Neil DeGrasse Tyson Flatlined B.O.B.

This was the most unlikely rap battle in history, but here we are. We have been blessed with a rap battle over science between two people who can’t actually rap. Special stuff, really. 

B.O.B. isn’t here for facts. The world is flat and the government has cloning centers, according to the, um, artist? Whatever B.O.B. is at the this point, he is not a god damn scientist. Of course, he’d like to think he is. He’s fallen off the edge of the earth (absolutely intended) and has fully converted himself into a crusader for the ‘truth’ that contradicts factual science.

In his crusade, Bobby Ray released a track on Soundcloud titled “Flatline,” a reference to the earth being flat and also his forthcoming body bag delivered from Neil DeGrasse Tyson. There’s a lot going on in this track. Before even getting to DeGrasse Tyson, B.O.B. really took it upon himself to declare himself as a threat to the government’s secrecy. There are two flaws here. 1) If you’re just tweeting conspiracies and watching documentaries on YouTube about the free masons, you’re not much different than every college kid who smokes a ton of weed. 2) Nobody fucking listens to you, B.O.B.. You are not a threat to the government; they’re as ignorant to you as you are to the earth being round.

Furthermore, B.O.B. goes on to say “voice, voice, do I have a voice?” as if he is fully aware that this track is just him yelling at a wall. At best, the lyrics here are a conversation he had with a few of his pals while he was stoned on his couch. It’s cool, man. We’ve all been there, we’ve all had that talk. It doesn’t need to be a song, though.

But wait, there’s more! A few times, B.O.B. goes off track and lists off tangential conspiracies or entirely unrelated  conspiracies. He starts off with NASA being part of the defense department, which has a bit of relation, but then he goes on to talk about David Irving, a holocaust denier, and, though it isn’t a conspiracy, blurts out that Stalin was worse than Hitler. These are the parts of the conversation with your pals where you go “holy shit!” for just a second, then someone has to pull you back into the deep conversation about space and time and where the plug is.

Best of all, half of the song is a clip of DeGrasse Tyson explaining that the earth is not 100% round. The thing is, Tyson still explains the earth is spherical, even if it is not perfect. Somehow, someway, B.O.B. takes that as enough validation for saying the earth is entirely flat. Not sure how or where his reasoning makes sense, but hey, more power to him.

Something special happened after Flatline dropped. Word got to DeGrasse Tyson and he was NOT having it. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is so damn serious about his science that he was more offended that Bobby Ray took a shot at scientific fact than he was at the personal shot. Tyson knew he had to respond, but he couldn’t do it on his own. Being the brilliant man he is, DeGrasse Tyson called upon his rapping nephew, Tyson. The product of DeGrasse Tyson’s frustration and Tyson’s ability was beautiful.

The duo came back at B.O.B. with “Flat to Fact,” a malicious, fact sprinkled diss track over Drake’s “Back to Back” with just enough nerdiness and DeGrasse Tyson to put Bobby Ray 6-feet deep into his flat earth. B.O.B. took it fairly easy with his personal shots, but Tyson came with the HEAT. Every other line is a nasty jab to B.O.B.’s soul, then DeGrasse Tyson comes in with an absolute haymaker to silence the blabbering fool.

After all the jabs at Bobby Ray, a whack Strange Clouds reference included, DeGrasse Tyson tells B.O.B. his thought process is outdated by about half a millennium. And thus, Bobby Ray flatlined, bringing this fiasco between science and conspiracy full circle.