Saweetie relived what she said was a dark time in her career during a cover story with Cosmopolitan when she revealed that her Hot 97 freestyle gave her PTSD. After being mentioned, the co-hosts of Ebro in the Morning decided to explain how the situation came together.
During Wednesday’s episode, Peter Rosenberg, Laura Stylez, and Ebro Darden addressed Saweetie’s comments. Although they acknowledge that Saweetie wasn’t directly targeting them, they found it purposeful to give a full scope of the freestyle/interview. Stylez started off by placing the blame on Saweetie’s team at the time.
“We were down to do the interview,” Stylez said. “But her team was really pushing for her to freestyle. I remember us specifically lying, saying our equipment didn’t work because we didn’t want to do that to her. … We didn’t want her to freestyle. Let's just have the interview.”
They went on to explain that Saweetie’s overly-confident attitude—which they know could’ve been contributed to nerves—laid the foundation for her to follow her team’s advice. This opened the door for them to judge her bars in a way they’d judge a hardcore, lyrical-based rapper. Darden then welcomed the writer of Saweetie’s Cosmopolitan cover story into their world.
“What this writer of this article—and even Saweetie—forgets is y’all wanted to rap,” Darden said at the clip’s 6 minute-mark. “We tried to avoid you rapping so we could make it a soft landing for you as an artist. … She did say, and I quote: ‘I ain’t just one of these Instagram models. I ain’t just one of these people who look pretty on the ‘gram. I do this rap thing. I freestyle. That’s how I started. I just like floating over records.’”
Although they took Saweetie up on her offer and it didn’t pan out so great, the hosts insisted that they would never set her or another artist up for failure and ridicule. Still, they have a standard to uphold and it doesn’t involve catering to emotions.
“Are we supposed to lie?” Stylez continued. “Because if we would’ve lied ...we would’ve got fried.”
Watch Ebro in the Morning’s full comments on Saweetie above.
