#BASED- How A Fifth of Remy Martin XO Took Me From Confounded Critic To BASED Believer

As the Co Founder of Thacorner.net I definitely see my fair share of new music. Every day I cycle through at least 20-25 new tracks from popular artists. After awhile it gets to the point where if you aren’t interested by the first 16 bars...its on to the next one as hip hop has become so redundant, plastic, and similar sounding that its rare to hear something truly unique.

When I first came across the song “Hoes on my Dick Because I Look Like Jesus”, I was at a loss for words and not in a good way. The lyricism was so terrible and hilarious that it almost seemed intentionally bad and a farce. I thought to myself, “yup…Hip Hop is over”, but if only I knew just how wrong I was. Over the next few days I heard a few more “freestyles” by Lil B, each one twice as ludicrous and funny as the previous until I ran across one titled “I Am The Hood”. This particular track completely stuck out from the rest as Lil B was speaking coherently, utilizing a traditional rap verse structure…and actually sounded good. A sucker for a good perplexing mystery, this back and forth from utterly horrendous lyrics and cadence to sonically pleasing ones interested me a great deal as I couldn’t grasp how an artist could go from “Pretty Bitch” to “Age of Information” without skipping a beat, not to mention that Lil B took a major risk and referred to himself as among other things as a “pretty bitch”, “fag”, “lesbian”, and “princess”…as well as “God”.

So as will seem rather ironic shortly, I headed to Google and Youtube without thinking twice, in a quest to unravel this mystery. The more I heard and read, the more confused I got. I thought to myself “what the hell is this “BASED” he keeps referring to, “why would Soulja Boy sign an artist who puts out songs of the caliber of “Pretty Bitch”, and “why does he keep calling himself God!”. I tried listening to some of his more coherent songs again and again, attempting to pick up on themes or concepts that might enlighten me a bit as it seemed to me as if Lil B had started a cult of sorts. Everywhere I went online I was met by two types of commentary- A. This guy is on heavy drugs, mentally retarded and killing Hip Hop or B. This guy is a genius and pure hip hop. The two commentaries seemed diametrically opposed, further perplexing me and causing me to look deeper and deeper into this whole issue.

As I got more and more confused, I finally said “Fuck It…people keep saying this dude must be on some heavy drugs in order to make this kind of music, so Im bout to get drunk and see if this shit makes anymore sense to me.” I figured, maybe if I get intoxicated, essentially shutting off my frontal lobe, which is what makes humans think “logically”, I’ll be able to grasp what the hell is going on here. In other words, in order to comprehend the seemingly illogical, one must think illogically. So I headed to the liquor store and copped a fifth of Remy Martin XO and two 2 liters of Cherry Choke and headed home to get torn the fuck up.

Back at the crib, I poured me up a glass, turned on some Lil B videos and proceeded to get trashed. Within minutes, the haze of logic actually receded and unbelievably Lil B started making sense to me. It was an epiphany of sorts as It allowed me to not only look at his music in a different light, but music in general as well as life as a whole. Almost instantly, Lil B’s “ramblings” started making perfect sense, his BASED freestyles started to become understandable, and the BASED philosophy itself was opened up to me. His BASED freestyles were still horrible in the modern eye of hip hop but once looked at through the BASED philosophy they became miniature works of free spirited, free flowing art. The same concept employed by psychic Edgar Cayce was being utilized by Lil B, just with a Hip Hop twist-unadulterated, subconscious thought, free from constraint and ridicule. Does it make the lyrics seem strange, or weird , or repetitive? Of course, but that is the beauty of it. You are peering literally into your subconscious, delving into the depths of your true self and bringing that entity out for the world to see. If you repeat “bitch suck my nuts” 15 times within 4 minutes, more than likely you have a fetish for having your testicles in a chick’s mouth.

What previously seemed like anti-technological rants over catchy beats now seemed like gospel. The information age truly has affected and changed us…but is it for better or worse? With all of our technological advancements, why haven’t we as a race evolved or bettered ourselves? We can literally talk to people 20,000 miles away…yet we use this tool to describe the bologna sandwich we are eating…and in 140 characters or less.

Lil B’s philosophy on life is reminiscent of the Hippie movement of the 1960’s, where the social norm is to be challenged in the pursuit of physical and spiritual happiness. Now his peculiar references to himself as a “fag”, “lesbian”, “princess”, etc… made sense. By challenging these societal constraints you actually transcend them and strip from them any negativity they may have previously possessed. By creating music purely for self satisfaction and void of preconceived expectations, it becomes irrelevant whether they are received in a positive or negative light. Lil B essentially took Hip Hop back to its roots of a medium for self expression and entertainment, directly opposite of the modern commercial Hip Hop focused on negative themes, machismo, and competitiveness. Is Lil B the best rapper..of course not, but who cares? The whole point of BASED freestyles is to “Not Give A Fuck” and enjoy the moment.

In direct opposition of the norm of “supremacy” within Hip Hop, Lil B professes that we are all “Gods” or basically equal in importance and dominance. This outlook is further extrapolated by Lil B in his BASED movement, which focuses on positive energy and edification of each other although like any human soul, he isn’t without flaws. Yes he has his positive, peaceful musings on the one end but on the other end exist the profane, oft crude elements of some of his BASED freestyles, a testament to the eternal quest of Good trumping Evil. He doesn’t hide from this fact that himself, as well as us all are flawed, in fact he embraces is and states how it is only an example of how far we have come and how far we have left to go.

Before I picked up that bottle of Remy Martin XO I was a confounded critic of the entire Lil B/ BASEDGOD movement but after freeing my logic and allowing myself to open up cognitively and not think like we as adults are trained to-I became a BASED Believer. Lil b is truly onto something here with this and Im glad he is BASED enough to take the necessary risks to bring the true essence of hip hop back.



#BASED