Quavo reignited the “who invented the triplet flow?” debate this week with a bold claim that’s already riling up fans of Three 6 Mafia and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.
On Monday (September 13), the Migos member sat down for an interview with Taylor Rooks for Bleacher Report, in which he crowned his Atlanta group the undisputed pioneers of the triplet flow.
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When asked by Rooks what he believes Migos has introduced to the culture that other artists have copied, Quavo stated, “The triplet flow, for sure. Wasn’t nobody doin’ it before we came in and right now, everybody’s doing it. It’s a blessing.”
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He added, “The triplet flow, the cadence, the flippin’ it, whippin’ it. That’s what everybody love to this day… 2014, I was the most influential rapper.”
After Taylor Rooks quoted David Banner, who earlier this year claimed he’s watched “people jack [Migos’] style, jack the way [they] rap, then go on TV and act like they didn’t rip [them] all off,” Quavo expressed feeling a lack of recognition for Migos supposedly pioneering the triplet flow.
“They just don’t want to give credit,” he said. “You don’t want to come in being new and saying you took somebody’s style… or saying you influenced by too many young people, ’cause you don’t know how people will take it.”
He added, “When they come out and say different people influenced it and don’t say the Migos, I don’t understand how. Because even the people they naming that influenced them, I know for a fact we influenced them, too.”
At one point in the conversation, Quavo dished credit to another artist for helping to popularize the triplet flow — but surprisingly, he didn’t mention Three 6 Mafia or Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.
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“Only person that can really argue about the flow, like who started it or who pushed the influence, is Migos and Drake,” he argued. “Because he came in and got on ‘Versace‘ with us. I feel like that was the first time the world all heard the flow… Even before that, I feel like nobody else did it, nobody else used it.”
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Hip Hop fans who witnessed the style take shape in Memphis and the Midwest in the ’90s, however, had other thoughts. “Bone thugs + harmony would like a word,” one follower commented on Taylor Rooks’ Instagram post, while another wrote, “bruh ‘invent’ lmao took that flow straight from Lord infamous,” referencing the former Three 6 Mafia member.
The debate even made its way over to Twitter, with one fan chiming in, “Quavo needs to do his research on the triplet flow. There were groups like Three 6 Mafia and Bone Thugs that were doing that flow way before Migos. There’s a reason why they don’t get props for it.”
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Back in 2014, 2 Chainz questioned Migos’ claim to the title of triplet flow inventors. “Look at my car, how did it get on dem sixes/This flow come from Drizzy, he got it from Migos, they got it from Three Six,” he rapped on “Trap Back.”
In a follow-up interview with MTV News at the time, he elaborated by saying, “There’s a certain delivery that they brought to the game that people started snacking on. That was something that derived from a Memphis flow, period.”
Watch Quavo’s full interview with Taylor Rooks below. The triplet flow conversation begins at the 14:30-minute mark.
