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Music

You Guys Ready For Cute Rap? Here’s lilbootycall

His debut video “Sailor Moon” has steadily blown up over the last year. Today he releases his third visual “First Date.”
Ryan Bassil
London, GB
Image still from "Sailor Moon"

Like any user-generated website, Soundcloud can be fucking strange. Stay up late and smoke enough weed and you might smack head first into #weird Soundcloud, a place where erratic and Ritalin-deprived remixes of the Seinfeld theme reign supreme. Or perhaps you’ll head down a corridor and into another bizarre room of sound, one that’s less meme-centric and more curiously forward-thinking. This corner is where acts like PC Music, Lil Yachty and Rex Orange County initially rose to prominence – presumably off reposts from faded, homework-avoiding teens.

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Despite the fact Soundcloud are sinking money into a dank abyss, reportedly losing cash by the bucketload, loads of musicians continue to use the service. On the one hand, why? I want to see these tunes on Spotify, please don’t deprive me (or yourself from making some money or getting on a playlist even though yes, I know that Spotify is now just becoming a major label playground). On the other though, Soundcloud’s repost feature and user-base of DJs and bloggers does at least still allow for more eccentric acts to slowly ride a wave to fame. So I guess the point is put your tracks on both services! And one person who absolutely should do that is lilbootycall.

For the uninitiated, lilbootycall released the track “Sailor Moon” to Soundcloud a year ago. It’s since been uploaded to YouTube, where it’s been viewed 1.2 million times. In a nutshell it’s the tone of jazz hip-hop but reimagined for a generation raised on cloud rappers and anime cartoons. Some people don’t like it and think it’s a joke but those people are assholes with closed minds because the track and video is clearly chill as fuck and replete with an aesthetic that’s on lock and sweeter than a Krispy Kreme. Catch a reminder by watching the video above.

Anyway – introductions aside – last night lilbootycall released another new video for a track called “First Date”, his third visual so far. It’s cute, if a little too short and veering ever so slightly into the territory of other Soundcloud rappers like drippin so pretty. Still, the look remains on point and – based on this track, “Sailor Moon” and one other called “Butterfly” – lilbootycall is latching onto a sound that with the right work could be finely tuned into one that’s purely of his own. Looking over his Twitter this morning one recent message stands out. “there r evil ppl out to get me right now if you support me please protect me before its too late”, it reads. So I guess here we are – here’s some support.

You can find Ryan on Twitter.