Christ Dillinger & Acid Souljah: The Evolution of Based Negative Squad

All photographs shot by Louis Butler.

In the early 2020s, underground rap underwent a colossal shift in spirit and sonics. Post pandemic, rap fans were avidly online and spoilt for choice of increasingly niche pockets of music, with which to identify themselves with. Production advanced into new experimental territory. Lyrics moved further away from convention, embracing absurdism, internet culture, and unfiltered self-expression.

Among the artists embedded in this evolution were Christ Dillinger and Acid Souljah, two figures whose solo and collaborative works helped define a new generation of underground rap, where punch-in flows, fry-cooked 808s and obscure visual references became the new norm.

We spoke with the pair ahead of their Manchester show, another stop on their Based Negative Squad EU tour. Our conversation reflects on unreleased material, artistic progression, and why they feel increasingly misaligned with the current ethos in underground rap. Despite headliner Black Kray cancelling his appearance, the show still drew a wired and substantial crowd, a testament to the dedicated audience which they have cultivated over recent years.

After the show, we bumped into Christ Dillinger’s number 1 Spotify listener, a Geordie kid who was radiating in a state of his own bliss after the genuine warmth and attentiveness he’d been shown from Christ and Acid. It was refreshing to see such sincere appreciation from artists to their fans. They even offered him guest-list to future shows as a reward for his dedicated fandom of Based Negative Squad.

Christ & Acid in Manchester.

I remember in an interview, Christ, you explained how much of an anime fan you are. If you two guys were anime duo, who do you think you'd be?

Christ: If we were an anime duo, I think we would be like... Austa and Yuno from Black Clover. Those guys are sick. If you ever watched Black Clover, you'd understand. It's hard to explain, but they're a good duo.

If someone discovered Lil B for you today, what five projects would you tell them to hear and listen to?

Christ: Shit, I'm not gonna lie, that man has like 50 albums. I just listen to his music through his YouTube channel. His music's been taken off Spotify, so I can't even really tell you what albums people should go listen to because I'm not sure where a lot of my favorite songs fall on his albums. I do know that the I'm Gay album was revolutionary. That one was really good. And then his new one he put out recently, The Book of Flame. Red Flame and Blue Flame are classics. White Flame as well. So I guess like those five. You know what, though? I like Hoop Life. That was one I listened to a lot. Hoop Life was really sick.

Acid: If I had to choose five, you’ve got to listen to Blue Flame and Pink Flame. You’ve got to listen to Pretty Boy Millionaires, Hoop Life, and 05 Fuck Em. I think that's a good choice.

Christ: Yeah, Pretty Boy Millionaires for sure. Matter of fact, I'll take out Red Flame and put in Pretty Boy Millionaires.

Christ Dillinger in Manchester

Do you think the underground is in a healthier place now than, say, it was in the early 2020s? How do you think it's changed over the past like five, six years?

Christ: Underground rap? It's gentrified now. I think that's why it's a lot lamer than it was before. The underground is pretty lame right now, to be honest. It’s a lot of people making music because they want to be famous, and people that are just into fake shit. It's like underground rap is Canal Street now, and everyone's trying to buy a fake Louis bag. No one wants to just work hard and have a real Louis bag anymore. Everybody wants to buy a fake-ass Louis bag. So that's what the underground rap scene is like to me right now.

Acid: Yeah, like what Christ said, I feel like it's commodified and gentrified. I think that in some ways it's better, but it's not even underground anymore. Labels control all of it.

Christ: It’s people that are rich who were born in the suburbs, rapping about doing things that people really did in the old underground scene. Things that they had to do, and which would get them in real trouble. People are okay with listening to a rich white kid from the suburbs rapping about shooting guns he's never owned while simultaneously pretending that he came up, when he was going to inherit a million dollars from his family anyway, and none of this shit even matters for him regardless. People are okay with pretending. The underground is pretender music now.

