Following Kanye West’s infamous comments about Big Sean on the Drink Champs podcast, Hit-Boy said he’s just as confused as everyone else.
In his Drink Champs interview last month, Ye said signing Big Sean to G.O.O.D. Music was “the worst thing I’ve ever done.” Sean has already given his extensive thoughts on what Kanye had to say, calling it “bitch ass shit,” and now Hit-Boy has told DJ Akademiks he was just as blindsided by the comments.
“Man, we just talked [with Kanye] before that Big Sean shit came out on Drink Champs,” he explained at the 20:15 point of DJ Akademiks’ Off the Record podcast. “That was confusing for me, because me and Sean was with him for two days straight and he had already recorded the Drink Champs so it was weird for him to not say nothing. That shit threw me off.”
The producer’s reply echoes what Sean said in the immediate aftermath of the interview, when he remarked that they had hung out the same day the episode went online. “I was just like, ‘Damn, that’s kinda interesting,’” Hit-Boy continued. “Man if I’m feeling that way I’ma just be like, ‘I don’t want you in my energy right now, I don’t want you around me homie.’ But everybody get down different, it is what it is. And he’s a billionaire, so I don’t know how billionaires think. I ain’t there yet.”
He reiterated that it’s “all love” between him and Kanye, despite a speech he gave at the King’s Disease II release party that seemingly saw him diss Ye. “But you just never know,” he added.
Hit-Boy has worked with Ye in the past, most notably on “N***as in Paris” with Jay-Z, but he said he wasn’t “stressing” about not working on Donda, determining that “honestly that’s not really my vibe right now.” Despite that, he said he would pull up for Kanye if invited to the studio. “It’s not something that I’m stressing about,” he said.
As for that clip of Hit-Boy at the Nas album launch party that some perceived as a diss towards Ye, he said, “I was just faded…I was just getting my shit off, n***a.” He also responded to a question about whether he “judges” West for working with a variety of co-producers on most songs, saying he loves Ye so much that he could never judge him for his process.
He said Big Sean was “blindsided” by the Drink Champs comments, and understands why Sean was somewhat bothered. “To be able to link with him and have such a great relationship and then shit turn into this, it does make you feel a way,” Hit-Boy said. “But at the same time, you gotta stand your ground when you know the facts about what it is. As far as me and Sean, we talk everyday.”
The producer also spoke about playing Jay-Z the beat for “Sicko Mode” before Travis Scott purchased it. “You know what’s funny? I played it for Hov [originally], and when it dropped, he was like, ‘Yo, I had this fucking ‘Sicko Mode’ beat, right?’ I’m like, ‘Yep.’”
Akademiks asked how HB navigates a situation like that and decides which superstar will receive the beat. “Honestly, I don’t really promise beats, my n***a. I just like, when I get paid, that’s who got the beat, you know what I’m saying? You not going to Saks Fifth, you not going to Neiman Marcus, and being like, ‘Cool, I’m about to get a few outfits, I’m finna wear these shits out, and then I’mma think about paying you later.’ Like nah, n***a, you gotta pay for this shit and then it’s yours.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Hit-Boy elaborated on when Kanye said he would stop working with HB because of a song he made with Beyoncé. “Honestly, to this day, I don’t know the ins and outs so it’s a little confusing for me, too,” he said. “When I was signed to him, I had did like a management contract. I was already in a publishing situation, so I couldn’t sign to him publishing wise which is what he originally wanted. So I ended up doing a management deal, where he was getting 20 percent of what I was doing regardless. I was working on ASAP Rocky album, I did a couple joints on his debut album. I did shit on Rihanna’s Talk That Talk album, I did [the] Justin Bieber and Drake song [“Right Here”]. All of this during G.O.O.D. Music, [and] he never ever said anything. And he didn’t have a reason to, ’cause he was getting paid off of it even though he had nothing to do with anything.”
Hit-Boy appeared pretty confused about the situation in general, even if things are good these days. “I don’t know, bro,” he said. “ Whatever the case was, he hopped into a mode, ‘Yeah, you working with her I’m not fucking with you’-type some shit. We was face-to-face when he told me this. … He said something like, he was upset that he didn’t know.”
Listen to the full episode of DJ Akademiks’ podcast above.