Talib Kweli has responded to Kanye West dissing him during his explosive Drink Champs interview from November last year.
In the 2021 interview, Kanye declared Common to be a “thousand times better rapper” than Kweli and then dissed TK’s lifestyle and rhyming style.
“If I be like you, Kweli, I’d be where you at. If you ask 99 percent of people, ‘Do you want to be Kweli or do you wanna be Ye?’ Most people are gonna wanna be Ye. I love Kweli. I never really liked the way he rapped.”
The NYC native said he isn’t too mad about Yeezy’s hurtful words as it generated a ton of buzz around his name and he still has a ton of love for his “Get Em High” collaborator.
“That was good time,” Talib joked in his own newly released Drink Champs episode with Dave Chappelle and fellow Black Star MC Yasiin Bey. “It felt like having a hit record out. The way that I remember that ‘Get By’ was out. It reminded me of what Kanye mean to the culture. The hat shit was funny to me — it was hilarious.”
Although, the Brooklyn native was a bit surprised by Kanye’s jabs because he was with him a month prior to the Drink Champs interview and everything was cool between them at a Dave Chappelle stand-up set in NYC.
“We on the group chat just laughing about the shit,” he continued. “So if you look at the moment, I had to have fun with it because I got a lot of love for Kanye. There was underlying context behind it.
“It had nothing to do with bars or baseball hats or none of that. He’s got a huge platform and I love him. That’s my brother… So this is all very conflicting and different.”
Elsewhere during the interview, Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) called Kanye West’s Graduation album a “Thriller moment” for Hip Hop.
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The Brooklyn rapper compared the impact of Kanye’s third album to Michael Jackson’s best-selling 1982 LP, claiming it shifted the trajectory of Hip Hop when it outsold (and, in his opinion, outshone) 50 Cent’s Curtis during Kanye and 50’s highly-publicized sales showdown in September 2007.
“It was so creative, it was funny … Graduation is like a Thriller moment that people don’t properly appreciate,” he said. “I always feel like they’re trying to hate on it ’cause he really sold a million records in a [week]. I don’t care what they say.
“It kept the record industry floating for at least the next five years and it helped them transition into this whole streaming model ’cause they were just sitting on cash. I mean, who performs like that?
“It wasn’t Coldplay, it wasn’t U2, it wasn’t any other genre — it was Kanye West with a beautifully, cleanly-produced album that was pure Hip Hop. I mean, ‘Barry Bonds’? What are we even talking about? That shit was out of control.”
No disrespect but how would you know bro lol
Damn Kweli lame AF for this. Ye straight up said he don’t like the way this n raps disses him and Talib his still on his nuts. Probably hoping for a beat. Crazy how Quality is a classic, nobody heard the new Blackstar album. Kweli was in my top 10 at one point, now he’s not mentioned at all
So being humble is lame??
Talib is showing a serious amount of love and compassion for his bro. He has never been the type to beef in public.
Are you stupid or living under a rock? It has to be either one of those because Talib is notoriously known for being a Twitter gangster and beefs with just about anybody who disagrees with him, including random people on Twitter. He all the sudden runs with his tail between his legs for the first time because of Kanye and it’s hilarious to see.
Better than being a real gangsta and tuckin in ya chain and calling another man to save ya ass right when u get tested ?? LMA0…
UNFORTUNATELY, WHILE I AGREE WITH YOU…THIS IS REALLY HOW MOST IGNORANT FOLKS WILL SEE THIS. THE NEGATIVE ANGLE ALWAYS CREATES MORE INTEREST.
It’s called maturity. What, you want Talib and Ye beefing over Ye’s off-the-cuff comment?
I’ve heard it…pretty d0pE. Lol y would he care when he raps better than Kanye? Go back to every article on this site ab kanye and the other “hiphop” sites u visit…its ZERO about music…jus bs info about his outside life and his opinions on shit…u more on kanYe nuts than Kweli….and kanye more on Drake nuts than them ho’s he hit….LMAO…take care buddy
What do you want Kweli to do? Ye isn’t going to win any battle unless Push is jumping in. Common and Kweli are closer than Ye and Common as far as friends go. Ye is going to Ye, what’s the purpose of responding?
Watch the Kanye documentary and see how he was sweating Blackstar trying to get on. They showed him love always tried to get him signed. Mos got him on Def poetry jam. He forgot where he came from and who was there with him. His first single was two words…