In a recent interview on Drink Champs, N.O.R.E. asked T-Pain to be honest about whether he or Future would win in a Verzuz battle.
“To the public, Future would win,” T-Pain said. “Absolutely. Because it’s right now. We don’t have the same records. What’s the feel-good records—what would Future play after ‘Bartender?’ What would he play after ‘I’m Sprung?’ ’Cause we gotta match records.” He went on to say, “When you play records, you gotta match records. If I play ‘If I Could Change the World’ with me, Diddy, Mary J. Blige, and Akon, what’s Future going to play after that? We in two different categories.”
After laughing off the potential Verzuz face-off, T-Pain went on to address his brief 2013 beef with the “Mask Off” rapper, which actually wasn’t beef at all.
“My problem with Future was never a problem,” he explained. “It was Khaled’s problem. When they put out ‘I Woke Up in a New Bugatti,’ they had posted my Bugatti in their shit. You know what it was like? When your homeboy got a Tinder date in the apartment, and your homeboy got on your shirt that you use for Tinder dates.” Pain elaborated further, “If you going on a date, and you ask your homeboy if you can borrow his shirt and your homeboy shows up to the date and says ‘Nice shirt, looks real fuckin’ familiar’—that’s how the whole Future beef started.”
The Drink Champs interview touched on many big moments for the icon, including when he heardJay-Z’s “Death of Auto-Tune” for the first time. Asked if the track offended him, T-Pain said, “Of course! A wise man once said, ‘You can’t knock the hustle.’ I’m the face of this. Just like Lil Yachty was the face of mumble rap—anytime somebody talk about mumble rap, Lil Yachty was the first person to come up. I was the face of Auto-Tune. Anytime somebody said Auto-Tune, I’m the face. So, when you say Auto-Tune is wack, I’m the face.”
