T-Pain thinks if Tupac Shakur were still alive, he would've gotten washed lyrically by today's rappers.
On Monday (July 11), T-Pain joined DJ Akademiks for a live video on Twitch and dropped a controversial opinion. During a conversation about how old-school rappers would fare in the age of social media, the "I'm Sprung" rap-crooner said if Tupac Shakur were still around to pop off the way he did in the 1990s, his legacy would be a lot different than it is currently. In fact, Pain is of the belief that by 2022 standards, the iconic West Coast MC's bars couldn't hold a candle to what rhymers are offering these days.
"I feel like, and I'm not gon’ lie to you, this gon’ be some bullshit," said T-Pain. "’Pac would've got killed sooner and he would've got his ass ate the fuck up lyrically."
When Pain was taken to task for his bold statement on the live stream, the Florida native doubled down on his opinion.
Pain continued: "Lyricism-wise, ’Pac would've got ridiculously murdered. ’Pac was a crazy lyricist in our time because ain't nobody else have no platform. If the platforms are what they are now, ’Pac would've got ate the fuck up … What we look at as ’Pac's greatest lyrics right now is peanuts to what we hear today."
With that, however, T-Pain did somewhat clarify his thoughts when he mentioned that he considers the late "Dear Mama" spitter to be a better poet than an MC.
"’Pac is a full fuckin' poet. ’Pac was one, if not the, one of the greatest lyricists at the time. But if we would've had social media back then and everybody would've had their opinion, there would've been way the fuck more disrespectful niggas at the time. Niggas would've been dying to be more disrespectful than ’Pac."
Ironically, T-Pain's comments come almost a year to the date of his comments calling out new rappers for all sounding the same. T-Pain made headlines for other comments he made in the same recent Twitch interview, where he said Chris Brown has a "princess complex."