Cardi B recently told Mariah Carey that in the Rap game, she believes that it's more difficult for women to navigate their careers because they're often unduly pitted against one another. Competition in Hip Hop is as old as the genre itself as DJ battles, Battle Rap, and diss tracks have propelled the culture, but some have complained that music executives, and other artists, often manufacture tension in order to boost sales. On a recent episode of Angela Scanlon's Thanks A Million podcast, a British rapper named Lady Leshurr revealed that she was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars to diss Nicki Minaj on a track, but in the end, she turned it down.
"I've always gone with how I feel here. There's only one time I didn't go with what was in my belly and it didn't go well at all. It was really, really disastrous, so I've learned from my mistakes," said Lady Leshurr. "It's all about integrity. Don't just take things bcause it looks good right now. What is it gonna look like in five years to come? Ten years to come? I felt specific deals that was offered to me, they would have fizzled out within two years."
"The first offer, massive, incredible amounts of money. I've never seen money like that, £250,000," she continued. "Offered a record label deal with Atlantic who just kept trying to persuade me to do a diss track to Nicki Minaj. I didn’t know Nicki Minaj then, like personally, we never spoke or anything like that. I knew of her come up, I've seen her journey, and I just thought she was amazing."
“I’ve never been the type of person to pull another female down that’s doing their thing. Just randomly. That to me is just so cringy. It turns my stomach thinking about it, 'cause some people do do that. Back then, there wasn't a word for it, but the word right now is 'clout.'" Lady Leshurr added that she's not the type of artist that needs to go after another performer for recognition.
“I just like to be in my own zone, in my own lane, minding my own business and doing what makes me happy, never trying to pull people down in the process. I felt it in my belly that time and I just knew this is not the right idea. Turned it down."
Do you think she made the right decision? Listen to her full appearance on Angela Scanlon's Thanks A Million below.