Metro Boomin has shared a photo of himself holding a card that reads "Russ Is Whack" on Twitter. The superproducer tagged Russ in the post before expanding on the thought in a subsequent tweet. "and by whack I mean whack in spirit.. haven’t heard any music to come to that conclusion," he wrote.
Metro also retweeted the Montreal producer Kizzy, giving some context to why he is speaking out against Russ. The tweet references a 2017 VladTV interview Russ did in which he blamed producers for homogeny in current rap. "I lost all respect for @russdiemon blaming producers for todays sound?" reads the tweet. "Like fuck outta here fam... you gonna blame metro, illmind, southside, sounwav, elite, dre, etc for all this? Sure maybe a specific person but not everyone... smh."
In the interview being referenced, Russ expressed his dissatisfaction with the current state of rap, but said that emcees are getting blamed when it is the beatmakers who should be held responsible. "People blame the rappers for the state of hip-hop, but rappers are not making the music. You gotta blame the producers," he said. "If a producer sends me a pack of 20 beats and they’re all wack and sound the same, I'm just fucked. I just have to pick the best of the worst. It’s not the rapper's fault."
Both a rapper and a producer himself, Russ went on to argue that the best beatmaking was largely in the past. "Look who was holding down hip-hop: Dre, Scott Storch, Timbaland, Pharrell, Just Blaze, Swizz Beatz. Real dope music shit. They kinda just fell back for their own reasons," he said. "I don't see Dre beats surfing around or Kanye beats... all the dope ones fell back! That's why we're left with this pedantic, everything-sounds-the-same 140 BPM shit. The music is what this shit is built off of. The people responsible for making the music are the ones to blame... If all the dope ones leave and all we're left with is C+ producers, after a while that C+ might be our new A."
Russ shared his new single "Sore Losers" shortly after Metro's tweet. It is unclear if the song's release is intended to be a response to Metro.