There’s nothing like a good memorable verse. For rap purists, a stellar set of bars is pivotal when examining whether or not an artist has that “it” factor to swim in hip hop’s turbulent ocean waters. BET’s Rate The Bars digital series picks the brains of legendary rappers by having them grade anonymous lyrics by some of their peers—young and new—before revealing revealing the artist behind the s.
Roc-A-Fella Records alum Memphis Bleek recently went on the show and shared his sentiments on lyrics by everyone, ranging from Jay Z to T.I. In the midst of the conversation, Tekashi 6ix9ine’s “FEFE” came up, and to say the least, Bleek wasn’t impressed.
“I don’t even know like “Why I did that?”/ I don’t even know like “Why I hit that?”/ All I know is that I just can’t wife that/ Talk to her nice so she won’t fight back,” is the verse Bleek rated, in which he gave a zero, claiming it took no creativity to come up with.
“That’s Cat in the Hat,” Bleek said, comparing the song to Dr. Seuss-level nursery rhymes. “There’s no creativity to that, it was terrible.”
Elsewhere in the episode, the Brooklyn native encountered Jay-Z’s verse from Kanye West’s “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix),” on which Hov famously boasted, “Bleek could be one hit away his whole career/ As long as I’m alive he’s a millionaire/ And even if I die, he’s in my will somewhere/ So he could just kick back and chill somewhere.”
As expected, Bleek gave it a perfect score. “That n***a ain’t lying cause I been chilling,” he joked. “That’s a 10 because that comes from the big homie himself and that was a love bar, you know that’s my bro.”
Watch the full episode above.