WE D-D-D-D WE D-D-D-D WE D-D-D-D-DOING IT AGAIN

Today for your ears’ delectation is the first EP from J Dubulu in a year. It’s called hairstyle status and it is siiiiiiiiiiiiick. Anyone who caught his performance at the show we put on the other month will know how incredible this collection of tracks is. Stream it here and download it by clicking the sleeve below.

Fresh off the NDAS Press today we’ve got a free edition of So Many Teeth, the debut album by our friends from Staten Island, Davey Crockett. Click the sleeve below to download it, and if you like it you can get a physical copy of the record directly from the band for five dollars, which is apparently 3.09674223 quid.

For everyone who missed our first night on Monday it was approximately this fun:

STAY AWAKE FOR SOME VERY SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT THE NEXT ONE

EXCITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So on the 30th April at The Macbeth in Hoxton we’re doing the first ever Nude Defending A Staircase Recordings night featuring friends and fam. Along with NDAS mainstays J Dubulu, Singer/Songwriter, Right Angle Triangle, Pipeline Regime Hijackers and - as a very very very special guest coming all the way down from Edinburgh - M.O.T.O. we’ve got sets from the mighty Octagon Court, Amin-Ala-Mino (who put out this amazing EP with us the other month), Levy’d and the shadowy figure known as Scratch Prévert.

Over the last few years, Lil B’s unrelenting output has included tracks - such as Best Mom Ever - with genuinely heartwarming, candid guilelessness, and this attitude was vividly present in the lecture he gave at NYU last night. It is understandable that those who’ve only sampled a little of Lil B’s insanely extensive oeuvre might consider him guilty of chauvinism: sometimes his free-associative mode of rapping takes him to realms of unbridled machismo. However, he always ends up pushing the boundaries of such posturing to complete absurdity (as in his famed declaration on the classic Wonton Soup that bitches suck his dick because he looks like J.K. Rowling), and this relates to an entry I wrote last year about the difference between Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler the Creator in which I refer to ‘a level of ludicrousness where moral qualms go out the window.’ While with Tyler things seem more indistinct, Earl very firmly operates on this level, and this is a level which Lil B often also occupies.

When Lil B is being ridiculous he is fully aware he is being ridiculous, and he takes immense joy in being ridiculous because - and while he usually expresses this sentiment in a rambling manner (as is evident in his NYU lecture), it’s often clearly his impetus - he realises that the apparently pre-given societal norms which stratify prejudice are utterly preposterous and without justification. For Lil B, nothing which might divide people is sacred and so he cavorts provocatively in the margins of taste - whether he’s taking thugged-out braggadocio to its natural conclusion or baiting thugged-out homophobia by naming an album I’m Gay- to make a mockery of those who live by any sort of code aside from a code of unconditional empathy, aside from a code of ‘honesty, integrity, loyalty, passion, friendship.’

In Lil B’s lecture to NYU we find a man for whom ‘to respect women is obvious, yo’; a man who declares that there’s ‘no honor in war’; a man who commands that we ‘stop saying, black, white, this, that—we’re all human’; a man who is ‘the first rapper to adopt a tabby cat’; a man who has compassionate, socialist, egalitarian ideals which are testament to the fact that his resemblance to Jesus goes further than just looks.

I am very excited about his performance in London next month.

Here’s a recording of the lecture made by someone called Trent Walker, and a transcript courtesy of Duncan Cooper over at The Fader:

Man. I love y’all, man. I hope this table don’t fall and everything stays smooth. First off, NYU I want to say I love you. And thank each and every one of you, every beautiful person in the building, every legend, every historical human being. You know, every future legend in the building, man. I’m in the building with the future. Y’all going to be helping me when things get hard for me. That’s what I hope. I hope everybody leaves this conversation together feeling like family. This is not everybody listening to me, this is everybody is a part of it. If you feel compelled to say something in your heart, please do, because at the end of the day we all have something to teach, and we all have something to say.

I want to come to this with a story that I feel symbolizes everybody in the building. This happened to me two days ago. I’m going to the gas station and this older guy—he looks like he’s about 70. Me generalizing and stereotyping, I asked him, “Yo, excuse me sir, how you doing? What has changed for you in the last years? From like when you was younger until now?” And he was like, “You really wanna know?” And I was like, “Yes, sir, I really want to know.” And he was like, “You know what has changed?” And he was like, “Your attitude.” And that was deep, bro! That was deep! I feel that represents us all of us today.

I thank y’all for not judging me and being able to respect us being humans. That’s what we should all be able to do. I specialize in love. A lot of people wonder, the small majority who don’t understand wonder why Lil B would be here. But you know, it’s good. I love to spread love, you know. That’s what I’m here to do.

