New Rochelle, New York producer Scram Jones serves as one of a handful of artists who have come forward to share their belief that comments Atlanta artist Trinidad James made about New York rap may have rang true, but the rapper’s delivery was far from ideal.
According to Scram, he saw James’ tweets about the lack of New York rap on New York radio before he saw the video footage from his Converse Rubber Tracks show in New York. He says that he agreed with his tweets about radio, but feels the comments made at his show were disrespectful.
“I saw his tweets before I saw the concert,” Scram says during an interview with ForbezDVDPromo. “His tweets I agreed with. You know what I mean? He was talking about New York, ‘I wanna get there and I wanna put on the radio and hear some Dipset. I wanna hear some Mobb Deep sounding shit and y’all playing Future all day.’ That’s true. And I feel him on that, ya know? But then when I saw the footage of him saying, ‘If y’all wanna do something, do something.’ Like he was kinda pumping his chest a little out. That wasn’t called for. That was disrespectful. So, I feel Maino and all that on that.”
In regards to the “The Truth Will Set You Free” video James’ mentioned during his phone conversation with Maino, an artist who remained vocal in his criticism of James’ remarks, Scram says the video wasn’t the apology that was needed in James’ case.
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The beatsmith gave props to James for “speaking the truth” in the video, but revealed that some kind of apology should have been thrown in.
“He gon’ have to redeem himself better than that video because he kept telling Maino he got the video, but he ain’t know Maino was gonna call him,” Jones says. “He had did the video already and Maino expected an apology in the video and there was no apology. Like he should have remixed that video asap after that phone call…Even though he was speaking the truth he should have put in that apology like ‘Listen, New York you guys made Hip Hop. It would be no me without you. And I said it the wrong way. I was drunk and I would just say that if you got a problem with me telling the truth then I’mma hold my truth.’”
After proclaiming in November that the South runs New York rap musically, James’ comments were met with criticism from artists from his hometown of Atlanta as well as artists from New York. Southern wordsmith T.I. said that James’ doesn’t speak for all of Atlanta and doesn’t have enough years in the rap game to make such remarks and have them accepted without ridicule.
Additionally, Queens rapper N.O.R.E. referred to the “All Gold Everything” rapper as “a smart idiot” during an interview with Montreality.
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“His comments were actually brilliant, but his actions were idiotic,” N.O.R.E. said. “I get that fact, but you was aggressive. If he wouldn’t have said those same comments, I would have been like ‘Yo, this is y’all fault. You know what I’m saying? Boom boom boom.’ We would have been able to look in the mirror and been like ‘damn.’”
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