It's not uncommon to tune into Drink Champs and watch things go all the way left. While the podcast tied Yung Miami's Caresha Please for Best Hip-Hop Platform at the 2022 BET Hip-Hop Awards, the premise of having guests drinking on the show and spilling tea has earned N.O.R.E some significant criticism over the years. For example, the episode with Lamar Odom nearly resulted in a scrap between the former NBA star and the "Superthug" rapper.
N.O.R.E.'s interview style can certainly be messy but it wasn't until Issa Rae hit him with the nickname "Messy-eaga" that he realized his approach to journalism may have been slightly off.
On the red carpet of the BET Hip-Hop Awards, the rapper caught up with Hot 107.9's Lore'l who asked him about Issa Rae's moniker for him.
"She actually changed me. Issa Rae doesn't know that," he said. "I saw the nickname and I was like, 'You know what? I am becoming a little bit on the gossip side when I ask certain things.' It's not that I want it to be guy talk but I do want it to be sensible, you know what I'm sayin'?"
Though he does enter into that territory of gossip regularly, he said that he realized that it might be better off to allow someone like Yung Miami to handle those questions.
"I'm trying to do better. Thank you, Issa Rae, because that's what it's about. It's about me getting better and better at my craft," he said.
Elsewhere, he admitted that Irv Gotti is still upset with him over his Drink Champs episode. Watch the full clip below.