Lil B gave a lecture at New York University yesterday, where the self-styled ‘Based God’ dished out some inspiring words, learned advice and observations on ant colony hierarchies.
The Oakland rapper’s talk was impressively circuitous and all delivered with characteristic copious positivity: after coming out to chants of “we are not worthy” from the students, the rapper took on subjects as diverse as peace, respect and anxiety. Starting on war, Lil B said “It’s no honour in war”, before immediately making the jump to the natural world. “When I look at animals and insects,” he declared, to loud applause, before continuing: “You know I’m the first rapper to adopt a tabby cat”. Cue massive applause.
Pitchfork has highlighted some more choice quotes, but in among some lobbying against hydraulic fracking and his general contentment with paying taxes, he did drop a few musical hints. First was a heads-up for a “garage punk” record, entitled California Boy. Other than telling the audience it’ll be “for the rebels”, B didn’t reveal anything else.
Another tip was his claim to be releasing a song “with one of the biggest artists on Earth”. Again he kept schtum on who, what and when. In the meantime, get listening to The Basedprint 2, the mixtape Lil B released ahead of the lecture, which features the excellent, and relevantly-titled, opener ‘NYU’.
Here’s the full recording of the lecture, via Soundcloud, and take a look at Lil B on why he’s able to sleep at night below. As for the new cuts, we’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, Lil B, you tease.
