Dicky laid on the class-clown meta-rap schtick extra thick on his skit-heavy 2015 full-length debut Professional Rapper, but his musical ambitions were no joke-this guy could battle-rap against Snoop Dogg one moment and then craft sensitive power ballads with Panic! At the Disco’s Brendon Urie the next.
But while his 2013 single “Ex-Boyfriend” went viral with its profane yet charmingly self-deprecating commentary about his sexual inadequacies, Dicky’s flow couldn’t be denied: Combining rapid-fire rhymes with a unique nasal rasp, he sounded like Eminem with a three-packs-a-day habit. As a well-to-do kid growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Burd (born in 1988) knew he didn’t have the natural street cred to pass himself off as a genuine rapper he initially picked up the mic as a gimmick to break into the world of film and television as a comedic actor. Depending on your vantage point, Dave Burd, aka Lil Dicky, is either America’s funniest rapper or its most rap-savvy comedian, thanks to a persona that’s part Compton, part Catskills.