This is the big thing I want to speak on to set the tone: Nobody in this building asked to be born. You didn’t ask to be you, bro. I didn’t ask to be me. I didn’t ask to have this skin. I didn’t ask to be who I was, bro. Nobody in here asked that. The beautiful people? Your beautiful parents made you, bro. You didn’t ask for that. You didn’t ask to live where you live or anything. So when you see people, forgive them and accept, you feel me? You gotta open your mind and say, man, nobody asked to be born. Life is hard, kinda.

Ay, bruh, I love you positively. I love all y’all. With relationships and women and being together and everybody, man, it’s just like… It’s just real. I’m just happy you guys are getting the real me. No pen, no pad. I didn’t script a speech. I come here and all I can do is be myself and spread love. But with relationships and stuff man, I’m just taking it slow. Taking it easy. A lot of things are happening real fast and I’m just taking my time and respecting women, respecting others. I mean, but that’s obvious, though. To respect women is obvious, yo.

And a big thing I’ve been thinking about is the tone with a lot of people I meet and the media, I see it’s a lot of: If you get hit, you hit back. Why is that? Real recognize real, bro. You get blessed out of situations. I did that situation because I wanted the world to see that you can have a million stones thrown at you and you can still be positive. You know, that was kind of embarrassing. I had a lot of hood credibility [makes quotation marks in the air]. I had a lot of imaginary hood respect. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s no respect in being violent or a coward for no reason. It’s no honor in picking on people. It’s no honor in senseless violence. It’s no honor in war.

But at the end of the day, I look at animals and insects. You know I’m the first rapper to adopt a tabby cat. You know I adopted straight from the ASPCA, you feel me? Just breaking the boundaries, man, showing everybody it’s okay to be yourself. Embrace yourself. Embrace your health. Ayyy! Just continue to love yourself and accept.

I can’t lie, when I was younger I loved the media. I believed the media. I can say I was a product of my environment. You know, you grow up. I remember when I was younger, I didn’t know how to walk. I was so young, I was wondering how I was walking. Am I walking weird? Something’s in my butt? You know what I mean? But really so conscious, though. So hard on myself. And I say through time and love it’s just easing up on yourself, easing up on life.

It’s a lot of words people have given so much power. When I mean things to be specific, it’s that tone of you hit me I hit you. That’s not right. The new generation as I see it, how I hold my integrity, why I conduct myself in the way I do—people see me and they say, “He didn’t retaliate or taunt that man, and he could have.” There are people that love me. People were upset. But just because somebody wants to fight you for no reason, or because somebody says something to you, you can forgive that person. I’d be that guy’s friend. You’ve gotta move on and be positive. We’re way past dwelling. I spread that love. Keep it and don’t be hard on yourself with anything, how you look to your weight to wanting to complete what your parents want you to be. Don’t stress so hard. Pat yourself on the back. You’re at NYU. Congratulations. What you guys are doing is very brave. Everybody that is going through school, you’ve made a huge sacrifice. All the staff, all the beautiful students, everybody that’s here to teach. Shouts out to everybody that’s here for learning and love and trying to find their way. I mean, shit. I mean, shoot. We’re all trying to find our way. I want to thank you for embracing and accepting me, like really. I love you.

I want to show: have friends of all creeds, all colors, all races. Stop saying, black, white, this, that—we’re all human. Now I don’t know everything. This is my philosophy. But I feel like things are just generalizations. Drop all that. Stop giving negative words so much power. Instead of saying, “Hey, look at him, he’s black,” just say, “Hey, where are you from? What is your nationality?” Just take two seconds instead of generalizing, because, I promise you, I looked up what black means online, and black means something like coal, you feel me?

We all got problems too, bro, real talk. We all can have something that we can relate to. Make sure you can relate and have a common. And if you do feel too different, make sure you respect the people. Give people a chance to come in your heart. I know why a lot of people don’t trust people. You know why? There’s a lot of mean, bad people out here. A lot of people don’t have a value on their own life. They don’t have a value on how blessed we are to be alive. Our generation right here, we’re on a class of earth together. This is our class. All of us are going to be like, “Hey, remember 20 years ago when we did that?” Don’t be hard on each other. Let your friends have fun. Work hard and do what you do because we’ve only got one life to live. That is scary, you know. It’s scary and it’s really real, it’s really true. It just makes me appreciate people. Appreciate every single person. Look at them like a golden, million-dollar baby. Ay, bruh, I’ma tell you the real secrets of life, bruh. Ay, bruh, feel me, bruh, I got the real secrets. For real, bro. For real. Real talk: the secrets of life? Look at everybody like they’re a baby. Remember like, man, we’re young. Don’t be so hard on people. We’re just little baby insects or mammals or whatever. You feel me?

