Last night we went to Watsky’s All You Can Do Tour featuring Kyle and Anderson Paak. Performing for a sold out crowd at The Metro in Chicago, fans were treated to three great energy filled sets. Before the show we spoke with Kyle (‘Keep It Real’ ‘Don’t Want To Fall In Love‘) as he met his Chicago fans, telling us about he was humbled by Childish Gambino reaching out and including Kyle’s track ‘Fruit Snacks’ in Gambino’s short film, Clapping For The Wrong Reasons. Next, before he stepped on stage, we sat down with Watsky for an interview about his thoughts on the price of music, his video for ‘Whoa Whoa Whoa‘, and even Lil B the Based God (coming soon).
“Thank you based God”. Lil B dropped his new video and this one is a ballad just for the ladies out there. Check out the video and some hilarious fan tweets about the video at the jump.
Yearly, hip-hop magazine XXL does a freshman cover, showcasing nearly a dozen rising stars. Sometimes, these lists are underwhelming, leaving obvious choices out (Drake, Young Thug, Tyler, the Creator, A$AP Rocky, etc) but sometimes they can also be packed with to-be stars.
Now that a couple years have passed, it would definitely be interesting to observe how well some of 2011’s freshman have fared, because frankly, the gap between superstars and unknowns is huge.
Let’s begin.
Meek Mill
At the time of the 2011 XXL Freshman cover, Meek Mill was just a young guy entering a game with a fierce voice, a record deal from Rick Ross and an allegiance with the promising producer Jahlil Beats. Mind you, the 2011 XXL Freshman cover was published before the release of Meek’s first singles through MMG (“Tupac Back”, “Ima Boss” respectively) so looking back now, you can see the hunger and charisma in the young MC. Since the cover, Meek has been one of the leaders of street music and while his authenticity has helped him, it has also harmed him- he’s currently in jail.
Lil B
The mysterious, illusive and always positive figure known as Lil B (or the BasedGod) has survived what many expcected to be a short career. He still releases music regularly to entertain and inspire his fans, as well as becoming an omniscient figure to pop culture, even getting co-signs from Katy Perry, Wiz Khalifa and others.
Photo by Dan Garcia/The Early Registration
Kendrick Lamar
Since 2011, Kendrick Lamar has definitely turned heads and leaped past his peers and competitors. In early 2011, Kendrick wasn’t really known to a large audience, besides a co-sign from Dr. Dre and a few features. The cover was issued before his independent album Section.80 was even released, but since then, K. Dot has built his fan base across the world, as well as dropping a phenomenal Interscope debut, earning 7 Grammy nominations and going Platinum in the U.S.
YG
West coast MC YG has had his fair share of ups and downs, going from hit singles to jail time. While it seemed like he would forever just be looked at as a regional artist, YG, Rich Homie Quan and Jeezy challenged that notion with a worldwide hit- “My Nigga”. Soon enough, YG had another hit, with the help of superstar Drake-“Who Do You Love”. After doing well with both singles, the time seemed just right to execute his plan and drop his debut album My Krazy Life. With fellow Pusha Ink collaborators DJ Mustard and Ty Dolla $ign flourishing and his album recieving some of the best reviews for a rap album this year, YG is finally on top.
Mac Miller
Mac Miller went through a real transformation since his appearance on the 2011 XXL Freshman cover. He sold 145,000 copies of his debut album Blue Slide Park in one week, making history-but that wasn’t enough for him. Mac went back to the drawing boards, moving to California, learning how to produce and linking up with LA based labels TDE and Odd Future, to find his sound and make the best music possible. Since then, we’ve got Macadelic, Watching Movies with the Sound Off, Faces and countless EPs, beat tapes and one-off projects.
Not only is Lil B one of the most powerful and misunderstood rappers in music, he is also a web application developer who recently developed his Basedmoji app for iOs. Today he also gave fans his newest video ‘Rent Due’.
Hip-Hop is a young man’s game, but as the pioneers of Gangsta Rap have became film stars and headphone moguls, the subgenre faded off into the distance, making way for the shiny suit era (post-Biggie Bad Boy), middle class rap (Kanye West, Childish Gambino), and emotional rap (Drake, Lil B).
Lil B, the Based God, doesn’t always tour, but when he does its super rare and based and he will be bringing one of these rare performances to Milwaukee this fall.
Promoting his upcoming tape “Ultimate B*tch”, the based god Lil B blessed us with his new video titled “No Black Person is Ugly”. Described by Lil B as “the most powerful song of the decade”, you can check out the song and video at the jump.
John A. Baker Jr., also known as rapper Spoken Reasons, recently spoke with VLAD TV where he dubbed Lil B the wackest rapper of all time. Instantly the interviewer, and Lil B’s fan base (“The Taskforce”) on Twitter, came to Lil B’s defense. Check out the interview and Lil B fans coming at Spoken Reasons at the jump.
The Early Registration 