Lil B Subject of University Lecture

Arnold Turner, WireImage

There's little doubt that Bay Area rapper Lil B has become hip-hop's resident eccentric over the last year, but does he have a little more to tell us about our day and era? A professor at UC Berkeley thinks so. In a recent lecture, professor Geoffrey D. Nunberg swagged out a class of undergraduates by using Lil B as a core example in his 'History of Information' course.

The professor quoted Lil B's track 'Age of Information,' where he raps "the age of information has hurt the race." Lil B blames technology for slowing down human development by putting everything at one's fingertips. "Yea we're gonna be staying on the moon/ But there's still gonna be racists, so in the end are we really winning?" the song continues.

"He's saying the human race has not progressed as much as we should be," explains Nunberg. "How come the human race hasn't progressed as fast as technology has? We're going to be staying on the moon, but there's still going to be racists."

The professor views Lil B as someone that has grown up and learned to function, create and market himself in a new era where one's personality and life cannot be separated from online worlds and all they have to offer. Being one of the more prolific rappers as far as making songs, shooting videos and then spreading his content throughout the world without marketing help, perhaps The Based God can tell us a lot about how the world will experience information moving forward. He's not all just Bill Clinton and Wonton Soup.

To watch the lecture, head here, open "Lecture 2" and go to 13 minutes.


Watch Lil B's 'Age of Information'

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Phil McCracken

Who the **** are any of you? At least this guy makes a point. Rap can suck when its about killing, raping, heroin, crack and weed and ****. But then you get a song where people talk about some real ****.... Yeah well live on the moon but there'll still be racists....thats genius. Why cant the human race grow as quickly as technology has????? your tellinme that its about killing... And lil b... look... all his dumb **** has millions of views but when he posts somethiung real.... people dont listen... Lil B has that way to him....He kind of says: You guys look at me jumping around like a dumb ****** but when i post somthing thats quality..... you people dont listen. LilB mocks the human race and you guys bashing rap and calling it ****** mjusic..... have just proved his point.... LILB BASEDGOD!!!!!

July 19 2011 at 2:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jim Allen

California sure has to have the highest majority of goofballs in this country. To put this rap goon in a classroom shows just how far-out California is to the rest of America. They ought to shove the state into the Pacific Ocean.

January 30 2011 at 6:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
slyfox

Who are the racists??? Blacks vote for a man based 100% on his skin color, now thats racist. The race that has been affected the most by the recession and blacks still want to vote for a man who has done nothing to help his race. Just disagree with a black person and you are racist. If you take away a black persons welfare and tell them to get an education and a job, you are racist. Now we have a college professor teaching kids about a rapper who raps about racism. Get over it. Your ancestors fought and died for you to be able to do what you want with your lives. Do what most people do, get an education and a job and stop being so racist. Racism is not owned by blacks. The Chinese, Japanese and Irish were also slaves and beaten and hung. Get over it its a horrible past and times have changed.

January 30 2011 at 5:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kenhp1

I think there are other, more important lessons to be learned from these people. They promote everything from murdering a police officer to raping young ladies. Most normal people cannot understand the words due to the use of ebonics. The lazy, uneducated version of English that is not recognized.
I wish this professor would use this time to teach
how a Father should be in his child's life, that it isn't how many children you have, it is how many you can provide for, financially and emotionally. Why so many rappers have been murdered, kill, rape, pillage, and drain society for their own selfish needs.
Kids, please stay in school and make something of your life. Don't let this poison ruin your life and end up like a rapper, dead or doing time in prison.

January 30 2011 at 5:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
june

I didn't mean you soldier - I meant this story

January 30 2011 at 5:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
june

What A Joke..................

January 30 2011 at 5:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gurusoldier

Once again our so called intellectual based college society is glorifying RAP and the RAPPER Culture as if it really has something of value to add to our world. I guess it does if you are an inmate because RAP came from JAIL and it is/was the entertainment of choice for inmates who had no musical instruments or musical ability and it was simply a bunch of rhymes strung together to a simple beat and passed around almost the way a Blues song can be passed around with the exception that the blues was about getting out of a bad situation i.e. jail, poverty etc and how to live down their shame and RAP is about glorifying the inmates and how they are going to get over even better next time. What type of lesson has/is this teaching our children. We now have a full generation raised on RAP and now crime, violence and immorality is higher than it ever has been in our world, what can we expect from the next generation? God help us because it would appear that no one wants to see the forest for the trees!

January 30 2011 at 5:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
laedbac1

Rap is crap. End of story. God bless America.

January 30 2011 at 4:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jim Oshust

Who is this "LilB"? Some kitchen worker or garbage worker. A nobiody some overpaid, tenured idiot in another California college thinks is cool touse as an example of some kind of inane concept. Both of them should just go out and get a real job.

January 30 2011 at 4:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
cootmaroot42

Prince has spoken publicly against the internet/technology in kinda the same way as Lil B. I believe that some of it has become a major distraction and gets in the way of living a purposeful life or just living/experiencing life period. If there is ever anything that should not have been introduced or needs to go away, it's all the texting and tweeting and such. I swear, people can't put those stupid phones down to save their lives (and in a lot of cases literally).

January 30 2011 at 4:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

All the Lil B info

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