I tell you, bruh, I was looking at insects. I do my observations when I go out. If I become a neurosurgeon or I’m about to come into some bugs, I’m rocking. With the bugs, man, you just be looking at them. Because I was having these big ant problems in my house. It was crazy. And these are people in their own way, too. As I was studying these ant colonies infesting my house daily, I’m not kidding you, I left food out and 20 minutes later r-r-r-r-r and I’m like, man, they already know! They get it down pat! And real talk, like, seeing these ants and studying them and respecting them, it’s like, man, they’re in their own community too. They’re trying to survive. They love. They fight. They telling themselves something. We can’t understand, but one day we will. I’m trying hard to figure it out. I’m there with them. We’re very smart animals, you know, or whatever we are. Organisms? What are we? What do y’all think we are? Is there like a fact? Does anybody have any proof what we are? Live that life, experience it, travel, and come up with your theories man. Read the books, too, but experience your own. It’s crazy.

Some of the things I think about on the daily: I just want my people to be safe. [Audience member: “What you think about, bro?!”] Safety, man. And real talk, everybody make sure you wear seat belts, for real.

Man, I’m pro-caring. That’s a big thing we should bring back. Let’s bring back caring about each other, honestly, genuinely. Anybody can have their preconceived notion about me. They can be like, “I think he looks like this and I have my vision in my head.” But after the day, break that down. Look at me and I’m not what you think. Some people not even be thinking nothing about me. They might have love. They might look at me like a baby, like a little alien. Cuddle. Hold me. But, man, bruh, all this is is a positive healing. With this historical time together I want everybody in this building to know everybody is your friend here. People that love Lil B’s music and respect Lil B from the core, we’re about positivity and not judging, letting people be theyselves. Be yourself one hundred and one thousand percent. Everybody man, from the sides to the back to the middle to the sides, you might not even know people, but if you rock with Lil B music and respect me from the core, you should know that based means you have someone you can trust, because we all have a common courtesy. It’s about having empathy now. What I mean is really caring and paying attention to somebody else’s feeling. You gotta have empathy and know we all on this common vibe. It’s all peace. It’s saying, hey, you know what, you can hit me and I’m not hitting you back. And that takes a very big person to do that. If someone attacks you or your family, at the end of the day you do what you gotta do. But I’m saying, if you really want to be a bigger person?

I go to sleep and I’m so happy. You know why? I know I’m living what I’m talking about. I go to sleep and I’m like, nyah. On my bean bag like nyah. I’m making history and I’m living it and I’m honest. It feels so good to be honest. Honest as we can be. Nyah. Honesty, integrity, loyalty, passion, friendship. For real, man, that’s real.

It’s funny, you feel me, this is how I really feel. I’m glad I can come tell you guys and you can see my personality and see this is really Lil B. This is what he wants. Regardless of what anybody says, I want all of you to live as long as possible, have a great, healthy life, fun, full of adventure, full of mystery, full of trials and tribulations. Just going through and seeing things, being able to forgive.

Test your friends. See who really loves you. Remember that. See who will be with you forever. Just see. Take some time out for yourself. A lot of people miss communication. Friendships are such deep things that sometimes people tangle the friendship. People are like, “Well, I knew this person since I grew up, but this person’s a douche. You feel me? But I’ll still be his friend. But it’s like, we don’t agree. But it’s like, I have some weird thing in my head so I’ll still be your friend.” But be honest with yourself. Be around people who represent you, who you feel is on the same kind of monotone, you feel me? Who’s on your wavelength. I love y’all. Hopefully, everybody in this building is on the same wavelength, you feel me. You guys are very brave and historical and legendary, like I said, so I know everybody is on a wavelength. I’m looking at everybody and I know we could chill and we could have some good stories.

What are some of the things that y’all be feeling? What are some of things that y’all are going through? [Audience: “Family problems… sales tax… the cooking dance.”] You know we ain’t gonna pull that dance out man! That’s millions, billions! I’m feeling like Michael Jackson out there, whipping the wrist like br-br-br-da! But I’m too subtle now. We representing. I got this beautiful quilt. I would’a come up here in a suit so y’all could take me seriously. I take y’all so seriously. I take the based god seriously.

This is about me spreading my love to y’all. This is about saying how much I love you guys. How much I love being alive. How much I love human beings. How lucky we are to have this structure. Who built this? Tell me who built this building, please. Just going through New York you see just, wow, you have so much beautiful architecture. It’s so rich. When I look at the buildings, I’m like, dude, everybody is lucky. This might not be here forever. Anything could happen. Take heed, you guys are lucky you’re alive. Really, take heed. Can I hear you say, I’m lucky I’m alive! No, really, please, can you feel it? I’m lucky I’m alive!

