A deliberately outrageous rapper and musician who uses his skills to annoy homophobes and support the LGBTQ+ community, Lil Phag is the stage name of comedian, writer, and social media star Elijah Daniel. Combining lean, stoned beats with a delivery that's hard-edged and lazy at the same time, Daniel's music embraces the tropes of contemporary rap while filtering them through surreal verses that push the traditional sex/money/fame themes into unexpected directions. The early singles that won him a cult following were collected on his 2018 album God Hates Lil Phag, while he dug even deeper into humorous but confrontational lyrics with the 2019 EPs resERECTION and Antichrist. Elijah Daniel was born in Detroit on January 9, 1994. He was one of nine children fathered by an evangelical Christian pastor. Daniel developed a passionate interest in hip-hop music in his early teens, and when he was 15, his parents gave him a computer and he began learning how to make beats. Some of his work was used by local Christian rappers, and he insists he also created tracks for Busta Rhymes and Soulja Boy that were never released. When Daniel's grandmother fell ill and needed full-time care, he moved in with her to look after her; with a lot of free time on his hands, he began writing comedy material and posting it on social media. Developing a fondness for pranks, in 2013 Daniel launched an online campaign to make the Miley Cyrus tune "Party in the U.S.A." the new national anthem, which attracted enough attention that he received national media coverage. He began making videos with Christine Sydelko that earned their YouTube channel 600,000 followers, and he strengthened his own following with attention-getting stunts such as becoming honorary mayor of Hell, Michigan, for a day (his first act was to declare heterosexuality illegal in the town). In early 2016, he penned a satiric erotic novella titled Trump Temptations: The Billionaire and the Bellboy in a few hours (supposedly while drunk) and published it online. It sold well enough to top Amazon's sales charts in Erotica, and helped him land a deal with a TV production company called PRØHBTD. In 2017, Daniel moved back to his love of hip-hop by creating a new character, rapper Lil Phag. Performing songs that were part standard rap boasting and part over-the-top humor, often with a LGBTQ+ slant, he made his debut with a track called "Phaggot," which was quickly followed by the swaggering "Elton John." The latter was Lil Phag's first track recorded with Sam Fishman, aka Dr. Woke, who would become his main collaborator and life partner. In 2018, he enjoyed a breakthrough with the track "Clout 9," which included guest appearances from Bella Thorne and Tana Mongeau and racked up over four million plays on major streaming services. The steady flow of tracks Lil Phag had released in 2017 and 2018 (including "Four Loko," which was streamed nearly 1.5 million times) formed the basis of his first album, God Hates Lil Phag, which arrived in late July 2018. In July 2019, he returned with a pair of short EPs devoted to irreligious themes, resERECTION and Antichrist. Just weeks after the "OK Boomer" meme began taking over popular culture, Lil Phag and Jedwill offered their own take with a track called (of course) "OK Boomer." When not occupied with Lil Phag projects, Daniel and Fishman also record and release pop-oriented dance music under the banner adam&steve. ~ Mark Deming