Lil B Graces NY Times Magazine, Drops ‘Illusions of Grandeur’

New York Times Magazine, a beacon of original journalism and high culture, has revealed a new feature on hip-hop's resident eccentric, Lil B, that will run this weekend. Still a long way from acceptance in the rap world, B is praised for going against the grain in the feature -- a major cultural cosign, if not a hip-hop one. Add this to his placement in the XXL freshmen class this year and a collaboration with 9th Wonder, Phonte and Jean Grae, and Lil B is having quite the month.

The Times actually nails what many fans love about Lil B's admittedly inconsistent work thus far. "Without being politically correct, Lil B is adept at playing clever word games to undermine some of the negative tropes inherent to hip-hop; his trademark boast - the constantly recycled lyric "I'm a pretty b----" - uses egotism to unravel misogyny," writes Jacob Brown.

Also notable, and props to The Fader for pointing this out, is that Lil B appears without his trademark years-old Vans in the magazine's spread. B had long-promised that he would only update his single, raggedy pair of shoes when he made his first million. Maybe that actually happened, because he appears in the magazine with some swanky space-age boots.

Check out the full feature here. If you want to hear some of The Based God's music, his new mixtape, 'Illusions of Grandeur,' dropped today. You can pick it up via XXL Magazine.