the 14-time Platinum “Old Town Road.” Even the most mainstream projects, for better or worse, have gotten very, very bloated. We have Lil B, and of course the Based God, to thank for all of this.
“That’s why I can be happy and cool in my career right now, because I’m living through so many artists, seeing them rise and do great things,” Lil B says during our years-in-the-making interview. “I’m just soaking everything in. That’s what I’ve always done—create a new wave. This is going to be even more interesting being in my 30s. I’m actually excited to see what I’m going to do and what Lil B is going to do with the Based God because I really don’t know.”
Speaking graciously and making sure to shout out the legends who continue to help him pave the way, the forefather of cloud rap and based music called us up last month from his home in Alameda, CA as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of his historic mixtape run of 2010 and 2011, when he dropped 25 projects in just two years—including the critically acclaimmed I’m Gay (I’m Happy). On the phone, Lil B sounds just as friendly as you’d expect from a man who follows 1.4 million people on Twitter, at one point thanking me for getting to the last song on his latest 100-track mixtape. Nothing about Lil B’s demeanor feels calculated. It really is all about love.
As a token of his love, Lil B opened up for this incredibly rare and based discussion on the gravity of his impact on pop culture, how it feels to see others emulate a sound he was once criticized for and—in proper Lil B fashion—why he aspires to help low-income families take out their trash and recycle. Thank you, Based God.
How did it feel to see Lil Uzi Vert shout you out this past week?
It always feels great to see a legend and icon show love. I love him and I’m inspired by his work ethic, so it’s great that a legend shouts out another legend.
How much of yourself and the things that you’ve stood for throughout your career can you hear in what’s happening today?
Honestly, I hear the Based God everywhere. That’s why I can never be upset. This is what I wanted. I wanted to give a way so everybody could make money. I always push music and hip-hop, and if I could do it, that means you can do it. I never took that as an insult or anything like that. I wanted people to be included and understand how powerful music is and understand what music means to people. When I hear myself, from the lyrics or the ad-libs, from the artists that are making it to everything, from all the different levels... It’s so many levels of influence that I’ve had within music and just everything, YouTube, the world. Being the first artist to meme. TYBG, “Thank You Based God,” is the first meme of music. You know what I’m saying? We see now how popular it is. It’s just historical.
There are so many levels of influence that you have. To start, people credit you as the originator of what you called cloud rap and based music, and I’m curious as to when based music first came to you and how you define it?
Based music has been here since the early 2000s, 2002 to 2003 or even earlier. Really with The Pack, Young L, that’s like my early, early based work. That tape was called Based Boys and one of our major-label debuts. Also, The Pack has never broken up, as Lil B is doing his thing and finding the Based God.
Cloud rap was a genre that was created out of based music. Cloud rap is based music, but some of the supporters and the people in the world created that subgenre within based music called cloud rap. Besides myself who created that, Clams Casino was also a component of creating cloud music. Without him, it wouldn’t be there, as well as Keyboard Kid, who’s a huge component of cloud rap. Also, like ASAP Rocky, a huge component of cloud rap. I mean, there’s a lot of specific artists, like Main Attrakionz, Squadda B… Man, there’s people that I have not even mentioned that I need to. I can give credit to Soulja Boy too also for pushing cloud rap forward because I was around him during that time and feeding him artistically, as well as him inspiring me and feeding me artistically.
When artists create something so unique, it often takes years for that influence to really shine in everybody around them. Around 2010 or when the solo Lil B stuff started picking up steam, do you feel like you got that love that based music and cloud rap deserved at that time?
If I didn’t give love, I wouldn’t be making music. That’s half of it, besides me absolutely loving the music. I never really paid attention to if I got love or if I didn’t get love because I always see love. I’ve always gotten love. Like I said, it was so many levels of inspiration, whether it was looks, the music as well, everything that went into being based and really just giving people my viewpoint.
People were upset about me calling myself a pretty bitch or what I was wearing or the style of music that I was pushing forward, just the rebellious style of music. And that’s why you can have a legend now like Playboi Carti or so many other people that I’m inspired by. I mean, having a legend like Lil Yachty. It’s so many people. I’ll let them say that for themselves, but there’s just so many legends. I mean, like ASAP Rocky, Odd Future. So many from Lil Peep to an XXXTentacion, or Ski Mask the Slump God. There are so many legends that I know Lil B has inspired, and they’ve inspired me as well. And that’s what it’s about. It’s about everybody inspiring each other to take it farther.
