There are a lot of accomplishments that many UR students aspire to achieve during their four years on campus. Earning the 2.7 GPA and getting accepted into the Robins School of Business after your first three semesters is a good way to start off your Richmond career. Graduating Robins with a 3.93 and earning Summa Cum Laude would be pretty awesome. Finally, getting a job out of college would be the icing on the cake and would prove that all that hard work in college was not for nothing. Now imagine leaving that job to try and become a professional rapper. That scenario is reality for David Burd, and after almost five years since graduating the Robins School of Business, he may have just achieved his goal.
David Burd goes by the stage name Lil' Dicky and on July 31, he released his first album, titled "Professional Rapper." Lil' Dicky had been releasing YouTube videos since 2013; one of his earliest videos "Ex-Boyfriend" got over 1 million views in the first 24 hours of being released, and now sits at an impressive 10.5 million. He continued to make videos (using his Bar Mitzvah money and Kickstarter funds), released a mixtape titled "Get Hard," and then released some singles over this past year leading up the the premiere of this first album. The album release was paired with the first music video for the second track on the album, "Professional Rapper." It's an animated music video that portrays Lil' Dicky in a job interview with Snoop Dogg. The video is not only hilarious but also gives a good perspective on what Lil' Dicky is trying to accomplish with this album and his career moving forward. Besides Snoop Dogg, Lil' Dicky was able to round up some other big names for the album: T-Pain, Fetty Wap, and Rich Homie Quan.
What sets Lil' Dicky apart from almost all other rappers is that his songs are about the opposite situations that the other rappers write about. Forget "throwin' bands" and buying drinks for girls; Lil' Dicky has a song called "$ave Dat Money" with lyrics like
I'm the type of motherf***er that'll check the check Do the math I ain't ever getting robbed/I get logins from Netflix from my cousin Greg/401k rollin' over bands on it Coppin' sweaters in the summer when the sale on them.
Lil' Dicky doesn't go to jail, but he sure does commit a lot of "crimes" as demonstrated in his song "White Crime:"
Stealing all the shampoos, from the hotel's pretty bathrooms/Cheating, I've been peaking in the classrooms/At the stop sign, never fully stopping though/ Filling water cups up with a lot of Coke.
His other songs are equally as clever and funny; sometimes bashing the stereotypes about the traditional "rapper" and other times confirming stereotypes about a well-off Jewish kid from the suburbs. The three interludes of actual phone conversations he has with his caring parents are hilarious and are something you would never hear on a rap album but goes perfectly with Lil' Dicky's vision.
"Professional Rapper" is an album worth checking out if you enjoy music. It's something new and besides the lyrics being great, the songs are also catchy and well produced. The album is currently the number 1 album on iTunes, but you can listen to it on Spotify if you're trying to $ave dat money. It may not be the most PG accomplishment to come out of the University of Richmond, but Lil' Dicky is a pretty sweet alumni to brag to your friends about. Amidst the Drake/Meek Mill controversy this week, the business major from a Pennsylvania suburb may have dropped the hottest tracks in the rap game this week.
