The Internet went into a frenzy yesterday when Lupe Fiasco accepted Mos Def aka Yasiin Bey’s challenge to a rap battle along with King Los and Black Thought. The Tetsuo & Youth rapper was more than ready to charge into the war of words. However, Bey is putting a stop to the battle before the hype gets too serious. Find out what happened after the jump!
Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def, has called off his challenge and won’t be facing Lupe Fiasco in a rap battle. During journalist Ferrari Sheppard’s podcast “A Country Called Earth,” Bey officially responded to Lupe Fiasco by informing the general public that there will be no rap battle. The “Mathematics” rapper said that the video that surfaced which shows Bey’s challenge was nothing more than “barbershop” talk with his “around the way” crew.
“I see certain people, I have an opinion about them. It’s a private opinion made public I will say again, without my knowledge or permission or consent, so that’s a violation,” Bey told Sheppard. “I stand behind the statement, but at the same time, I’m not trying to arrange some sort of exhibition of that reality.”
Mos Def made it clear that he would “rather be filing paperwork at the post office” than participate in a battle which would contribute to the “Fight Night type of atmosphere” that Meek Mill and Drake’s debacle has ignited. Bey spoke on his opinion of their on-going beef.
“I want to take this opportunity to address this entire atmosphere that’s surrounding us. I know a lot of people are on it because of what happened with Drake and Meek, and they want to see another version of it; it’s just like another Fight Night type of atmosphere,” he said. “We are the only culture that this atmosphere has been constructed around. Some of that is self-perpetuated, but all of it is not self-inflicted. It’s threatening to turn the whole thing–or a fair portion of the thing–into some gladiator tournament.”
Bey also cleared the air with Lupe and claimed that there is no lingering beef between them. Listen to Yasiin Bey’s response to the entire situation below.
Battle rap is a part of Hip Hop. So let’s not connect any negativity to it Mos. Get you bars up.