Lil Dicky. The 5 foot 10, 5 inches or less, professional rapper out of Cheltenham Township, Philidelphia, is the game's own personal comedian. Named David Andrew Burd at birth sometime around March 15, 1988, he wound up graduating from The University of Richmond like fellow XXL Freshman Dave East , with a degree in Business.

          Post graduation, Lil found himself in San Fransico, actively putting thought, time, and effort into making music as an outlet for his comedic ambitions. This resulted in the viral sensations that are Dicky's two pre-professional rapper career music videos: "White Dude" and "Ex-Boyfriend." This allowed him to establish just enough of a fan base online to motivate and support him to the next level in his craft, which consisted of raising over 110,000 dollars through donations alone...and of course....

 

Calling up SnoopDogg .

 

          Come July 2015, I would be a 20 year old punk-ass-kid bumping Lil Dicky's premiere album, Professional Rapper, in my Dad's emptied townhouse, smoking blunt after blunt in preparation for Bonarooo ...my point being, that as a young white rapper alone for the summer, that 20-track-debut-tape got played quite a bit...and then got dropped from my daily shuffle almost a year later.

          Professional Rapper is honestly a dense, very solid, album. He really touches on every aspect of life, from the shit you only half think to yourself on the day-to-day, to the extravagant exaggerations we listen to rap music for. Somehow, like his fellow XXL classmates, Lil Dicky has defined, or at least remastered, a lane in hip-hop, and made his face the logo. Not only is he a new white rapper essentially sponsored by Snoop (at least for promotional purposes of his initial release and exposure) in an era of no new white faces, but he is a very grounded individual who is quick to recognize all the opportunities this field of work allows him to take advantage of "professionally" as well as humanistically. Better, he is quick to persecute himself for the sake of the joke every time, before anyone can think of something to say.

          Much like his frustrations expressed between The Antagonist and Antagonist Pt2 , Lil Dicky is able to push himself past the introspective comedian he is, and express those notions of insecurity or exuberated confidence through articulately phrased rhyme schemes that mimic any flow you could begin to think of -- even if he has trouble recognizing his own successes.

          My one criticism that I have to give though, is, he has been the least consistent rapper out of the entire 2016 Class. I would say even worse than Dave East. He has dropped one album two years ago and hasn't released any new music since. Yes he has a powerful freestyle on Tim Westwood , BUT, that's also his only legitimate freestyle on air -- every other "freestyle" is a verse off a track of PR.

          Dicky is a great rapper, writer, and created character, but I dont know if he has the ability to keep up with the art of the rap game. Yes, "Save That Money" was a great concept for a music video and astoundingly well-executed...but does it deserve to be his most notable hit...no. In reality, that's one of his weaker tracks, and I think that's basically his issue. His weaker tracks will always be the more popular hits because he is, "The white rapper," yet alone a comedic one. His music will always be angled as "funny." Even when it shouldn't be, people will look to his music for aspects and qualities that he may not want to have to continue to put in, and that's boxing.
          That said, Lil Dicky is the most formally educated rapper of the XXl class on the realm of business, so I trust that he has plans in motion that will come to fruition soon. After all, he did raise 100,000 dollars from strangers over the internet in order to fund this dream in the first place. He style stays in his lyrics rather than flow, his lack of which is proof to me of his fandom toward hip-hop. He figured out the rhythmic patterns of the artists he grew up listening to, and then found a way to feed his comedic perspective on life into it. His art is in what he says, the music is in how he says it.

          In the extended down time between his releases, you can see his feature on Trinidad Jame's track a few months ago here or peek these tracks off Professional Rapper that I think bang (a few especially while tripping)