Tyler, the Creator Addresses Rappers Who ‘Copy’: ‘They Just Ain’t Got the Juice’

Tyler, the Creator and Nardwuar linked up at VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, B.C., for their seventh interview in 14 years, and of course, Tyler had some things to say in the chat that dropped Thursday (March 27).

Nardwuar asked him about how he felt about all the Hip-Hop 50 celebrations, and Tyler expressed gratitude for being able to make a living doing something he loves. “I’m so happy that in some timeline that I get to be apart of something so special,” he said. “Hip-hop has changed so many of our lives, kept so many of us out of trouble. I’m so grateful for it. I’ve had my criticisms of it and all types of s—t, but that’s out of love ’cause man, I love music and hip-hop specifically so much. I’m a true student, I’m a true nerd.”

He continued by bringing up how much the Black Eyed Peas‘ debut album, Behind the Front, and Dr. Dre‘s album 2001 helped shape his ear and inspired him to write his first raps. “I love hip-hop, I love rap. It’s one of the most beautiful things to exist on Earth,” he said before criticizing rappers who get into the game to make a quick buck.

“We the coolest ever,” he began. “And all these motherf—kers want to copy us and do everything and some n—as be mimicking and mocking it and they just ain’t got the juice, ’cause they don’t really believe it [in their heart]. You can see it, man, some of these folks, man. They be like, ‘I fell in love with hip-hop on this day.’ I don’t know what that is because it’s been around me my whole life. I am rap. I am hip-hop. That’s all I know.”

He added: “Some of these folks, they look at this as a quick money-getting thing. They look at it as a commodity. They look at it just to criticize it, and, like, y’all ain’t grow up the same.”

Tyler has broached this subject before during an interview with Maverick Carter, during which he criticized Ian for biting flows and even rapped, “White boys mocking this s–t and y’all mad at me/ Y’all can suck my d–k” on the Chromakopia track “Thought I Was Dead.” Ian then addressed Tyler’s allegations in a Lyrical Lemonade freestyle earlier this month, rapping, “Back then, I really loved Odd Future/ I ain’t never sat down tryna mock Future/ I ain’t wanna show no disrespect, so I kept my mouth shut and that’s not human.”

Tyler then brought up some of the chatter he noticed online when he dropped his well-received “Hey Now” freestyle in December. “I saw someone say, ‘How Tyler just gonna take Kendrick’s song right after it comes out, and do the same flow over the same beat,’” he recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Damn, that’s somebody else who did not grow up listening to rap or hip-hop.’ ‘Cause if you grew up listening to rap or hip-hop, you know that’s f—king normal … You should have to do a survey and show your ID before you could say s—t on the internet ’cause folks be saying dumb s—t.”

Watch the full interview below.