Lil Dicky Teams Up With Mike’s Hard Lemonade for New Campaign

While he's been busy working on his upcoming TV show, Lil Dicky has teamed up with Mike’s Hard Lemonade for a special creative campaign. For this new partnership, the Pennsylvania-bred rapper reps the beverage brand in a hilarious commercial.

Dicky will also take part in Mike's “Deliver the Unexpected” sweepstakes, which consists of the "Professional Rapper" awarding one lucky fan with a fun-filled house party hosted by himself. Recently, XXL caught up with him to discuss this latest campaign as well as his forthcoming TV show and his music.

A former 2016 XXL Freshman, Lil Dicky has been focused on his upcoming TV show this year, which has been his goal for quite some time. While pitching his TV show to different networks, Dicky revealed to XXL that he's also been working on new music, and has no plans to rush his next project. His last project, Professional Rapper, dropped in the summer of 2015, so it's been awhile since Dicky fans have gotten new music from him. In the meantime, Dicky is excited to show the world his comedic abilities with his upcoming TV show.

The "Save Dat Money" rhymer spoke to XXL about his Mike's Hard Lemonade campaign, the new albums he's listening to and what's to come with his new music. Check out the full interview with Dicky below.

XXL: How did you partner up with Mike's Hard Lemonade?

Lil Dicky: It happened pretty recently. Mike’s Hard Lemonade was working on a campaign and they wanted to have a face to it and they reached out to my agency and my agency got to me and asked if I was interested. I kind of evaluated it like I always evaluate every brand and partnership: Do I enjoy the brand? Do I like what they stand for? And in this case, I did, so I decided to jump on board.

Tell me about the “Deliver the Unexpected” sweepstakes and what it consists of?

So we’re doing a sweepstakes sort of thing where I show up to people's houses and I deliver them Mike's Hard Lemonade without them even knowing. There’s also a thing where if you win, I throw a party for you so it's really all about having a good time.

Aside from the campaign and music, I know you've been busy working on your TV show. What's the update of your show and when is it scheduled to air?

There really hasn’t been no real updates on the show. We’ve pitched it to the networks, so now it's just in the "we’re figuring it all" type of faze.

Being that your focus is on this TV show, have you worked on any new music as of late? Or is the music on hold?

No music is on hold. I’ve been working on music every day. I started rapping to be a comedian. My whole initial goal was to be a comedian, so it's not like I chose to do a TV show out of nowhere. It's kind of always been goal to do a TV show. I’m not ever going to stop rapping. I love rap. I’m always going to rap, but this isn’t a surprise change of pace.

It’s kind of always been my plan to rap, get attention, continue to make music forever or at least unit I get too old to where people don’t care about my music. So this is sort of the start of my comedy career. So it's kind of the start of the other half of my career.

Since you're recording every day for your next project, is there a date in sight for the release of the project?

I really don’t know. I don’t have that answer. I probably assume some time in 2018. I've been working on it every day but I don’t have any interest in putting it out until I feel like it’s really perfect and amazing in every way. So to me there’s no real rush.

Who are some of the guest features on this upcoming project?

I have a few and you're gonna hate me, but I just like to keep those things a secret because I like the element of surprising people. Just know that I have a lot of big features on here. So I can't wait for people to listen to the project.

As of late, one of the biggest issues within hip-hop has been the old school vs. the new school argument and how both eras don't respect each other. What's your opinion on this? Do you think the younger hip-hop artists don't respect the OGs of hip-hop? Or do you think the OGs in hip-hop are making a big deal out of this?

To be honest, I see both sides in an argument, you know what I mean? Like I can understand an older person who loves the rappers who can actually rap be like, "Man, I wish there was more pure lyricism out there," but then again I understand the youthful argument about how much fun the music is and how cool it is. When I first started rapping a few years ago, I didn’t fully understand the new wave as much as I do now, and now it’s like I almost listen to the new music more than I listen to like the actual lyrical rappers, which is kind of ironic.

I like genuinely enjoy that type of rap more than I ever thought I would. I think people just have to realize that music grows and hip-hop evolves. I mean everything evolves. The key is to keeping an open mind, if not, nothing will ever evolve, you know?

You and Snoop Dogg have remained tight since working on your song "Professional Rapper." Have you guys linked up as of late or hit the studio recently?

Yeah, so I just saw Snoop recently in Canada. We were at a festival together and we hung out for a bit. We talked about the idea of getting back in and doing something, but I always like the idea of getting back in the studio with him and playing some music and just hanging out, but there's no real concrete plan for another collaboration as of yet, but there totally could be, but who knows. We're both interested in making it happen again.

Besides knowing how to rap, you're a true fan of the genre and always up-to-date on the new music tip. So who do you find yourself listening to nowadays?

To be honest with you, I'm listening more to SZA than anything else. I love everything about the album [Ctrl]. I love her voice. I love her perspective. It's one of my favorites this year along with the Frank Ocean album. Oh, and I can't forget about Tyler, The Creator's new album [Flower Boy]. It's really cool and very happy.

Behind the Scenes With Lil Dicky at the 2016 XXL Freshman Shoot