Birdman has cleared up any notion of bad blood between him and Lil Wayne following speculation that he dissed his adopted son at Essence Festival.
The Cash Money mogul performed alongside Juvenile, B.G. and Mannie Fresh at the New Orleans festival last month as part of a “Birdman & Friends” set, but fans were surprised and disappointed at Weezy’s apparent lack of involvement.
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Instead, the “A Milli” rapper delivered his own separate set after Baby and co. had left the stage, performing a medley of hits in front of the Young Money logo, which had replaced that of Cash Money’s.
Further fueling rumors that were issues between Wayne and Birdman, the latter delivered a pointed speech at the end of his performance in which he said: “I swear to God on everything I love — and I love nothing more than Ms. Gladys — I will never let my city down and be a pussy-ass n-gga for nobody.”
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In an interview with Gregory “Geedy P” Earls on Monday (August 5), Stunna set the record straight on the confusion surrounding Lil Wayne’s Essence Festival appearance and revealed that his solo set was planned.
“I seen n-ggas was talking about, ‘Wayne ain’t wanna do this and do that.’ Wayne wasn’t even gonna do Essence. I called my son and asked him to do it because I was doing Birdman & Friends. He did it ’cause I asked him,” he clarified.
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“We always knew that Wayne was gonna have his own set. Because me and Juvie and Geezy and Fresh, we rehearsed together every day and we had our own set together. But we all knew that Wayne was gonna have his own set. He was only a surprise guest.
“He had done Essence two years in a row and he turned them down personally, and I asked him would he do it for me, and he did it for me. Shout out to my son Weezy, man.”
Birdman also denied that his closing comments were aimed at Tunechi, saying: “No, no. I ain’t got the heart to say nothing negative about Wayne. I love my son, man. That wasn’t what that was about.
“What I meant by that is I ain’t gonna let this game play me. The game done played a lot of n-ggas. I ain’t never gonna be a pussy-ass n-gga to this industry and let them play me. I ain’t built like that and I ain’t gonna let my city down by being a pussy-ass n-gga.”
Lil Wayne himself addressed the drama shortly after the festival, albeit in more cryptic fashion.
“Funny story: I got hit up by somebody, somebody text me. I guess they had been at the show too long or something and they said, ‘You wrong. You know you should have came out. You wrong, Wayne. You had all these fucking fans out here. You didn’t come. You know you should have,’” he said in a video shared on Instagram.
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Wayne then shared his response to the message, coyly saying: “I’m like, ‘What you talking about? The afterparty or something?’”
The rap legend didn’t explictly mention Birdman or his former Cash Money labelmates, but he did shout out “all the artists that performed” at Essence Festival.