Real talk: Don’t ever deny the voices in your head either. When you’re sitting at home alone, right, we all go through depression, anxiety. You’re by yourself and you hear those voices going wild in your head, in your unconscious, those angels by your side, your mental, your gut feeling, your heart. Listen to them. Let your mind tell you how you feel. Let your body tell you. Be in tune with your rare—this is a very rare thing. I’m like a robot. Hey look, tell your hand to do this. [Raises hand]. It’s like, man, that’s amazing! That’s amazing to me.

Hey, man, salute to all the beautiful doctors, everybody that’s researching and helping find cures. Salute to everyone who’s finding cures to diseaaaases. Everybody that’s aiding the people. The silent, beautiful American people that are working hard daily. Thank you to everybody. Honestly, a lot of people deserve to be where I’m at. There’s a lot of people that’s legendary, and to all those people I love you.

[Audience member: “Run for president!”] Ay, I don’t know man. But you know, I have nothing to hide either. I might run for president because y’all know everything about me. Look, my very smart NYU family, I tell you, I have nothing to hide and y’all shouldn’t either. Don’t let other people’s stereotypes or stigmas or words put you in a box. Don’t let that run your day. Don’t be depressed anymore. Believe in yourself. Sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror like, “Ew, really?” For real. I went to the mirror, man, I’m like, “Damn. How? How am I succeeding?” Y’all make me feel gorgeous, but sometimes you go to the mirror like, “Oh my god, I’m not that gorgeous.” But it’s all from your heart though, and that’s why you can always feel gorgeous, one hundred percent. To say “I’m not that gorgeous” is only a reflection of the media. You are gorgeous. I’m telling you. You are what you believe you are. You are a model. You are a rapper. You are a student. You are a positive person. Don’t let these words feel like you’re different. Nobody is different, I’m telling you, and nobody asked to be born. I’m telling you, bro, I’m telling you. I’m telling you.

Shouts out to Jay-Z, though. Shouts out to Jayyyy-Zeeeee, you feel me?

Does anybody have anything to ask me? I say this, though, out of respect: You see everybody raising their hand, right? Just me personally, when I’m driving, I see somebody raising their hand and my whole attitude of respect is to let this person go. That’s my reaction. You see somebody raising their hand? Here you go. Just that vibe, just that tone. We all got our hands raised and we all want to talk, so let that person talk and you’ll be next. I feel everybody can do it civilized.

I just want people to see the tone of respect I’m carrying, the love and respect I’m trying to instill for the generations. I don’t have no secret plan behind it. I generally want to bring back the people, all of us loving each other. We all human, we all people. Have fun while you’re alive. God bless, we’re all about to die some day. Be ready. I just want to say, humbly think about this. Our bodies are amazing. We’re all consistently—our white warrior blood cells, our red blood cells, everybody is fighting for us in our body and we don’t see. Salute to our brain and our cells fighting for us, fighting off those infections when you rub your butt and you forget to—when you’re writing a paper and you wipe your butt and you go to shake your partner’s hand. Wash your hands! Wash your hands! It’s crazy! I’m watching my hands all the time, shouts out to Sam for that.

At the end of the day, we can’t judge anybody. From the richest to the homeless, from the dog to the cat. You have to look at these things. I thank my car that I didn’t get into an accident. I’m like, thank you. Brand new. Nothing I drive is under 50,000 miles. 50, 50, 50,000, bro. Straight from Europe. I tell you, I’m Buick’d up. Toyota, whatever. We doing it. But like I say, I thank my car. Thank you whoever, whatever, earth, spirit, myself, people. I’m like, man, I got from point A to point B safely. Congratulations to everybody getting here safely, man, I’m telling you. And shouts out to New York for always embracing me. Always. Because, man, coming from Berkeley.

Being in this industry, man, you guys have got to watch out. In business, there are going to be a lot of people. This is crazy and I’m going to tell it to you like this, this is what I really live by. I run my business by this. You see a lot of people—and I cannot STAND these kind of people, I promise you—they’re like, “Ah, man, it’s just business. Business is business. It’s business.” It’s like, what are you talking about? Have some people love! What happened to humans? Everybody’s thinking about capital gains! Ay, bruh, I’m serious. I’m like, dude, I’m hollering at somebody because I do this out of love. I do this for free, for the love. Y’all make me. The people make me. I been giving you stuff free, over two thousand songs. Lil B. I’m around my business different. It’s business, but do what you love. If you want to do something out of love and the spirit, do something because your heart tells you that. Do something, not because, oh, it’s a business, oh, beat me in the business, I’m going to do this favor because it’s the business, I’m not going to pay attention to you because it’s the business, I’m going to treat you unequal because it’s the business, or I’m going to treat you some way because it’s the business. What happened to being a naked human being? Even though we’re not. We’re advanced now, like you see. It’s obvious we’re not naked.

