Neil deGrasse Tyson is breaking his silence surrounding his 2016’ rap war’ with B.o.B, fueled by the rapper’s belief that the Earth is flat, revealing his nephew wrote and performed it.
In a recent interview, Tyson said his commitment to the facts influenced him to respond to the rapper. “I engaged him publicly because, on Twitter, he was
citing, ‘If you do the math…’” he said. “You do not walk into my house and tell people to do the math and show that Earth is flat.” The Atlanta rapper’s thread spanned more than 50 tweets and centered on the idea that the government and physicists like Tyson had conspired to convince Americans of the Earth’s spherical shape. The 64-year-old jumped in with scientific facts, and a baffling exchange ensued between the rapper and the astrophysicist.B.O.B decided to take the beef offline and released a diss track aimed at Tyson called “Flatline,” according to Insider. “Aye, Neil Tyson need to loosen up his vest / They’ll probably write that man one hell of a check,” he rapped. What many people didn’t expect was for Tyson to hit back by releasing a response track titled “Flat To Fact,” for which he enlisted the help of his nephew.
The track, however, did feature a few direct shots from Tyson in the intro. “Flat Earth is a problem only when people in charge think that way. No law stops you from regressively basking in it,” he said. In a perceived victory for Tyson, B.O.B has since retracted his statement on the flat earth theory, according to Insider. The rapper told TMZ last year he would take the scientist’s word for it. “Neil Tyson said it’s an oval, let’s just go with that for now,” he said.