T-Pain has called out DJ Khaled for alleged disloyalty, deepening the tension between the former collaborators.
The R&B hitmaker appeared on the latest episode of Club Shay Shay where he was asked by Shannon Sharpe about what he’s learned after more than 20 years in the music business.
“Nobody is your brother. Nobody,” he vented. “Everybody’s your brother while they can use you. That is the quickest and most consistent thing that I’ve learned through this whole thing.”
T-Pain then called out DJ Khaled specifically, saying: “I’ve had fucking DJ Khaled and everybody tell me, ‘I’m your brother.’ Do not believe that shit!
“Like, DJ Khaled knows how to move, he knows how to do things with different people. But it’s not [just] a DJ Khaled thing — that’s just the first person I can think of.”
He continued: “You gotta think about how many people I’ve helped throughout their career. Everybody is like, ‘Oh my God, thank you so much. You’re my brother’ … And then none of that shit was reciprocated. None of that shit meant anything.
“When people tell you how much you mean to them, don’t grab onto that. When people tell you how much they can mean to you in return, that’s the shit you [should] gravitate towards.”
T-Pain and DJ Khaled teamed up for a number of massive hits in the mid to late 2000s and early 2010s, most notably “All I Do Is Win,” “I’m So Hood” and “Go Hard.”
But their relationship soured in 2013 when Teddy Pain began to feel overlooked by the We The Best boss in favor of another Auto-Tune auteur, Future.
“Future is on right now. Khaled deals with who’s hot at the time, so of course he don’t need T-Pain when he got another T-Pain. It’s not really a big deal for him to switch people,” he told VIBE in 2013 when asked about his absence on Khaled’s Suffering From Success album.
An Instagram post from T-Pain seemingly dissing Future over his “Bugatti” collaboration with Ace Hood only further fractured his relationship with Khaled.
“Future didn’t get mad … He ignored the whole thing … And then Khaled hit me like, ‘That’s what you doing?'” T-Pain explained during a 2021 appearance on Drink Champs. “I was like, ‘Yeah, bro. You said that [Future’s ‘Bugatti’ hook] was his and I didn’t have anything to do with it.’
“He was like, ‘Look back at the video.’ I looked back at it and I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t have a rebuttal for this.’ I was like the worst fucking friend ever. Khaled was like, ‘Take the post down! You used my artist in a smear campaign!’ And I was like, ‘[sighs].’ I kinda still stand by what I said.”
He added: “The whole thing was a miscommunication and that’s why me and Khaled, to this day, don’t fuck with each other.”