Salute to the architects, man, anybody that’s designing things. Anybody in here designing anything? Salute to you, bruh. Build some of the next beautiful buildings. Thank you. So what’s everybody doing up in here? What you going here for? I know we got a lot of future legends? Congratulations! Salute yourself! Be happy! Talk about yourself! And you know on top, this is one of the best schools ever.

Salute to the generation and to all our kids that are just going to be friends. I can’t wait for all of our kids. We about to grow up, 50, 40, and we’ll be looking at people with no boundaries, no colors, no judgement. I’m a really do this: I want to have a place where you can come. It’s going to be like a city. You can come and it’s like, bruh, everybody is on the same wavelength of positivity. You see somebody? Let them go. Ask somebody how they’re doing today. I had to train myself to do that. I didn’t just become a happy person, you feel me. I had to train myself. I lied to myself for a while. I had to train myself, because I wasn’t always positive. I think I was so busy trying to be cool. Being younger, I was skinny and stuff, I was like, I need to garner my respect in the streets. I didn’t want to get picked on, so it was things I did that I felt were necessary. You grow up and you’re like, man, I was just so wrapped up. Be yourself. I was wrapped up in friends and wanting to be this and wanting respect. This was young. It’s crazy what goes on. You see the cool guys, or in high school it’s the bad kids. Everybody has their adventure.

I was a product of the media and my environment. I seen the people I like with gold teeth, and I was like, man, I want gold teeth. He looked like me and I wanted gold teeth. Everybody can get a grill in here. Everybody should embrace that. Get gold teeth! Don’t be thinking so hard, like, “Oh, man, I can’t get gold teeth.” Who is going to say what to you? We got love in our heart. We good people. Can’t nobody tell you nothing if you doing it from the love and you’re embracing people. Try to have fun and try to be as less ignorant as possible and meet people. I’m trying to set a tone for the younger generations. You can look how you want, but now you will be judged from your soul and your heart. Why I work everyday and why I love you guys so much is I want people to no longer, as hard as it is, to not judge somebody for the look but from their heart and their actions and their positivity and how much they put out there. Even if you’re pissed off, still stay positive. If you got a friend doing bad, be like, “Stay positive.” That’s the only way. Positivity, happiness, forgiving, forgiving, forgiving.

Forgiveness? Forgiving. I think that’s number one. Forgive and say, “Man, we only human. Man, nobody hates you.” We might feel that people hate us, and people do mean. But I go to sleep every night and I feel good, despite the hate every day and the threats. You take a deep breath and you know what you’re doing it for. We’re all searching life for how we can serve humanity. What are we going to do that we can do for free for the rest of our lives and feel good about? How are you going to serve the humans?

You know how I serve humanity? Spreading true love. Putting myself out there to be vulnerable, to be criticized, to be one of the most critiqued artists ever. They’re like, brrrr, Lil B said this at this time. Lil B is talking here. It’s beautiful, and I want to give this scarf to somebody too. And real talk, I want to give some books to the beautiful students that made this happen. I’ve got a few of my rare books. It’s love, bro. Shouts out to Seb. I see you. This is the first book I ever wrote when I was 19. We got the positive DVD in there. You already know me because you’re seeing me right now. You guys see my true core. It’s not sketchy. It’s no fraud. It’s no corporation backing me. I really love people, I’m really here for the people. I don’t care. It’s not gimmicks. I pick and choose what I want to do. I deny a lot of people and I love it, I stay rare. Nobody will ever work with Lil B and that’s how it goes.

I’m ready to die for the humans. I’m ready to die for positivity. I’m ready to be the poster. A lot of hip-hop artists don’t understand the position they’re in. They be like, “Bruh, I’m not a role model.” And me, I feel totally different. I feel like I am a role model, and we all are. We all role models. Without y’all, it’d be no me. As a role model with the power influence, whether it’s Twitter followers or friends, you always want to use your influence for positive things. Put down the guns. Please stop the gun violence. Stop the knife violence. The chemical warfare, let’s stop that. Biological warfare, let’s stop that. Who knows about hydraulic fracking? Let’s stop fracking! Hey, bruh, stop messing with the earth, bruh. Real talk, we hear about these deadly gases going on in the earth, and I’m like, whodie! For real. I’m like, whodie. Whodie, get that oil out the ocean, whodie.

