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2013 Pitchfork Music Festival - Day 3

Lil’ B, the infamous rapper, author, and Internet phenomenon from the Bay Area, has become known for touring colleges across the country. At every stop, he promotes the “Based Lifestyle” of positivity and love, and his time at MIT last Friday was no exception.

    

“The Based God” became the first guest lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to lecture shirtless. After covering topics like GMOs and workplace efficiency, Lil B opened the floor to questions from MIT students. They asked him about his feud with Kevin Durant, whether or not he identifies as a feminist, and how minority students at colleges can retain their culture. He even busted out a freestyle. The Fader transcribed the whole lecture, and we pulled some of the best answers and clip from Lil B’s lesson.

1: On Kevin Durant and if he’ll ever lift his infamous curse:

Thank you so much for bringing that out there. I do. I want to say, to answer your question: yes, I do love Kevin Durant, and I appreciate him, and I appreciate the NBA…If Kevin Durant came to D.C., would I lift the curse? Well, does Boston love D.C.? [Awkward applause] OK, so I didn’t just say something stupid. Everybody was looking at me like—I was thinking I said something wrong! But no, if he came to D.C…I would…uhhh…you know, me and Kevin—me and Kevin got a game to play. Once Kevin is off his injury from the Based God’s curse. I pray for the Thunder team, I pray for them.

2: Thoughts on Michael Brown and the events in Ferguson, Mo.:

There’s two things I feel about that, or maybe three. First, I don’t really know what’s going on fully, so I can’t make an educated judgement on it. These situations are propelled by the media. I am smart enough to know that these media companies have agendas, like Fox or something, they want to sell news. They know that race is something, we can’t just shave off the skin, so that will always get people racy. People are going to promote that, they’re going to propel that. “Hey, this is a white vs black thing or a brown vs green thing.” We have a lot of stuff that we’re making up for. Us as brothers and sisters here tonight. We have a lot of stuff from the past, prejudgements and stuff that we’re dealing with. We’re making up for our grandparents, people behind us, and people now. There’s a lot of people now, they don’t fully understand everybody. Everybody just wants to live safely, and not feel like they’re going to be attacked. We all live in the jungle, remember that, we all live in a complex jungle, a complex beehive. We need to know that working together behooves us and is way better than anything.

We’re trying to dig ourselves out of holes. What we thought was right, we have to reteach ourselves patterns of love, and what the truth is to you… Because I got white brothers, and I got white sisters, and I’m white, so it doesn’t matter. Embrace who you are. If you identify with white, or grey, or black, or anything, use that to your advantage. Say, “Hey, people think I look like like, these people are going to gravitate towards me,” and use that for love. Use that to uplift everybody, so you uplift everybody. Use what you have to your advantage. People look at me and assume what I might identify with. And I use that for love, to get the people that already identify with me, and more. And that’s a beautiful thing. There’s closed minded people that are like, “ok you’re black, I might go with you, I might understand you more.” Don’t even think of it as multi-cultural, think of it as truth. You want everybody a part of it, because you want that line. You want everybody’s soul, everybody’s viewpoint, what everybody thinks and what everybody feels. I want that soul and that honesty. That’s why I want to adopt kids, every different creed, and every different look. So they can have my soul, but look however they look, and people can judge them, but they make sure that they spread that love, and then push their own line of love. Be happy and embrace who you are—not who you are, because that’s a big label. I don’t have any right to say what you are. It’s about what you say you want to be or what you identify with. When I check in these boxes now, when they ask me my race, I don’t even know, I’ma put anything I want now. Realize that it’s people that love you, real people, people with gold teeth, people that’s fat, people that got dreadlocks, people that got spiky hair, somebody with leather boots, it doesn’t matter. I know that there’s so many people that love me. I know it’s cats that love me, animals. That’s why I’m behind this vegan company. I’m not vegan, but I want to bring awareness so that we do get closer and be more humble with the food. Because we have been separated from the hunting process, and everything that goes on. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t born into relying on meat. Live your life. I love all y’all so much.

3: On whether or not he identifies as a feminist:

Hell yeah. I push for the women so hard. This is some real, this is gon’ make you think. I feel like black people and women deal with the same type of propaganda. You see images on TV, things being promoted. Sex sells, but that’s a quick sell. What do you feel in your heart? Is that where your heart wanted to lead you? Is that where your art wanted to lead you? What propelled you to make that move? I definitely am a feminist to the maximum. I’m working to make sure that women feel protected as well as guys. For my next lecture, I really want to focus on awareness, and love, and being to yourself. I love women and I love feminists. Girls do have a legendary life. Women aren’t under guys. There’s a lot of propaganda that indirectly says women are down here.

4: On how minority students at colleges can retain their respective cultures:

Realize that we all are African. We all are African. We all are African. We all are African. You know what I’m saying? We all are African, and it’s love… We all are African. That’s what I had to realize. Once you realize we all are African, it changes up your mind. It’s a lot of propaganda that people have to deal with. You’ve always got to forgive anybody that didn’t have love before us and put out images of hate or separation. It’s about getting us closer, we’re not that different. But just realize, we all are African. Everybody got a vice against them, everybody got stories untold. I know black people that don’t want to be black, I know white people that don’t want to be white. It’s bigger than black or white. It’s a touchy subject but all you can do is love more. Use your team and your influence and all that power you guys have individually and keep pressing that love. Don’t let anyone stop that. be aware of predators and key words that might trigger. I hope to talk about that more in-depth.

5: On meditation:

I try to, I definitely try to meditate. I look at meditation like different things. Like being humble. It’s a meditative practice to be humble. That’s a big thing, going outside, smelling earth, smelling the smells. Waking up in Boston, looking out the window, you can’t beat it. At this point, I’m just so happy to be alive every single day. That’s how you want to approach life. You go outside and it’s very new. It could leave us at any time. I’ve never been in a natural disaster before. Has anyone been in a natural disaster before? [Audience member raises hand] Respect. Respect. Congratulations for making it. That wasn’t a joke, congratulations for making it through sir. We live, I’m living like, “Hey, nothing’s gonna happen!” No home insurance right now, I’m just living. You act like something can’t, but you realize, anything can happen. People from New Orleans dealt with that flood and the big hurricane. That is extremely traumatic.

 

Dylan “CineMasai” Green is a movie geek, hip-hop aficionado, and pita chip enthusiast. Find him on Twitter.

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5 Lessons From Lil’ B’s MIT Lecture  was originally published on theurbandaily.com