In 2006 a teenage Bay Area rap group called the Pack released the single “Vans.” Essentially a four-minute free advertisement for the shoe company of the same name, it combines an infectious, minimalist beat and a confusing hook: “Got my Vans on, but they look like sneakers.” The song’s bare-bones catchiness and the Pack’s pre-Odd Future black-skate-punk image—I once saw them use the roof of a compact car as a stage for an impromptu live performance, thoroughly trashing it in the process—made “Vans” a hit in the underground rap world. But the underground rap world has one-hit wonders too, and after their 2007 full-length, Based Boys, tanked, the Pack seemed fated for obscurity.
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The Internet age has made it commonplace for artists to find substantial audiences without the aid of traditional star-making machinery, but there’s nothing common about the degree of success Lil B has achieved. Last year’s provocatively titled I’m Gay (I’m Happy)—though he’s straight, Lil B is probably the most outspoken antihomophobe in hip-hop—landed on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Heatseekers Albums charts, against all kinds of odds. It came out on the tiny digital rap label Amalgam Entertainment, Lil B shared a link to download it for free on the same day it dropped, it was barely promoted except on his Twitter, and no one aside from his loyal fans (and music journalists) seems to be aware that he even exists.
Though Lil B has ambitions of cracking the mainstream (he once got on Twitter to demand that Kanye West make a record with him) and occasionally seems to get his foot in the door (NFL players on TV have done his signature “cooking” dance in the end zone), he also seems to understand that not having to please the greatest possible number of people gives him a lot of freedom. He’s taken advantage of it to develop a musical style and personality that are so eccentric they border on the avant-garde. He prefers chilled-out, nearly ambient beats (the best have come from production wunderkind Clams Casino) rather than big, broadly accessible bangers, and during his initial ascendency he showed little concern for the standards by which rappers have traditionally been judged. Words tumbled out of his mouth with little apparent regard for cadence or rhyme, and he frequently flirted with the line that separates a rapper from somebody who’s just saying things into a microphone—accordingly, many rap fans refuse to take him at all seriously.
