It's becoming more commonplace for rappers to be granted University lectures, but if your name isn't Kanye West or Lil B The Based God, it might be hard to land a gig at one of the more elite institutions. Chance The Rapper recently broke that barrier, speaking at Harvard University's Hip-Hop Archive & Research Institute, which will surely host plenty of more musicians in the future.
Fader has compiled some of the best moments from his speech. Take a look at some of his thoughts on TIDAL, Kanye West, and Baltimore below.
On Streaming Services:
So the Tidal formula is awesome if it actually works out. It's a direct fan-to-artist or fan-to-supplier type of connection, but it's not really working that way yet. Everybody that was on the stage was like signed to a label and shit. At the end of the day, all these streaming services are whack as fuck.
On Baltimore:
I think it's really most important for everybody to be informed, to be connected to the situation. I always say like there's an act—when to be a hand or to be a voice. You gotta know when your Twitter is stronger or your body actually marches. Sometimes it's either/or, you know? But I don't want to dance around saying this shit is wrong. I think we all know that. It's very hard to watch it happening on a loop."
On Meeting Kanye:
I'm very selective about words when I'm writing music, but when I'm just talking, I might say some outlandish shit. Everything he says is on purpose and very calculated, and he feels exactly how he feels. I played like seven shows with him last year but didn't meet him at any of the shows. That shit gets locked down after the show because he's married to the president or something. This one time, Jaden Smith hooked me up and introduced me to Kanye…I just respect the fuck out of him, and I respect him much more after sitting with him in a room with no one watching and no cameras on and him being like, 'I care this much about how the world works and how your shit goes and I'm going to give you a full blown lecture, really loud, about how this shit works.' And I was like 'yeah, for sure.'
