How FX’s Dave Puts Music at the Forefront
Lil Dicky’s Foray into Television Marries Contemporary Hip Hop with Traditional Comedic Storytelling
Note: This article was originally produced as a video essay found below.
Lil Dicky is among the most unique artists in hip hop, approaching rap through comedy and drawing in fans with unique visuals. Most recently, he took a stride into a new medium, co-creating, writing, and starring in FX’s half hour comedy Dave. The show focuses on a fictionalized version of Dave Burd and his journey in ascending to the upper echelon of the rap community and received universal critical acclaim. I love this show and although there’s merit in how unbelievably funny it is, I want to focus on how brilliantly Dave uses music to enhance the viewing experience and ultimately sets the show apart from the typical sitcom.
In conducting my analysis, I’ll give some background on Lil Dicky’s music career, the show’s development, and how music became the centerpiece of the show’s success.
Background
After beginning his career as a copywriter at an advertising agency, Dave Burd emerged in early 2012 as Lil Dicky with breakout music video “Ex-Boyfriend”, which garnered 1 million views in under 24 hours. He followed up the single with his first mixtape So Hard and YouTube tracks such as Russell Westbrook on a Farm. In 2015, LD dropped his debut album, Professional Rapper, boasting acclaimed hits such as Personality, Professional Rapper, Save Dat Money, and the infamous Pillow Talking. More recently, Dave released a couple of mainstream singles Freaky Friday and Earth, the latter enlisting a large group of A list celebrities such as Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. Rumor has it, a new album may be in development, but time will tell if that rumor will come into fruition.
His body of work is impressive and if you’re looking to get a feel for LD’s growth as an artist, go check out tracks like All K, Sports, and Club Night off of So Hard in addition to all the ones previously mentioned. It also should be noted that he released an EP in 2017 as Brain from the Pillow Talking Video. It’s largely forgettable but How Can You Sleep with a feature from the Game is a true banger. The last important piece to understand about Lil Dicky’s music career are the freestyles. His 2016 Tim Westwood appearance and 2016 and 2019 Sway Freestyles are can’t miss videos with the latter being among his most viral video to date. I’ll get into them more when we talk about the freestyles from the show, but it’s impossible to ignore their massive impact on his career.
As for the show itself, Dave is Executive Produced by Lil Dicky and Jeff Schaffer, a former Seinfield writer, executive producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and creator of The League. The show follows a core of 6 main characters, Dave played by himself , Ally (played by Taylor Misiak), Dave’s Girlfriend and elementary school teacher, GaTa (playing himself), Dave’s hype man, Mike (played by Andrew Santino), Dave’s roommate and eventual manager, Elz (played by Taco from Odd Future), Dave’s childhood friend and producer/DJ, and Emma (played by Christine Ko), Ally’s roommate/best friend/Dave’s graphic designer. The show follows the crew as it relates through Dave’s journey to becoming a respected rapper within hip hop. The group engages in a plethora of hi-jinx, such as planning LD’s first live performance at a young kid’s memorial service or crashing Justin Bieber’s house party. With the group at large, one central theme remains: everything revolves around Dave, despite how ambitious, unrealistic, or even narcissistic his goals for himself become.
Now that we’ve established the context of Lil Dicky’s career and the core characters, let’s talk about the 7th main character of the show: the music. Let’s break it down by analyzing it through the original and featured music used in each episode, his Jail performance in the finale, and most importantly, the freestyles.
Original and Featured Music
Utilizing music in television and film is integral in establishing tone and complementing emotional or comedic weight in a story. One of the factors that struck me in my rewatch of the show was how uniquely Dave executes this throughout every episode. What differentiates Dave from other successful sitcoms is how the music recorded for the show emphasizes Dave Burd’s personality and adds thematic depth.
Following every episode’s cold open, the show’s title card features a Lil Dicky original song aptly titled “Hi, I’m Dave”. The track embodies the personality of Dave Burd perfectly, enhancing the undertone of the show’s narrative of differentiating Dave as the “guy behind the guy” of the persona of Lil Dicky. Other original tracks featured across the show like “My D*ck Sucks”, emphasize Dave’s vision of breaking through with provocative and often outlandish music. Much like the title track, it’s a direct output of his desire for his art to be individual. It also undertones a lot of Dave’s character flaws, as his vision for himself often reflects his stubbornness and blinds him from how his words and actions are perceived by the people around him. Ultimately it’s this unending desire for fame and validation that leads to selfish behavior and pushes his friends away until his very last decision in the finale. Keep this mind, we’ll talk about this more when I get to the finale freestyle.
