Some might argue that Lil Dicky playing with a model’s be-thonged behind is still a lighthearted joke, but it is, at the very least, toeing the line between humorous and disrespectful (if not leaping across it).ĭoes the whole video lose merit because of a few seconds of questionable content? No. The satire breaks down in how the rapper interacts with the models. The satire is in the fact that the scene was produced for zero dollars and zero cents while Lil Dicky struts around like he owns the place. During the boat scenes, Lil Dicky is accompanied by models as the boat cruises into the sunset.
The satire is all well and good in this music video - until it stops feeling like satire. Perhaps the most shocking part of the music video is when Lil Dicky hijacks T-Pain’s video shoot for his own video (look closely at this scene and one will notice that the dancers are totally ignoring Lil Dicky). Not only does he get inside a Beverly Hills mansion, but he also gets on a boat, into a night club and into a Lamborghini, all for free. The most amazing part is that someone actually does let Lil Dicky use their home to make his music video. As Lil Dicky repeats throughout the video, the goal was to make the most epic rap music video of all time on a budget of no money at all.Īt the opening of the video“Dave,” as Lil Dicky introduces himself, pitches his concept to Beverly Hills homeowners in an attempt to secure a location for his film shoot. At almost nine minutes long, it is considerably longer than its source material (4:51), but it uses that extra time to supercharge the song’s punch. It is a natural extension of the song from which it springs.
The music video for “$ave Dat Money” went up on YouTube on the 17th and garnered four million views in four days. This is the kind of song that listeners will want to listen to several times to hear all the jokes embedded in the rapid-fire vocals. “$ave Dat Money,” a song about Lil Dicky’s frugality in comparison to some of his fellow rappers, is a special delight on this release. Lil Dicky does not pretend to be a stud instead, he raps about how he is attractive because of his personality (and T-Pain, amazingly, joins him on the chorus). His subject matter is not too different from that of the rappers he derides in songs like “Personality” - he is, for example, rapping about picking up women on nights out - but he drops all the pretense that other rappers might adopt in their takes on the subject. Rather than becoming some rap god, Lil Dicky seems more interested in being an everyman to his listeners. “Professional Rapper” is a repudiation of the stereotypes and clichés perpetuated in mainstream rap music and an affirmation of the quotidian. With the release of his first full-length album, “Professional Rapper” (2015), Lil Dicky has planted his flag in the rap world. Comparisons have been drawn between this relative newcomer and Childish Gambino, as both have sought to carve out off-beat, masterfully witty niches in the rap world. While his lyrical content is often satirical and comedic (read: downright silly), Lil Dicky is as serious as rappers come. What started as a side project quickly grew into a bona fide career Burd announced in 2014 that Lil Dicky was now his full-time gig. Back then, David Burd, the man behind the Lil Dicky pseudonym, was working as an accountant at an advertising firm with a side project as a rapper. The skinny white man from the northern suburbs of Philadelphia first appeared on the music scene in early 2013 and gained notoriety with the launch of the music video for his song “Ex-Boyfriend” (2013). Lil Dicky is now, by all accounts, a professional rapper.