8000+ Lil’s

Spotify now features over 8,000 artists with “Lil’” at the beginning of their name – from the well-known Lil Wayne and Lil’ Kim,  to Dutch favourite Lil Kleine (which actually translates as Lil Little).  It’s interesting that the seemingly macho world of hip hop seems to have embraced ‘little’ as one of its favourite monikers. In the past year, all these lil ones have made quite an impact on the music industry: being the names behind 33 of the top thousand songs puts the Lil’s at a 106% increase over the same timespan in 2017, and a whopping 725% increase from 2016. While some of this growth can be attributed to breakout artists such as Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Xan and Lil Yachty, legends including Lil’ Kim, Lil’ Troy and Lil Wayne have long represented the “Lil” prefix. Some of its popularity as a prefix may just be the result of the word “‘lil” becoming increasingly used in the everyday vernacular. But no doubt there are copycats who presume the success of the other Lil’s may rub off on them. And then there are those that understand that small is smart.  Smart, beautiful and contagious.

A short survey of artists using the somewhat less street savvy ‘Little’ shows there are also many thousands, going as far back as music history will take you. Not surprisingly though, Big, Biggie, and B.I.G. are still quite popular also.