Above all else, the original music implemented throughout the show is intentional. While the show itself is a vehicle for Lil Dicky to achieve his real dream of becoming a comedian, he can’t help but flex the talent that gave him his platform to create the show in the first place. This intentionality extends beyond the music recorded for the show into the music from other artists featured throughout. The range of featured music draws striking comparisons to fellow FX rap focused dramedy Atlanta in how well the show is scored. From Phish to Baby Keem, the show features a range of genres, sonically enhancing the scenes in the process.
One final piece on the featured music throughout the show, is the cameo appearances from prominent figures within the rap community and pop culture at large. Cameos are a tricky narrative tool to pull off. Shows like Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm often employed celebrity cameos and while it often elevated plot lines in Curb, I always felt that Entourage used it as a crutch and disrupted the flow of the episodes. That being said, many of the cameos in Dave are well executed. Including music personalities like Young Thug, Gunna, and YG showed off LD’s legitimacy as a rapper and brushes with Justin Bieber and Mackelmore were hilarious and strengthened the audience’s understanding of Dave’s personality. The best cameo of the season goes to Benny Blanco, who steals every scene he’s in, proving once and for all that he is one of the most talented people alive. Seriously look up his production credits and tell me this man isn’t a first ballot hall of famer. One last note on cameos: Kourtney Kardashian’s presence was shockingly valuable. Her comedic timing in PIBE and chemistry with Dave was the most pleasant surprise of the show.
Now that we’ve talked about original and featured music and the cameos throughout the season, let’s talk about one performance that flexes why Lil Dicky became prominent in the first place.
Season Finale “Jail” Music Video
Here is where we really get into the meat of the show. I’ve mentioned the finale by name a number of times already, but strictly because I think its by far and away the best episode of the show. If you haven’t seen it, let me set up the context of the episode. Dave has spent the whole season building his brand as a rapper. He freestyles for YG, goes viral from the “Somebody Suck Me” challenge, performs live for the first time opening for Meek Mill, and after befriending Benny Blanco, signs with his first major label. However, this success doesn’t come without hardship. In the previous episode, Ally breaks up with Dave, tension builds between Mike and Dave, and we learn later this episode Elz is going on the road with Trippie Redd. With all this entropy, we dive right into possibly the most insane and ambitious sequence of the entire series.
What I love about Jail is Dave fully leaning into a caricature of what we know of him to this point.
It’s stylized similarly to Dave’s other music videos, seemingly a hybrid of the storytelling showcased on Classic Male Pregame and Professional Rapper and the absurdity of Freaky Friday and Pillow Talking. The song follows the story of Dave performing at a club seemingly in the zone and after a song, threatens to show the audience his Lil D. The crowd chants to see it, and after second thought, Dave compromises and shows them his nuts. They cheer and the scene cuts to the concert’s conclusion, where Dave walks off stage only to be confronted by the police and arrested for public nudity. It transitions to a courtroom, where after testimonies from kids in the crowd, Dave is sentenced to 2 years in prison. The rest of the video details the beginning of his time in Jail, meeting his cellmate, picking a gang to join, and balling out in a pickup game, only to be left without the support of a gang. He is confronted by the leader of one of the gangs and well, I’ll leave you to watch the rest. The story reaches its climax and the label interrupts to shut down the single on the basis of racist depictions of prison and overall insensitivity. Dave pushes back, citing the song moves into a critique of incarceration in America and the song is over the top to underline the message behind the music. They ultimately refuse to release it, and the remainder of the episode deals with the fallout of their decision to censor Dave after promising to give him full artistic control.
What’s interesting about the inclusion of Jail in the series is how well it defines Dave as a character. In the world of the show, Jail is an utter failure, extenuating Dave’s flaws.
Jail is the byproduct of Dave’s relentless pursuit of provoking through shock and his stubbornness to maintain control over his destiny. But, as a viewer, it is the pinnacle of why we began watching in the first place. Taking a step back and looking at Lil Dicky’s real life career, it’s further proof that if well executed, anything can be a good music video. Whether it’s making sports puns, saving the earth, or just pillow talking, LD has made a career off embracing the absurdity of life. His greatest skill set is cleverly extracting humor while balancing complex rhyme schemes into a polished, well made video.
Dave as a show resonates because LD pushes the boundary of the expectations of a sitcom and Jail is an example of how incorporating elements common in the music industry translates well to other mediums. With this in mind, let’s tackle how the freestyles further this principle.
