Lil Dicky - Live @ The Independent
I expected seeing Lil Dicky on Tuesday at the Independent
was going to be one big $15 dick joke. What I saw was hilarious and also
transcended the role of the modern white guy rapper.
I have and will always be a fan of underground hip-hop,
which has consistently had many white emcees. Slug, Aesop Rock, Sage Francis,
Sole, ADeeM, Buck 65, and Dose One come to mind as immediate examples. But I
think that on the bigger scale, it’s important to give a lot of credit to
Eminem, because he was the first white guy to do it and get really, really
popular, and thus shift the paradigm of what a white guy rapper can do.
Eminem was funny in a sick way, all anger and angst
that was easily relatable to many young white men (such as myself) who were
fans of rap in general. Eminem was so good that his appeal exceeded his genre,
and I remember growing up hearing his songs on the Alternative Rock radio
station. I like to think that Eminem paved the way for many of the white
rappers who came after him; because Eminem proved that you didn’t have to be black to be a legit big-time rapper.
A friend of mine, a white guy rapper named Spose,
experienced not-insignificant success a few years back with his song “I’m Awesome”. Spose
used self-depreciating humor, championing the self-loathing white guy guilt
that for me (and many young men like me) is relatable and recognizable. I can
listen to 50 Cent and see how he
feels, or I can listen to Spose and know
how he feels.
As expected, a couple of other talented white guys were
working the same angle as Spose. Jon Lajoie (“Everyday Normal Guy”),
Asher Roth (“I Love College”), and Adam Samberg/The Lonely Island (“Threw It On The Ground”) all come to mind. These were slightly different takes on
the same perspective: being white and owning up to all of the lack-luster
stereotypes associated with it. Average sexual performance, not being a baller,
being slightly above average at a few average things, generally lacking
confidence, having “first world problems”… these themes are echoed in the
collective works of the aforementioned artists. And yet they are spoken in the
language of the hip-hop emcee, which means (and I credit Method Man for this definition)
flow, breath control, and lyrical wordplay. So now here we have Lil Dicky, who
is doing the same thing, but he is doing it in the best way I have witnessed so
far.
photo by instagram user monicamariedeus
To get a solid idea of Dicky’s particular brand of white
guy rapper flavor, check out “White Dude”, which is
about all of the good parts of being a
white male. He poses them hilariously, and his rhyme schemes and wordplay are
clever and on point. Plus he filmed parts of it in San Francisco so that’s
cool. Dig a little deeper into Dicky’s impressive and well-maintained online
presence and you see the white guy complex branching into other things more
specific to Dicky himself: being a Jew and using the “K-word” the way black
people use the N-word, being physically overshadowed by other more handsome
white guys, and being a funny white rapper that is also a technically talented
lyricist are some of the main themes he highlights, each with their own song
and music video featured on his regularly updated Youtube channel.
Dicky's set was highly interactive with the audience
Lil Dicky put on a hip-hop performance Tuesday night. Yes, it
had humorous elements. Yes, it built on white guy stereotypes. But by the end
of it I felt like I had witnessed a rap show and not a comedy routine. A good
rap show features a couple of things. First, you need a great DJ who properly
backs up the emcee. In this case DJ Omega not only backed him up but opened for
him in a very live and high energy display. It was very simple but very well
done. When Dicky came on, he put up a power point presentation, outlining the
amount of fun the audience was about to have. To me this was genius. A hip-hop
show should be fun. Dicky threw in
some jokes, but when it came time to rap, he threw down. He was live on the
mic. He had every word dialed, with excellent flow and breath control, never
running out of steam or fumbling with his lyrics. When he brought up his hype
man, a totally swagged-out black kid, he joked “how cool do I look now with
this guy on stage next to me?” The beats were well produced and trappy, and
Dicky had the lyrical talent to hold it down. So while he joked about having a
small dick, and took off his pants, and brought up a girl on stage and gave her
a lap dance, he also reiterated that he “is a professional rapper”, he kept the
crowd engaged and responding with tons of energy, and he held down the stage
with the same presence and strength I can attribute to other very successful rappers
I have seen (and I have been to many, many hip hop shows).
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If you liked this blog entry, check out Jon Hopkins Live @ Mezzanine