Benny The Butcher believes the soul of hip-hop has shifted away from the streets, and he’s not happy about it.
During a recent Instagram Live session, the Buffalo-bred Griselda rapper voiced his frustrations over what he sees as the culture being overtaken by people with little connection to its roots.
“Yo, y’all see the state the game is in when the streets don’t hold the culture or the game,” Benny said. “Now you got the weird Twitter nerds and the nerds and all these weird muthafuckers got they hands on the culture.”
He added, “The voice of the streets don’t mean as much as it did when we was coming up,” he continued. “It was a lot of cons to that, as well. I gotta say that. But you see what happens when the streets don’t control the game no more. It’s a lot of fuck n***a shit going on. And a lot of people are okay with it because they fuck n***as.”
The comments come amid ongoing chatter surrounding Benny’s longtime feud with Freddie Gibbs, a rivalry that continues to resurface online. Gibbs recently addressed viral footage showing the two rappers crossing paths at a Paris airport, insisting the encounter was far less dramatic than fans made it out to be.
“I mean, you saw me standing there,” Gibbs told Complex News. “I was just in the airport. Everything that everybody tried to make out of it,that wasn’t true. I didn’t even really, barely even said a word. I was just standing there. I saw him just standing there. Of course, we ain’t in a friendship. What are we gonna do? I ain’t going to jail over that.”
Though the pair’s tension reportedly dates back to 2022, when rumors swirled about a Buffalo altercation, both rappers have since downplayed any talk of violence.