Jay-Z doesn’t address many of his beefs these days, but the rapper got serious regarding T-Pain on New York’s Hot 97 yesterday (September 17).
Jay made an appearance on Angie Martinez’s show, where he talked about his latest naysayer, T-Pain, who recently dissed the Blueprint 3 rapper.
“I’ve never personally spoken to T-Pain in my life,” Jay says, echoing his opening line on Young Jeezy’s “Put On” remix where he admitted, “I don’t even know T-Pain.”
“I’ve seen him places and said ‘What’s up’ to him, but I’ve never spoken to him on the phone ever in my life.”
In early September, T-Pain reportedly went off on the soon-to-be 40-year-old rapper while DJing at club Rehab in Las Vegas. Rapper Fabolous recounted the incident on Twitter.
“Yo I’m at Rehab in Vegas.. T-Pain is DJing.. Sayin F**k JayZ, he old, blah blah.. guess its backlash from D.O.A,” Fab tweeted.
The morning of September 9, T-Pain appeared on the Ed Lover radio show to explain his outburst.
“I’m looking to see, if maybe in the interviews, [Jay-Z will admit] that he’s not talking about me,” T-Pain, who’s known for using Auto-Tune, said. “Every time [Jay-Z was asked in interviews] if he was talking about T-Pain, he’d say, ‘T-Pain is a talented dude’…he’s an icon. I’m trying to be where he’s at. Me going at Jay-Z…I could’ve been real stupid: I could have been one of these stupid artists. He would have just [destroyed] me. My dad always told me that the best way to get somebody to get at you is to talk bad about them to somebody else.”
Though T-Pain admitted to getting the cold shoulder whenever he tried to reach out to Jay, both T-Pain and Jay-Z shared the stage in New Jersey this June at Hot 97’s Summer Jam. During the show, Jay broke into “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” and T-Pain came out to join the rapper, even striking Hov’s signature arm-fold pose towards the end.
According to Jay, he had no clue T-Pain was going to be there.
“This is crazy, ’cause I didn’t know where T-Pain came from,” Jay told Angie Martinez the day after the show. “I look and I see somebody to my right and I swear I thought it was a fan and he was coming to hug me. I’m not even lying, not trying to be funny or take shots… and then I seen people move again and I look back again and think ‘Is that…’ I guess he wanted to get close… It was a little awkward and it was cool. I don’t mind sharing a little bit. He didn’t mean any harm; he was just embracing the record. I’m not saying Auto-Tune is wack. I’m not saying that. If people wasn’t feeling this way then the record wouldn’t work the way it would. The culture is bigger than the politics.”
When asked on the radio show today if Jay suspects T-Pain dissed him in Vegas over “D.O.A.” Jay says no.
“That can’t be the reason,” he said. “Because there’s at least eight interviews where I say I’m not talking to T-Pain, so the logic of it just doesn’t apply. So maybe he just, y’know, went out there and said something and he didn’t all the way mean it, and I’m cool with that. Let’s just move on from it.”
“You know what the problem was?” Angie replied. “When you came to my show the day after Summer Jam you said you thought it was a fan onstage.”
Jay, with a serious expression, said, “It sounds funny but it was dead true. I didn’t speak to him before. I didn’t know he was coming onstage. So I don’t know why he would take that personal. I just saw an image of something coming out the corner. I looked and thought it was a fan coming onstage. I figured the guys would tackle him before he got to me, and no one moved so that’s what made me look back twice. But he shouldn’t take that personal. If I knew T-Pain was coming, that would be something else. But I didn’t know.”
Though Jay claims he meant no harm with his assumption of the Auto-Tune king being a fan, T-Pain’s random guest appearance at Summer Jam almost became a running joke.
When Lil Mama emerged from the audience at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards during Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” performance, Jay could be heard telling the stage-crasher, “Oh, you T-Paining right now.”
On the show, Martinez told Jay she felt “bad for T-Pain.”
“Aw, come on,” Jay said. “We’re all adults, so let’s move on.” –Linda Hobbs