MC Hammer has been missing from all the hip hop 50 celebrations this year, and his absence has affected Questlove, who wanted him to receive his flowers.
The 60-year-old explained his reasoning for not attending any hip hop 50 events during 2Pac's street naming celebration in Oakland, California in November, and the footage has resurfaced. Hammer revealed he doesn't do interviews and won't do any hip-hop 50 events because it doesn't feel genuine.
According to Hammer, he's too old to be tolerating "fakeness" and "pretending" to be something you're not.
"You ain't never heard me talk about no stories on nobodies platform, you ain't heard me go to none of these Hip Hop 50 [events], and just for the record, I got invited to every one, but I really don't have the patience for the fakeness," Hammer said. "I'm really 60 years old, so I can't get with the fakeness of it all. I can do it with a young cat, but I can't come around old cats and still be pretending."
He continued, "What you want me to call you? Hey, six shooter? Come on, man, ain't none of your bodies turned up yet. I just can't do it but Pac got me out here today. My first Hip Hop 50 event that I said yeah to and the only one. To come out here and say how much I love Pac."
Hammer's frustrations might stem from the fact that in his heyday, he was widely decried by the hip-hop community who labeled him a "sell-out" and was also maligned by music critics for being too reliant on sampling. In the early '90s, Hammer was a commercial juggernaut who sold millions of records, by the end of the decade he became a punchline after going bankrupt. However, many rappers have followed his commercial forumla ever since and the hip-hop audience is no longer infatuated with the concept of "selling out."
While MC Hammer won't be doing any interviews anytime soon, he has confirmed that there will be a book and movie on the way about the trailblazing rapper.
The Grammys aired their hip hop 50 celebration earlier this week and Hammer was missing from the show, despite the show's producer Questlove stating he reached out several times. He took to X, formerly Twitter, to express his disappointment in Hammer turning down the performance.
"We begged him to open," Quest wrote. "Of all the 'No's'....Hammer hurt the most. We really wanted him to have his flowers." According to him, Salt-N-Pepa also couldn't make it to the celebration.
The Grammys celebration went on without MC Hammer as other rappers from different generations pulled up and performed some of their biggest hits including, Common, LL COOL J, Rakim, Queen Latifah, Questlove, De La Soul, Remy Ma, Gunna, Coi Leray, Latto, Nelly, Will Smith and more.
