2 min read

Lil Dicky on 'Dave'

Lil Dicky on 'Dave'
Lil Dicky in the new Coke Zero Sugar commercials

We've been following Lil Dicky rise to fame since pretty much Day 1 at BroBible. We used to blog about every video he dropped back in the day, charmed and giggling at his sense of humor and refreshing relatability. Back when we had an office in New York City, we threw a meet-and-greet after one of his first shows at Gramecy Theater. Since then, he's obviously gone on to accomplish some incredible things as an artist and generational talent.

I got a chance to talk to Lil Dicky - real name Dave Burd - about his new Coke commercials. We also talked about basketball and Philadelphia sports.

I also got in a question about his show DAVE on FXX. Here's an excerpt of my feature, which you can read over at BroBible.

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I ask Dave about Dave, his eponymous FXX series.

Perhaps I’m projecting here, but the series strikes a profound chord in anyone grappling with their chosen path in life and everything that comes with it: Careers, ambitions, relationships, friendships, family, whimsy, anxiety, depression, dreams.

“It’s very generational,” I tell him, noting a personal favorite episode, ‘Ad Man’ season 2. It captures a very real energy for millennials circa 2012-2013, when a lot of us now old farts were just starting out in the postgrad workforce. We barely knew who we were, didn’t know jack, yet aspired for something more than the 9-to-5 slog, like a music career.

“I’m super proud of the show,” Dave says. “I think the best part of art in general is honesty. Like, I feel like when you can tell something is like true, it rings true to the viewer. The more specific you can get and still relate, you know? You probably didn’t work at an ad agency, but you could relate clearly because I was getting so specific with it. You know what I mean?”

“We do it in all types of ways,” Dave continues. “I love when there’s a hyper-specific story that I know no one on Earth has gone through, like that specific journey, but I have gone through something like that and I can portray it in a way that connects with everybody who has their own specific journeys. That’s a great feeling.”

“It’s been a very liberating thing, to make that show,” Dave says.

“I’ll never forget the first day, before we even shot anything for the show. We were doing a scene, day one of shooting season one, and it was like a scene with the young Dave, the kid, and like the parents. They caught him on the phone talking to a girl and they start berating him and questioning him about his romantic ongoings. Ad It was very similar to a moment I had in my real life. It was just like so surreal to see like an experience I had as a 13 year old kid be like, totally like professionally rebuilt by like 80 people, like on a set.”

“It was a super cool feeling,” Dave remembers. “I think in those moments I am able to sit back and be like, wow, I like this. I can’t believe like a little core memory or a thing that happened to me is now being artistically remade in this way that I am thinking. It’s really awesome.”