NORE's REVOLT podcast Drink Champs is one of, if not the, premium archives of hip-hop history. Most recently, NORE sat down with former Roc-A-Fella rapper Memphis Bleek, who held it down with some truly enjoyable stories from his run. In fact, he doubles-down on his position as the instigator of the Jay-Z and Nas beef, which ultimately leads to one of the podcast's most genuinely hilarious moments.
Explaining his own role in sparking Jay-Z and Nas' beef, Bleek takes it back to the era when it all popped off. "I was on fire at that time, feeling myself, nuts hanging in the hood," reflects Bleek, around the 37:26 mark. "N***a hit me like, 'yo n***as dissed you Blizz! The whole hood talking about it...[Nas] said 'I'll let a slug melt in your hat' or some silly shit. He wasn't talking about me! Come on! No, it wasn't about me!" By now, the laughter is already setting in. "So I went to the studio," he continues, referencing his "Mind Right" track. "I got him, and that was it."
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Straight faced, NORE attempts to make sense of the whole thing. "In your mind, you thought you could take Nas?" asks the Drink Champs host. "Yeah!" says Bleek, a sly smile on his face. Before long, the room's entire population is laughing uproariously, Bleek included. "Yo, what you mean!" he asks, his own laughter intensifying. "N.O. you a fool! Yo yo a fool! He said 'in your mind!'"
"I was ready for all the smoke," continues Bleek. NORE maintains that if Nas or Jay were to attack him on wax, he'd sit that one out entirely. "Then when he shot back, that's when Hov was like 'yo Bleek chill, I got this.' I was like 'alright big homie hold it down!'" Sadly, Bleek claims that "Ether" was a harsh wake-up call for the ROC boys. "It was like a body dropped," he remembers. "We were like, 'yo do we gotta get our gun and kill that n***a?! N***as wanted to kill Flex, stop playing that shit! It's real though, it's hip-hop. It ain't the fact that it was good or not - that shit just rang off."
For more gems from Memph Bleek, check out the full episode of Drink Champs on TIDAL.