Pete Rock and Waka Flocka Trade Insults Over ‘Older Generation’ Remarks

Nobody wins when the family feuds.

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Pete Rock and Waka Flocka clearly have differing opinions about rap’s generation gap and what each respective age group should be responsible for bringing to the culture. Those differing opinions have spilled over to both artists’ social media accounts, further adding to a debate that doesn’t appear to have a clear resolution in sight.

Things began with a Waka Flocka interview that ThisIs50 published on November 2. When asked about Dapper Dan’s contributions to hip-hop and the fashion world, Waka Flocka responded with the following:

“That’s not our generation’s fault. That’s the older generation’s fault for not informing us and keeping us up to date. So it’s a lot of shit I be seeing the older generation saying like, ‘This ain’t Hip Hop. Y’all niggas killing Hip Hop.’ But y’all niggas ain’t save it.”

Waka Flocka’s comments appear at the 5:24 mark in the video above.

Apparently, speaking on behalf of one of hip-hop’s aforementioned “older generations,” Pete Rock took offense to the comments and posted a picture of Waka Flocka with his response to the comments as a caption.

“I’m gonna defend my older heads and tell you your [sic] not equal,” Pete Rock wrote. “Be as disrespectful as you want. Your [sic] not doing what we did, haven’t accomplished what we accomplished. Our generation didn’t experiment with pills or syrup or anything synthetic.”

The differing opinions somewhat mirror lyrics C.L. Smooth once rhymed in regards to similar criticism and high sample clearance fees he and Pete Rock faced from the elder generation of black musicians.

“I start from scratch, ’cause the bassline’s critical/Better than the original who first made it/Now you want to sue me but fans never boo me/Believe I know the times we been broke too G,” C.L. Smooth rhymed on Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth’s 1992 track “Straighten It Out.”

We’ve seen Hip Hop’s generational wars play out with the trading of insults between Genius and Soulja Boy, Jay Z and Drake (and Future), and a host of others. 

On an anecdotal level, it’s also entirely possible both parties are in the wrong here. Pete Rock is roughly three years older than the late Pimp C—whose 2007 death was in part attributed to the very syrup that Pete Rock says his generation “didn’t experiment with.”

And Waka Flocka claimed the culture’s elders don’t pass on their lessons, despite the fact that he was being educated in real time on the legacy of Dapper Dan, in the very video in which he made the claim.

At any rate, Flocka fired back with an few tweets of his own, calling Pete Rock’s comments “lame” and “uncalled for,” while threatening to “slap the shit outta” Pete Rock.

Damn P this post was lame and uncalled for. I should slap the shit outta you. pic.twitter.com/nqbfHjUvvE
You stuck in the past. Krazy shit is my real blood family was always around you smh .. and I don’t do none of those wack drugs you talkIng. https://t.co/wLmepxt2g5

You can check out the video that presumably sparked all of this, and the subsequent comments from Pete Rock and Waka Flocka Flame, and draw your own conclusions about the hip-hop’s generational gap.

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