I see what we’re living in. We were all born into something. You have to salute the humans before us, right. I have no problem and no animosity because we’re in a beautiful place. Imperfections, duh, nothing is perfect, but this is beautiful right here. This moment. We gotta be happy about something. Everything is not going to be right, but we gotta be happy about something right now. It’s continuous life living, continuous rotations of life living. Like I said, stop messing with this earth. I’m going to be going in and learning new ways to protect the earth. Trust me, I don’t even litter. I’m not a litterer. You see me and I’m not throwing trash on the ground. If I throw this trash right here, this is just adding for someone to pick up. This is just adding for some animal to get stuck in. At the end of the day, it all starts from you.

I had to take steps myself for people to believe in me. I had to be a walking light of spiritual positivity and a walking beam of love before anybody could respect that, you feel me? It’s a big thing like, people call me the based god out of respect. People aren’t stupid. People here are a high class of honor, and people from the highest class call me the based god. The based god came from positivity and love and from watching out for people. I take that with heed. When people call me the based god, I accept me, but I’m not the based god. The based god is better than me. It’s crazy, you know. It’s crazy. But we all got a hand in love. One by one, each and every one of us needs to keep living and embedding that positivity. Look at that person. They didn’t ask to be born, they didn’t ask to be who they are. It’s like, man, embrace their style. Look at somebody and be like, “Man, they’re unique. But how are we similar? What is our commons?”

My grammar and spelling and how I say things might not be technically what we hear or textbook, but as long as you understand me? You have to work as a human with empathy and love in your heart, staying positive and staying based and staying normal. You have to make an effort to learn about people. You have to make an effort at your job. You have to make an effort to care. When you care about everybody genuinely, when you look at everybody like they’re a million dollars, it takes a lot of energy out you. You give everybody a chance. This is the successful lifestyle of personal excellence. Success is what you see on the outside, but I live a life of personal excellence. People can look at a Bentley as success or money as success, but at the end of the day personal excellence is what you strive for. Everybody is successful, we all made it. Y’all are in college. But now it’s about going back.

I have no pride. I have no pride issues. I have no pride. I can’t be under as well as be on top, and that’s for the people. That’s why I never signed a deal. I’m unsigned. I have no record label behind me. When you see everything I do, this is me pushing my love. It was a lot of managers and fake managers that wanted to claim me, and you have to watch out for the industry predators, and predators in business. And sexual predators. We’ve dealt with that. It’s a very touchy subject and it’s very uncomfortable for all of us. Anybody who has went through hardships like that, I love y’all, and the best I can tell y’all is to forgive. Cleanse your soul and forgive yourself. Don’t be hard on yourself.

I don’t write my speeches. Any time I speak it will be from the heart. You can’t write down love. If I was a phony man, y’all could look me in my face, man. If I didn’t have love, and if I didn’t really care about the community and wanting people to excel—I want all of us as a human race to excel and stop being so hard on each other. Stop using separation. Stop saying, “Why are you dressed like that?” What are you talking about? Like, stop. If someone looks different from you, admire them. Stop thinking so hard about things. Have a light heart. Get lighthearted. I think that’s a big tone of what I pray for everybody in the building and in our anything-is-possible generation. Just be you. The anything-is-possible generation. What is based? What does based mean? Shwoo. Shwoo. Shwoo.

[Audience member asks about the status of The Pack] You know, I’m one hundred percent still in The Pack. We coming, man. Shouts out to Young L, Stunnaman, Lil Uno. We coming, you know. Naw, we coming. With me just making history, the people really wanted me. The people made me. That was my only reason. I been giving you guys free stuff. You don’t have to listen to me. You don’t have to watch me. I’m not on TV every day. I’m about to be. But right now I’m not. You guys are the beautiful people. You are the beautiful people for accepting me. My mom would be happy, and I really appreciate that. You guys have made me special, and in return you will always get my genuine love and consideration. I’m not perfect. I get mad sometimes. I deal with people that threaten me. I have to protect myself. Everybody know: Protect Lil B. Protect the based god. There’s only one me. I promise you, nobody has done what I’ve done in history. From being the first artist ever to release an ambient album in history with no cursing, Rain in England. Love is strange.

[Audience member asks about working with Lil Wayne] It was great. It was an honor working with Wayne. Me and him was in the studio man, I was really nervous. [Audience member: “I have a question!”] Yes, sir, I definitely hear you. Can I continue? Can I finish? Or do you…? Okay. No, no, this is just me being considerate. He is a man. It was amazing in that studio. Shouts out to Mack Maine. Shouts out to Birdman on the real, bruh. Working with Wayne and seeing how much love he had for me, to see him embracing me like family is so good. That ain’t the only track we got in store. And you guys are going to freak out, because, real talk, I got a song with pretty much the biggest artist on earth. You will see. Phwoo, we coming. I’ll let you know some history with me towards the end. Anything else?

