Talib Kweli has had his fair share of beef over the years --- but it's his complex relationship with Kanye West that remains a hot topic of hip hop conversation. Last year, Ye' made headlines for his polarizing interview with NORE and DJ EFN on Drink Champs. During the sit down, the DONDA rapper slammed many of his closest collaborators, including Big Sean, John Legend and Talib Kweli. “If you ask 99 percent of people, ‘Do you want to be Kweli or do you wanna be Ye?’ Most people are gonna wanna be Ye. I love Kweli. I never really liked the way he rapped," Ye shared.
Earlier this week Talib had his own sit down interview with Drink Champs alongside Dave Chappelle and his BlackStar group mate, Yasiin Bey. He opened up about his thoughts on Kanye's not so subtle diss, saying, "That was good time. It felt like having a hit record out. The way that I remember that ‘Get By’ was out. It reminded me of what Kanye mean to the culture. The hat shit was funny to me — it was hilarious.”
Although laughed off the dig as simply Ye being Ye, Kweli admitted that he was a bit blindsided, seeing as though he was with the DONDA star just one month prior at Dave Chappelle's stand-up show in New York. He added, "We on the group chat just laughing about the shit. I had to have fun with it because I got a lot of love for Kanye. There was underlying context behind it. It had nothing to do with bars or baseball hats or none of that.
All in all, Talib says despite the highly publicized diss, he will always have love for the famed producer. "He’s got a huge platform and I love him. That’s my brother… So this is all very conflicting and different.” As for Kanye, he's taken his attention from shading rappers to slamming corporate fashion brands like Addidas and Gap.
See what else Talib had to say in the full interview above.