Universities have been very open to hip-hop acts recently with artists like Lil B and Killer Mike lecturing at some the United States' finest institutes of higher education including MIT and NYU. Last week, Harvard invited Chicago's Chance The Rapper to speak at their Hiphop Archive & Research Institute. Chance touched on a variety of important and relevant topics related to his own music and world around him including Kanye West, the protests in Baltimore and how TIDAL compares to other streaming services.
He first touched on TIDAL and how the concept is good, but the execution thus far has been poor. Almost like the concept of communism - an egalitarian society where everyone is equal - but in practice that just doesn't work.
"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 sh*t. At the end of the day, all these streaming services are whack as f*ck."
He sings the praises of Soundcloud, noting that it is great for artists and has helpful tools to help measure your success.
"You get the craziest metrics that anybody can offer you: sex, age, region of the world these people live in, a very detailed account of who's your fan and what they like. One of the coolest things that they have is this thing where you can change the music that you upload. You can randomly change the music that's playing and keep all the same information right there."
He said he commends Kanye West for speaking his mind with purpose and being so passionate about what he does and how he does it.
"He's never speaking for someone else. He's just giving you his straight up ideas and his feelings on how the world works and how it should work."
He was posed a question about the current situation in Baltimore as the city still reels from the death of Freddie Gray and charges filed against the officers making the arrest.
"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.... 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."
Read a full recap on The Fader.
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