[Audience member: “Do you like to paint?”] I definitely do, man. My mom was a painter. Ay, bruh, feel me. But you know what I do rock with? My favorite is watercolors. I’m a watercolors type of dude, so definitely collect some of my rare paintings.

[Audience member: “What’s your next step?”] Well, you guys are actually the first to hear, but I’m releasing my rock album. Pretty much. Regardless me selling platinum records or me going gold or nothing, I already made history in rap. Nobody has ever done what I’ve done. So with that, out of respect for people, I’m not just some joke. I’m not some rapper who’s going to make some joke rock album. This is going to be real respect. This is going some garage punk. This is going to be for the rebels. And the women and the ladies, we about to be having a real good time. But look out for my Lil B rock album, California Boy. We made history NYU because y’all are the first people to hear that. I’m shutting it down. It’s about to be a celebration for all of us. Thank you for believing me, because this rock album is about to go down in history. On everything.

[Audience member tells story of his mom crying listening to Rain in England] I love you. Thank you family. I love you man. Respect knowledge. If you see somebody with gray hair, embrace that beauty. Show the world that we are beautiful! That was me trying to get everybody to rally. Show the world we’re beautiful! I’m out here getting my Mitt Romney on. Show the world we’re beautiful! I better not talk about Mitt or you might not see me. What happened to Lil B? Lil B is in jail. Why is he in jail? Imprisoned by the government. Lil B made jokes about Mitt Romney at NYU and he’s in prison for some reason. But what was you saying about your mother? You just wanted to tell me that? I appreciate you, and thank you. I just want to tell her I love her, and I want to tell her congratulations for making it so far on earth. Serious, serious, serious. Congratulations to her and I pray she stays alive longer, bro. We all not going to have our parents forever, so I’m glad you’ve got her right now.

[Audience member: “Are you going to have your own clothing line?”] I’m not here to capitalize on people. I only do what I really love. I got full control of this. I know people want to buy stuff from me, and I know a lot of people are buying other clothing lines thinking they’re me. So anybody you’re buying, you’re supporting them, and that’s good. Support humans. I put out money. I spend my money in America because this is our money. I’m about to pay taxes, and I’m happy because of that. I’m happy. I don’t know what it’s going for, and I pray it’s going to the people. The government says that and I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. But, hey, look, anybody is smart and has some facts, let me know. But until further notice, I’m paying taxes and I’m loving it. You’ve gotta buy people dinner. Never deny your friends food. If your friends are hungry, at least give them food.

[Audience member: “What inspires you?”] You guys. It’s you, bruh. Being here, we could be brothers now. It’s good, regardless. And everybody, speak both languages too. Listen to slang. Slang is like learning another language. Be bilingual and go learn some slang. For sheezy! Brang dang dang. If you know some slang, rep that. You feel me? You feel me?! Yeah, bruh. Use swag, yeah, dummy.

[Audience member on Jay Electronica] That’s one of the only people in rap I’m listening to. A lot of people aren’t original. Shouts out to my bro Drake. My brother Drake, I love him. Everybody is rapping like him and I love him. I respect artists. You gotta be yourself. Let my brother Drake have his swag. Let Lil B have his swag.

[Audience member gives Lil B a Rap Genius T-shirt] Shouts out to Rap Genius, man. If anybody has any questions about my lyrics, I would love to spit a cappella. If you ever want me to decode my lyrics, if you ever have questions… Anybody got questions?

[Audience member comes onstage and bows to Lil B and Lil B kisses his hand] Salute to the family. I stay by that. That’s my brother right there. His hand is gold.

Alright, y’all, so we’re about to wrap up. I want to take pictures with y’all for Facebook and Twitter. Let’s take these rare pictures real quick and we’ll get up out of here. [Proceeds to sign a variety of sneakers, MacBooks and cooking utensils, and take photographs and shake hands for a half hour]

New release from the man, the myth Right Angle Triangle with a lot more live instrumentaschwan than usual entitled In On Dashun. As all of you loyal NDAS Recordings fans know, normally the dealio is you right click the sleeve to get to the download page, but today either tumblr or my browser isn’t allowing that for some reason so click here to cop this EP.

  A little over a week ago, I spoke at a conference at Warwick University on the politics of contemporary music. My contribution was framed as a response to a talk by Adam Harper, and I certainly incorporated ideas which had been raised in his and others’ talks during the conference - also speaking were Ben Thomson (a.k.a. UFO), Melissa Bradshaw, Dan Barrow and Neil Kulkarni - but I mainly riffed off ideas from Harper’s book Infinite Music which is really great and well worth a read. Anyway, I’m planning on developing my talk into a coherent article, but I just got round to typing up the notes and I thought I’d post them here. They’re not very refined (most paragraphs consist of one or two sentences), but have a wade through and you might find something interesting.

