It became a popular trend among hip-hop-loving trolls on social media a few years ago to try and tear down Russ, whom many critics referred to as "corny" at the time. The independent artist outlasted all of the hate and he continues to be one of the most popular rappers in the world, and he's now comfortable speaking out against some of the rappers and producers who dissed him.
Appearing on The Breakfast Club on Monday morning (December 13), Russ spoke about all of the criticism he's received over the years, especially from other artists. When he got to talking about co-signs in the music industry, Russ said that he strived with the opposite of a co-sign as fans and artists were bashing him at every turn.
"The fact that I've been able to be as successful as I am with -- fuck a co-sign -- the opposite of a co-sign... a lot of people in the industry, there was a time when it was like, 'We don't fuck with you.' There's our co-sign, 'we don't like you, we don't fuck with you, you're wack.' You got Metro Boomin, one of the biggest producers who I've never even met posting something saying, 'Russ is whack,'" recalled the rapper. "I'm not even talking about the music, just his spirit... 80,000 retweets. It's like, dawg, what? That added onto [the "Fuck Russ" campaign] and, you know, Lil Pump saying, 'Me and J. Cole are cool now, it's Fuck Russ.' It's like, what the fuck did I do to y'all? Shut the fuck up. You're too grown -- not Lil Pump -- but, like, Metro, you're too grown to be doing weird shit like that. I've never met him, never had a conversation. So I just look at shit like that and I'm like, 'You're a weirdo' because at the end of the day, as a grown man who's in this shit and understands that we're all up against obstacles of even, like, self-doubt and trying to tackle this industry and we're already dealing with bullshit from the outside. We're supposed to be on the same team! We're not supposed to be starting mob mentality smear campaigns with our platform against another artist who we don't even fucking know. What type of shit is that?"
The tweet that Russ is referring to is from 2018 and it's actually still live on Metro Boomin's page.
What do you think about Russ' response to Metro Boomin?