He was born David Andrew Burd, but you might know him as Lil Dicky. The Pennsylvania native entered the world of rap from a much different direction: advertising. After attending University of Richmond, Dave landed a job at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, a prestigious advertising agency. After reimagining the monthly progress report as a rap video, the company put him in their creative department, but the flame had already been lit. In 2011, Lil Dicky began working his debut mixtape, ‘So Hard.’ It took two years to finish, since he was still working his day job, and in 2013, he begam to release a song a week. In April 2013, he released the music video for ‘Ex-Boyfriend,’ the tape’s lead single. It received a million views in less than 24 hours. From there, thing took off.
His debut album, ‘Professional Rapper,’ arrived in 2015, and featured appearances from Snoop Dogg, T-Pain, Fetty Wap, Brendon Urie, and Hannibal Buress. Lil Dicky made it clear that, at first, rap was going to be his way into comedy, but he fell in love with the artform, and decided to have two concurrent careers – as a rapper, and as a comedian/actor/writer. The latter saw success in 2020, when Lil Dicky, along with Jeff Schafer, created ‘Dave,’ a FXX series that portrays a fictional version of Lil Dicky’s life. It received generally positive reviews, and was renewed for a second season.
