When Odd Future leader Tyler, The Creator released “Yonkers”, the first single from his forthcoming album Goblin, he did what he has done many times before: fire shots at some very visible and successful targets. But this time Tyler’s lyrical barbs offended someone enough for them to respond.
With the line, “I’ll crash that fucking airplane that that f—-t n—a Bob is in,” (which referred to B.o.B.’s hit single “Airplanes”) the young California rapper appeared to really get under B.o.B.’s skin. It even provoked Bob to release a diss track in response, “No Future.” But now B.o.B. seems to have cooled off a bit and is taking the Tyler line in stride and chalking it up to being part of a long Hip Hop tradition.
The Atlanta rapper spoke with The Source and explained, “When I initially heard the line I felt like it was some emcee shit. Honestly, there’s a side of me that’s an artist that’s like, “What? You saying my name?” But when you understand the element of it, you understand what the emcee mentality is. I felt like some people perceived it as a shot but I felt like people love to hate. When he said the line my fans weren’t coming at me like, “Bob he’s dissin’ you, he’s dissin’ you!” I feel like you can take it and make whatever you want to make out of it. I don’t harbor any negative emotion at all. And I feel like with Hip Hop now even if something is competitive, as long as it stays productive, and it’s raising the bar for Hip Hop music, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
