Ariana Grande received backlash when she released her hip-hop-inspired single “7 rings” earlier this year. Many critics pointed out the similarities between her flow on the track and that of other hip-hop artists such as 2 Chainz and Soulja Boy. In a new interview with Genius, 2 Chainz commented on the controversy and revealed his real feelings about the situation.
Grande’s track noticeably borrowed cadences from 2 Chain’z 2011 hit “Spend It.” The accompanying music video also took inspiration from the rapper’s pink trap house pop-up. “I want to say it didn’t bother me, but once again, you don’t want to get caught up into that, man, you’re petty,” 2 Chainz told Genius’ Rob Markman. “You know what I’m saying? Because I’ve thought that somebody has taken a little something out of my DNA before, and I haven’t said anything because I don’t want anybody… It’s supposed to be… what is it? Flattering, or whatever it’s supposed to be. But in this particular case, I’ve known her manager for a very f**king long time. You know what I’m saying? And I guess it was a lot of slack actually coming on their end as well, not just from me.”
2 Chainz also noted the other artists like Soulja Boy and Princess Nokia who claimed Grande stole from them. Princess Nokia hopped on Twitter shortly after the song was released and accused the Grande of stealing elements from her song “Mine.”
Despite getting off to a rocky start, 2 Chainz said he was able to sit down with Ari and get to know each other better. “I think that kind of changed everything because I started getting what was going on, having a clear understanding of what was going on,” he said of their face-to-face meeting. “She was more or less saying that, ‘Well, yeah, I thought people knew I took it from you.’ And I said, ‘Well, how would people know that? You know what I’m saying?’ It was just one of those things where I didn’t even know you were a fan of mine, and we built a rapport.”
There mutual understanding then blossomed into new music. 2 Chainz hopped on the “7 rings (remix),” and he invited Grande to appear on his newly-released album, Rap Or Go To League. “She opened up her mouth and a damn angel came out and I was like, ‘Yo, this little girl can sing!'” He recalled of collaborating with Ariana on his song, “Rule the World.” “And then I obviously did the remix for them while I was there. And she just was super excited about trying to put it out, clear the space or whatever.”
2 Chainz also teased a new video coming from the duo. “We shot a dope video and I actually have videos on the album that I’ve been trying to shoot with people and I can’t get things together, but it wasn’t actually hard shooting the video with her. So it’s crazy how stuff works,” he added.
So, there you have it – there doesn’t seem to be any bad blood between 2 Chainz and Ariana. Watch the full Genius interview in the video above, and stream Rap Or Go To The League below.