LiL Phi Little

The other day, while driving my kid to his baseball game, I tried to be hip and ask if the song playing was Lil Baby. He laughed and said it was Lil Durk.  Exasperated, I asked, “How many damn Lils are there?”

He shrugged it off and said he didn’t know, but went on to school me on the cadence and vocal quality differences of the two named Lils’.

When I later saw my eldest son, known to the family as the resident scholar of modern day Hip Hop, I asked him if he knew why there were so many rappers with the name Lil. It was the first thing I had said in a while that stopped him in his tracks, that made him look back at me and smile admitting, “Yeah, I don’t know.”  This was a huge victory for me as a parent to capture my son’s attention, who entered the kitchen focused on the Oreos he was after.  We often debate old school vs. new school hip hop and which is best. And though this wasn’t about the genre’s expanding musicality, it did point to the lack of creativity and stunted growth in the naming of one’s rapper self. And well, that felt like a victory for old school.

He quickly reported to his Google Machine apparatus to discount my observation and reluctantly texted me these two screenshots. After I viewed, we both shared a laugh, as well as marveled, at how many Lils there are on that quick search.

It was also an opportunity for me to share that back when I was producing the second season of Girlfriends, the network (UPN) thought they had the best idea to have all the Monday night shows write episodes to the theme of “Lil.”  That absurdity almost produced a spit-take. He said and I quote: “What kind of Tom-foolery is that?”  I explained that networks, or in our case “netlets,” needed to find ways to cut through the noise and get people to watch their shows and stay tuned all night. These “themed” nights seemed like the answer for them… and an easy way for us to incorporate rappers as product placement. These executives believed in these rappers’ popularity over our creativity and ability to tell compelling stories. They were willing to derail all the hard work we had done breaking stories in lieu of their “genius” marketing ideas.  He laughed more and posited that was likely the death of broadcast TV that made way for the success of streamers.  He’s not wrong.  Artists first ran to cable to find more artful ways to tell their stories and take advantage of the money pouring into that fiber-optic pipeline. And when I guess cable wanted to be more mainstream than niche, it got gimmicky too and opened up the door for artists to run into the arms of streamers.

But I digress, we were talking about the Lils. I agreed with him that those marketing schemes were really bad ideas and told him that my rebellion of the use of a random rapper from the long list of Lils back in 2001 was for Toni to carry around a Lil Jesus to celebrate her being saved.  It was a way for her to express her exuberance about her commitment to walking a righteous path after falling from grace and friendship by trying to sleep with Joan’s boyfriend. He smiled at me again.  And used this opportunity to tell me that a lot of his friends are watching Girlfriends for the first time on Netflix and they think it’s really funny.  I encouraged him to watch the Lil episode. He said he would, grabbed his Oreos and left.

Standing alone in my kitchen, I smiled to myself, thanked God for that moment and even Lil Jesus and all the Lil rappers that lead me to a mommy moment like this… Then Nasir walks in the kitchen with a big smile on his face. He had something to add to our lil conversation. He asked me if I knew the difference between Lil Baby and Da Baby. I threw my hands up and decided that my rap repertoire will end with Kendrick and J Cole and Jay-Z and Kanye and Drake… oh and Lil Kim and Lil Wayne!

 

My Lils. First Family Home. Circa 2009.

But seriously, what is up with all the Lils spanning 20 years now? I bring that question here to use it as a fun way to engage in my new comments feature of my dézine. With all the creativity in hip hop, why is everyone named Lil Something?

I feel like there is a conspiracy right under our nose, people, and no one is talking about it. Did these rappers sign something?  Is it a secret society?  Is it a union?  Ooo— I bet it is a fraternity of Lil Phi Little?  Seriously, why isn’t anyone talking about this?  Let’s discuss or at least share your favorite Lil artist and song and I’ll put out the Best of the Lils as a playlist in the next #InTheLandOfMara newsletter.

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WORDS:  Mara Brock Akil
DATE:  05.20.2022
PHOTOS:  MBA Archives and Lil Baby IG 
  1. Sonali says:

    I am dying of laughter. Thanks for sharing some sunshine with me today. I can totally picture the entire conversation. This is similar to the debate we had here with Yasin & Sriyanthi talking about Lil Uzi Vert & Olivia Rodrigo. Hilarious.

  2. Cheyenne Pierce says:

    Thant was a Lil nice read !

  3. Mayen🌞 says:

    The Lil era for me started in the 90s all the playground boys had the nickname Lil something in Houston, Texas. Lil John, Lil E… it’s apart of nickname culture of black folks like Pookie and ‘em. So everybody from around the way knows them as that.

    I loved the lil Jesus episode and Joan’s naked daddy😂 you are clever. Loved reading about your mommy son moment 🌞 sweet.

  4. Zikhona Nkabi says:

    I smiled for the longest time reading this, as a 28 year old resonating with your awe & surprise all at once.

    The conspiracy, I think you’re onto something, coz none of them are actually Big, in physical form. 😂

  5. Cheri Duhart says:

    Definitely synonymous with “boy” or “buddy” White people like to refer to Black men as… until they’ve committed a crime, because, of course, then they’re men. I’m almost certain it’s coerced.

  6. Joan Carol Fullmore says:

    What a great article Mara, and most importantly an opportunity to actually join in a deeper conversation with the younger generation and indeed you are hip!

    My first thought is that Lil identifies them as a rapper first and foremost, so they don’t have to introduce that concept. Then what comes after represents who or what they most admire or how they want to be seen. Lil Baby wants to be loved and Da Baby says stop here go no further I am the one and only Baby 🙂

    LIL – Leave It Longing (for more they hope)

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