There are a few spots of people who are authentic, though. People like YT and those guys, they're really authentic. I think Fakemink is an authentic artist. He's authentic to who he is. Or O-way, those guys are super authentic. Or Disobey from Spain, also 2016 Life. There are a few spots, but it's mostly just a bunch of Larp. It's Larp music.

Acid: Most shit is Larp, but there are still fragments of real stuff.

Christ: Larp music and larp fans. We have Larp fans now. It never used to be a thing.

How different does your life look now to the Spider Gang days?

Christ: When I was in Spider Gang, I was broke as fuck. I'm not broke anymore. I'm doing shows, and the fans that come to the shows look more like me now. There’s still a lot of Spider Gang fans at my shows, but you know, that was an era. Everyone has their own eras in this music shit of groups they were in, and then you kind of grow up and start doing your own thing more. I’m always going to have love for that era in my life, though, regardless. I’m not gonna lie, without Spider Gang, I definitely wouldn't be here today. I'm always very thankful for that era of my life. Without the people that supported me back then, I would have never gotten to this point.

Acid Souljah in Manchester

What about you, Acid? What does your life look like since early So Evil Boyz days?

Acid: Probably about the same as what he’s saying. I was broke as fuck, now I'm not. That was just the start of everything. It was real because we made an impact, and we changed a lot of things. But it wasn't completely real because it was all online and not in real life. Nobody had ever hung out or anything. BNS is a real thing that started in person. It didn't start on the internet or no shit like that. SEB was more of an internet collective because around that time, every group was spawning online due to COVID.

How do you think SEB made an impact?

Acid: I'm very thankful for everything with SEB, but BNS is basically SEB but real. A lot of the important founding members of SEB are in BNS: me, Chris2Eazy, and Seepy. We started it, so if us three are in BNS, it's like the same thing. We came out at a time when a lot of people were doing a very different sound to us. A lot of people appreciated that we weren't making what everyone else was at the time, like hyperpop, trap metal, or some shit. We were doing our own thing, based off different influences.

Do you guys have any desire to go mainstream, or are you happy with the situation that you're in right now?

Christ: I don't really think about things like that. I kind of just make music.

Acid: Yeah, same.

Christ: I'm not focused on going mainstream. I just make songs.

You guys have worked on multiple different projects now. Is there any one which was particularly fun to work on? Or any song that sticks in your mind as a pivotal moment?

Christ: I guess Family Guy. I think that was the first song that we did a video for. That song went crazy too. It's still one of our biggest songs, so that was a good moment. But also, just every project that we've really dropped together. Acid Christ and Based Negative Squad. Both of those came out, I think, two years ago now. We’ve got Based Flame too, that's more of a mixtape, though. We worked on all those projects for a while before they came out. It's 2026 though, so we’ve got to drop some new music low key. We have an album which we've been working on.

You spoke a lot about based revival and bringing back based music. Have any of the early based figures and pioneers spoke to you, or do you have any collabs or songs that you want to do with any early based artists?

Christ: I definitely want to make a song with Lil B and Cartier God. I’ve talked to both of them. I’m trying to think who else... I don't know. Kreayshawn? She’s based, she's from the Bay Area. It's kind of hard nowadays to define what based is. I feel like people took that shit and just ran with it, but don't know that based music is a genre which comes from the Bay Area. A lot of people don't even really know what based music is. They've got a skewed definition of it. There are people that think that being based means being a right-wing psychopath, and then there's people who think that being based means being gay. It's neither of those things. It got ran off with by all kinds of people. And then everyone on both sides was like, "Oh, they ran off with it." But both did. Based music is music from the Bay Area. That's where it originated with Lil B and The Pack, so it’s kind of hard nowadays to even point a finger on what's going on because so many people have gotten so far from the roots of what that shit is. But definitely people like Cartier God. Soulja Boy is based, I'd love to do a song with him. We've talked to Agoff. Who else? V Nasty is based. I have a song with her. Say what you want about V Nasty, but she's an original based character. People that are based, you’re not always going to like what they represent because they’re being themselves. It's impossible to like everyone. Even though V-Nasty be saying the N word and shit, which is low key not cool, she’s from the hood and be gang banging, so she’s gonna say the N word, and you can go tell her to stop if you want, but she’s gonna smack the shit out of you.