The Freestyles
Even if you aren’t as familiar with Lil Dicky, there’s a good chance you’ve seen him freestyle. Notable performances such as his Hype freestyle with Tim Westwood or his viral bars on Sway in the Morning, set Lil Dicky apart as a lyricist like no other. Within the show, we see 2 freestyles performed in the premiere and finale respectively. The choice to have them bookend the season feels natural to me and is the perfect method to display who Lil Dicky is and provide fan service for people like me who’ve been around since the beginning. I should note that technically, these aren’t exactly freestyles, as they most likely took multiple takes and were rehearsed ahead of time. The definition of a freestyle itself is up for debate these days, as most rappers have some bars prepared before they go hit the radio circuit anyways. But, for the sake of analysis, it’s best to characterize these moments as freestyles, as in the context of the show, they certainly are.
What’s striking to me about both of them are how they’re deployed in the three act structure. They are the climax of each episode they’re in and serve as validation for why we follow Dave’s journey in the first place. The premiere freestyle is the perfect example of this. Dave spends the whole episode running around trying to get YG to feature on one of his tracks. Given both Dave’s appearance and his lack of assertiveness, YG’s team walks all over him and curves him after receiving the money. He ultimately finds himself in the studio with him and takes the opportunity to prove himself by performing for the group and a live audience on instagram. And he SNAPS. Lines like…
“Looking like I’m straight out of Comic-Con, scrawny don
Hungry Ramadan, my momma wrong
She don’t think I got a job but I’m a make great cheese like Parmesan”
and…
“And my libido is scary like Magic Johnson near mosquitos”
…demonstrate his unparalleled breath control and lyrical ability. He blows YG away and within the show generates buzz and builds credibility. This freestyle is repeatedly mentioned throughout the show, and is only topped by what he does in the finale.
But before we delve into the finale freestyle, let me set up why this moment is crucial in the arc of the show. I view the entire season as a mirror of Dan Harmon’s Story Circle, his screenwriting adaptation of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. A quick tangent: Dan Harmon is the creator of the NBC cult classic Community and co-creator Rick and Morty, one of the most popular animated shows of all time. Here’s Dan explaining the structure of the story circle.
Dave’s first season follows this exact structure. The season opens with Dave waiting outside of a studio with a desire to prove himself. He’s insecure about his career and fearful of falling short of his lofty inspirations. The events of the season transpire and in the end of the finale, he finds himself physically in the studio for the Breakfast Club, one of the largest hip hop media outlets out there. He’s faced with a decision to either heed the advice of Mike, GaTa, and Elz or blindly give into his ego and choose to play Jail despite the Label’s insistence not to. Ultimately, he decides to take the advice of his support structure and freestyle instead. Thematically, this is crucial and it validates why there is so much focus on the group throughout the show: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is the central lesson Dave learns throughout the season. He cannot achieve his goals without the support of the people around him. By realizing this in the studio, he is metaphorically “returning home”, achieving the 8th step in the story circle, having changed. And then we get, what I believe is the highlight of the entire season.
The beauty of the freestyle is how well it encapsulates Dave’s journey . This is punctuated right at the end, when Charlamagne asks him what his name is. He stops, stares at the camera and the title card flashes Dave, marking the end of the season. This in my opinion is how we know the show succeeded in its mission.
I mentioned earlier that this show is about the guy behind the guy. We’ve spent 10 hours watching the struggle between balancing the fictionalized version of Lil Dicky and Dave Burd. We watched as Dave struggled to find footing in his career, creating provocative art and dealing with the natural consequences of it. This is the moment where Dave and Dicky have combined. By exclusively releasing outlandish music like Jail, Dicky failed in his commitment to his label and jeopardized his career. Meanwhile, his personal life is falling apart and Dave had been dealing with the fallout. By embracing his flawed nature and mocking it, he is staying authentic to both Dave and Dicky. The freestyle is exemplary of the synergy between them and his art thrives when he taps into both sides of his personality.
Beyond the thematic significance of the freestyle, it absolutely slaps. The bars are clean and he experiments with changes in his flow. I think its among his best verses he’s released. As a final note, Charlamagne is absolutely spectacular in this entire scene. It helps that this entire sequence is based on their real life 2016 interview, but the man really brings the best out of Dave, putting him on the spot. It’s a creative way for the writers to address LD’s criticisms directly and set up the freestyle beautifully. I love this scene and how its incorporated into the season. Here’s hoping we get more of this energy for season 2.
Conclusion
There’s so much more to say about this show. I didn’t even get to talk about Ally’s toast, the emotional backbone of the show and how incredible of a performance we get from Taylor Misiak. Also important to mention GaTa’s episode as well, expertly tackling the real life struggle of his bi-polar disorder and a raw and real depiction of the mental battles people go through on a daily basis. Dave is more than just a slapstick sitcom. It seamlessly balances the absurdity of life as a rapper with heartfelt moments of what it means to be human. Go watch the show and for more deep dive content, follow the links below.
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