David Burd (aka Lil Dicky) is the embodiment of the rapper in the age of the Internet. He has gained widespread fame following a series of hilarious music videos, released over the past three years. What started with his music video “Ex-Girlfriend” has become a movement that has Burd meeting with Snoop Dogg and selling out shows across the country. In the Spring of 2014 I saw Lil Dicky at a show in Boulder, CO during his Professional Rapper Tour. He gave a PowerPoint presentation at the onset of the show and came across as a funny, self-deprecating rapper. People laughed and after an hour and a half everyone left with a smile on their face.
Following this tour, Burd released more of his signature music videos and then publicly announced he had run out of money. He was a broke, white, Jewish rapper. This may have been where Lil Dicky sunk into oblivion. He started a Kickstarter campaign and within weeks had raised $113,000. With this money he worked on and then released his first studio album, Professional Rapper, on July 31, 2015. Some songs on the album were classic LD. Songs like “Lemme Freak,” “Classic Male Pregame,” and “White Crime” were all mildly funny and were in no way, in my opinion, representative of a rapper that wanted to be remembered as a rapper. These songs are more indicative of a comedian that could rap, cashing in on his relatable sense of humor. The question I still have is whether Burd will pursue his career as a serious rapping venture. He has shown flashes online of the makings of a talented rapper, who could grow far past his normal billing as a comedy rapper.
HE CAN BE VERY FUNNY:
In the “Save Dat Money” you get a view of how gregarious and likeable he is as a person. “Pillow Talking” is a hilarious rambling look into the comedic mind of LD.
HE CAN BE A LEGITIMATE RAPPER:
In “Russel Westbrook on a Farm” LD frolics all over the beat and deftly maneuvers through clever rhymes and lines. His “freestyle” (written before I’m sure) on Sway in the Morning is one of the best the show has seen in my opinion.
Maybe Burd is satisfied with the millions of dollars he has in his bank account in this point in his career. In the age of the Internet we see artists rise and then fall off of the map just as quickly. I doubt Burd will meet this fate but I sincerely hope that in his next album we can see a new LD who is willing to become a legitimate rapper, outside of his obvious comedic draw. Maybe we only need to look so far as his name to know where he is headed. Lil Dicky is not a moniker that I could see entering the echelons of rap’s greatest entertainers.