Acid: All the based legends for the most part, I think, are tapped into us. We’re cool with a lot of the OG based people. It'd be awesome if we got a song with Lil B or Soulja Boy, or Cartier, or Kreayshawn, whoever. Personally, the one based rapper that I haven't tapped in with yet that I really want to work with is Young God.

Christ: Young God is hard.

Acid: Young God is one of my favourite based rappers ever.

How do you feel when people refer to your music as meme rap?

Christ: I’m ok with that. I don't give a fuck. People like to throw labels on stuff. I don't even really know what that means. People just call anything that's different, which isn’t some corporate garbage, meme rap.

Acid: I don't really care. Sometimes people say that shit and it's like, oh, whatever. If you don't get it, you don’t get it.

Christ: In my opinion, I wouldn't even say that they don't get it. I don't take it as an insult. I think it's a way in their heads to differentiate between autotune slop and real music. A lot of artists like Gucci Mane, Bladee, or fucking Lil B, when they first came out, everyone was like, "Oh, this is joke music," but then time goes by and those are all the biggest artists that influence everyone. So lowkey, if you're being called meme rap, in my opinion, that's a title that means you're influential, you're next level, and doing some new shit. You're doing something that's going to be innovative. It's something different.

What can you tell us about new album plans?

Christ: I’ve got a new album coming out. It's my first album I've dropped since the one last year, which was There's Evil in New York. I worked on it with this producer named Rosalie Du 38 from Paris. He's my go-to producer on this album. I'm not going to say it's different because I feel a lot of people are like, “Oh, my new album’s so different,” but it's definitely me. I’m just getting better at making music, so this is going to be a better album than my last one. It’s not necessarily anything that hasn't been invented yet. Maybe it is. I don't want to reveal a name yet, but I've been working on it for two years now, and it's going to be something really special. That's what I'll say. I put a lot of effort into it.

What about you, Acid?

Acid: I'm working on my next full-length album. It's going to be the longest album I ever dropped. It's 19 songs. I've been working on it for about a year. It's the third part of Thank U Acid Soulja. I'm really excited about it. I got Christ on it, Swagzilla, Chris2Eazy, all of BNS. I’ve got some cool other features on it too. I think it's a good culmination of everything I've been doing for the past few years into one big project. A celebration, per se. I'm very excited. My focus right now is getting it out and getting everything ready for its release. I’m just looking forward to showing people what's been going on, playing these new songs live, getting the fans hyped for it and everything. I’ve been focusing on getting better at art, engineering, and learning new skills making music in general. I'm having more fun with it than ever, and people should be excited for what's about to come out.

Christ: I've got some cool features on my album too. I've got Miss Bashful. Then I've got my homies from this rap group called Disobey: Cybernene and Roomtrash. You ever heard of Gab3? Yeah, he's on there. I've got another song on there with RXK Nephew. I've got Acid on there. There are others too. I’m excited to do some shows after my new project comes out because I think these songs are going to sound really good in a live setting. Unlike my last few solo albums, this one's catered towards real life and not so much the internet. Even though it's always going to be internet music, this one just feels like something you could hear in a stadium. It's what I've been going for with my last few projects, trying to make a bigger picture. I’ve been playing the unreleased songs live, and I think people are really hyped and curious about this new album. Me and Acid also have a collab album that we're going to drop after. It's going to be our first collab album since 2023, Acid Christ 2.

Acid: That one's crazy.

Christ: Later on down the line, there's going to be another Based Negative Squad album also. That will probably come out the top of next year.

Acid: We’ve been working on that one for a few years. There's a lot of good features on there, great production. We've been very meticulous about it. We've gone and made lots of changes throughout the years as we've been working on it. We’re making sure that it's perfect.