  In what follows, I want to sketch out a utopian scenario of - to use Christopher Smalls’s term which Adam employs so often - musicking. I’ll do this by considering the dynamics of the positions - two positions which I see as interchangeable and fluid - of he or she who creates music, and he or she who listens to music which might be termed politically modernist in Adam’s definition, which, if I understand correctly, is music which challenges aesthetic and formal preconceptions, and through this engenders a similar attitude towards societal norms, which is how I would also define modernism.

  For art to fulfill these ends of modernism, I argue that it should induce a renegotiation of the world through intense first-person experience, in a Merleau-Ponty esque challenge to overarching empiricist objectivity, which I think goes hand-in-hand with the ossification of norms. I also think that it should appear as useless to instrumental reason as possible, by being fundamentally incalculable, and thereby utterly alien to the dominant discourse. To reinforce the latter point with two examples of musical acts from the last century whose work is often talked of as political, Billy Bragg and AMM, I would argue that the music of AMM achieves this destabilisatory end in its ultimate incomprehensibility as according to any mode of reception allowed by the dominant discourse, in contrast to Billy Bragg, the ‘politics’ of whose music are accessibly expressed through lyrics, and thereby, while perhaps politically progressive in sentiment, can be easily co-opted as “one opinion” in the dominant discourse’s partisan co-ordinates (as an aside, I acknowledge the theoretical echoes of Adorno here, although I don’t think that Adorno would’ve been a massive fan of free improvisatory music).

  So, if we take these to be the defining aspects of art which might be termed modernist - that is an irreducible constitution which resists coherent interpretation, and the capacity to engender an intense subjectivity wherein everything is seen as freed from the manner in which it has been culturally coded - I argue that the position of the creator of modernist music is that of an explorer who might end up making that which Adam refers to as synthesis, alien styles or alien genres, but who essentially operates in the dark, intuitively guided, waiting to stumble upon something of which he or she is not quite sure. I by no means think that the resultant music should necessarily be as outre as that of AMM, which I think Adam would define as - at least contemporarily to the first album - an ‘alien style’, but I argue that this mode of operation allows for the incorporation and valorisation of that which, if one was working from a pre-ordained template, or with the intention of expressing something definitive, would be seen as error, which stringent instrumental reason would certainly disavow. Also, working primarily though intuition, allowing oneself to consciously be guided by nothing aside from aesthetic affect and multitudinous connotation, leads to far more attention being paid to those variables of texture which Adam discusses, to a greater extent than if one were primarily concerned with composing a certain type of music in a certain style for a certain purpose. This segues well into what I am going to say about the position of the listener, and the model of a listener which I’ll take is the listener of electronic dance music in the context of a rave.

  If the music is being created intuitively with just as much attention afforded to the variables of texture as any others, it will contain a sense of tactile palpability which invites an active engagement that - while experienced comunally in terms of a rave - is a deeply first-person encounter of the sort which I argued modernist art should induce. This is not, however, solipsistic, but instead - as I easlier posited - an opportunity to reconceptualise the world and see things as they are, rather than as they have been ideologically hypostasized. Thereby, it is in fact conducive to a new intersubjectivity. So basically this first-person experience is a profoundly subjective means to an intersubjective end.

  Now, having outlined the dynamics of the positions of the creator and listener of politically modernist music, I would like to return to an aside I made earlier, concerning the interchangeability of these two positions, to postulate the utopian scenario of communal collective innovation in musicking, wherein everone occupies the positions of both listener and creator.

  At the end of his book, Adam hypothesizes ‘a programme…able to create and represent any amount of basic or ‘built up’ structures of musical variables for the purposes of…composition and play them as a live performance in real time.’ This programme would be ‘free and easy to access…and…run from…portable touchscreen computers’ which would be ‘as inexpensive and recyclable as sheets of paper’ and passed person to person ‘like free newspapers do on public transport.’ Now, imagine a rave-space (preferably not a club, but a field or warehouse or another space in which the manifestation of raves so intimidated those in power before the criminal justice and public order act 1994 was instated) in which every person possesses one of thse portable touchscreen computers. In this rave-space, everyone is contributing to the piece of music being played on the speakers, all effectively feeling around in the dark: as music creators, intuitively altering the sounds, and as music listeners, being altered by the sounds. This might seem incredibly unrealistic, but I feel it would be the ultimate realisation of the radically egalitarian and revolutionary aims of musical modernism.

- Daniel Neofetou