Why almost every young rapper is called "Lil"

vis4valentine@lemmy.ml to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 60 points –

Like, seriously, why? Are they allergic to have their own brand or something?

16

It's a continuation of street names. Those were names for people on the block. "oh him? that's lil turk". Just made its way to the rap game.

Is there still some that use it because all the others did? Copycat style just to fit in and feel legit to unknowing listeners?

That's what I was assuming. "Lil" isn't new but the mumble/emo/soundcloud rap generation spawned a whole bunch of them.

A lack of creativity or an ironic statement about other rappers' lack of creativity.

I always figured it was sort of like how everything had a lowercase "i" in front of the name after the iPods first came out

That started with iMac in 1998, and the i stood for internet.

I am aware, but it wasn't until the iPod where generic and third party brands starting hopping on the bandwagon. You saw "i" in front of things for a solid decade after the ipod came out, not so much in recent years though

i assume causes they dont have their bigboy rapper pants on just yet. they leave it open to drop the 'lil' once they make it big and rebrand.

Rap is my preferred genre of music, and im just shooting in the dark here.