Even N.O.R.E. thought that his interview with Ye, formerly Kanye West, was “weird.”
Three years after the controversial Drink Champs episode, N.O.R.E. stopped by radio show The Breakfast Club 105.1 on Monday (June 30) and said he wished he’d “edited” more.
“We didn’t edit nothing until then, but Kanye’s was very weird,” N.O.R.E. said around the 25-minute mark of the video below. “I got secondhand hate.”
The rapper and podcaster added that he “felt responsible” for what Ye said on the show concerning police brutality victim George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020.
In the episode, which has since been scrubbed from the internet, Ye made false statements about Floyd’s death, even blaming his passing on fentanyl. The allegation caused a stir online, with Floyd’s family announcing a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the 24-time Grammy winner.
N.O.R.E. added that there were parts of the Drink Champs episode that were “edited,” one being a moment where Ye compared Floyd to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“He was like ‘What’s the difference between George Floyd and Martin Luther King?’ And we were all thrown off,” N.O.R.E. continued. And he was like, ‘Martin Luther King had bitches.’ And we were like ‘Aw, shit.’ We knew that had to be edited right there.”
N.O.R.E. and Ye have spoken “five, six times” since the episode, but after it “disappeared,” so did the Bully artist. However, N.O.R.E. plans to make a documentary about Ye, partly because he was a mentor to the rapper-producer.
“I thought he was listening to me at one point. He was asking me marital advice,” N.O.R.E. said, adding, “And then he would listen to me and then he would just tweet away right after that.”
After negative reception over the episode poured in, N.O.R.E. said Shaquille O’Neal and Pharrell Williams reached out to him, but when informing Ye about concerns that he was about to “lose everything,” Ye allegedly responded, “interesting.”
The podcaster added that if Ye wanted to be on Drink Champs again, he’d “accept him” and “won’t drink Hibiki” next time.
One of the remaining clips from Ye’s Drink Champs appearance is N.O.R.E. reacting negatively to his “White Lives Matter” t-shirt and remarks about Floyd.
