When Mannie Fresh and Scott Storch participated in a beat battle on Instagram, thousands tuned in to see who would come out on top. While Storch was ultimately crowned the champion, many highlighted how Mannie didn't play some of his best songs. In an interview on the Breakfast Club, Mannie explained that the rules of battle weren't made clear and he was a little confused about Storch playing non-rap tracks he produced.
"It really came about because it was something I was doing way before them," he explained at the 0:50 point of the interview. While he's done plenty of beat battles of his own in his time, Fresh said there was little in the way of rules established for the one against Storch on Instagram Live. "I mean if it's hip-hop, it's gotta be hip-hop. ... I was told that it was a hip-hop beat battle, I didn't know it was an R&B beat battle."
He admitted he could have "went harder," but ultimately took issue with the final match-up, Juvenile's "Back That Azz Up" against Dr. Dre's "Still D.R.E.," resulting in a draw. Regardless, Mannie appeared to be in good spirits about the battle, and said he's been hit up a lot since it went down. He said it made another generation realize how many of these hits came from the same producers. When grilled about some of the songs Charlamagne said he wanted to hear, Fresh said he didn't think they were "necessary."
While Storch was crowned the winner, Mannie believes he was the true winner. "Some of these songs you didn't do," he said with a smile, highlighting how Storch was a either a co-producer or provided additional production on some of the songs he played. For example, "Still D.R.E." was produced by Dr. Dre, Mel-Man, and Storch. "I stuck to the rules, these are songs that Mannie Fresh produced," Mannie said.
When asked if he won the battle by host Angela Yee at around the 5:37 mark, Mannie responded in the affirmative. "Yeah, hell yeah," he said.
Even though he thought the rules surrounding the beat battle weren't clear, he stopped short of saying anything negative about Storch himself. "They gotta do a better job at putting this together," Mannie added.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mannie touched on his history with Cash Money, and offered a few ideas on battles he'd like to see. Watch the interview with Mannie Fresh above, and check out Scott Storch's interview on the Breakfast Club below.
