The highly anticipated Verzuz battle between Nelly and Ludacris kicked off at 7 p.m. EST on Saturday (May 16).
Sporting a giant chain, some shades and a Dominique Wilkins Atlanta Hawks throwback jersey, Ludacris began the festivities with, “It’s gon’ be a historic night! I feel the energy from around the world!”
As soon as Nelly joined, Luda mentioned 2020 marks the 20th anniversary for Luda and Nelly’s debut albums — Back For the First Time and Country Grammar, respectively. Although Nelly experienced some minor technical difficulties at the beginning, the back-and-forth went off relatively smoothly.
In fact, the slight delay gave Luda a chance to play some unheard music, specifically the song “Silence Of The Lambs” featuring production from Timbaland and Lil Wayne on vocals.
After Round 1 finally got underway, Nelly started off with “Na-NaNa-Na” featuring Jaze Pha and Luda revisited his Jermaine Dupri collaboration “Welcome To Atlanta.” From there, Nelly played “Tip Drill,” “Pimp Juice,” “Flap Your Wings,” and “Ride Wit Me” featuring City Spud, among others.
Luda returned fire with songs such as “P-Poppin’,” My Chick Bad” featuring Nicki Minaj, “Ho” and “Saturday (Ooh! Ooh!).”
As the battle went on, fans noticed Nelly was in a really spirited mood, while Luda appeared to grow increasingly bored. Naturally, the jokes flew on Twitter.
Check out some of the best reactions below.
Sad thing is hes right…alot of rappers luda nelly etc their new shits decents definetly not like their break out shit but good even as they age can yoi even imagine all these garbage ass rappers of the past 5-10 years in about 20 or so their shit will be unbearable and they wont even be able to afford their writers at their expensive record labels and will sound even worse the future of hiphop at this points scary
no matter what i will always, always respect those artist who were here first. they pave the way for the new artist.
dont be hating. Nelly is alright with me.
Nelly will always be garbage imo. Fuck him! Fuck someone else! Fuck chingy! Vote for me as class president n I’ll put beer in the water fountains and cameras in the girls locker rooms! Woo go bob cats!