After having his lyrical skills questioned time and time again, Big Sean finally stood up for himself after 2 Chainz laid claim to an accomplishment Sean wanted for himself: The best verse on their 2012 hit “Mercy.” The lead single from GOOD Music’s compilation album Cruel Summer, “Mercy” featured verses from 2 Chainz, Big Sean, Kanye West, and Pusha T and was a massive hit, with a Scooby Doo-esque video that stayed in rotation on music video countdowns and a widespread debate about which of the four rappers delivered the best bars.
According to 2 Chainz (naturally), he had the best verse on the song. In an Instagram post, he both asked and answered the question of which verse topped them all, writing in the caption: “No disrespect but I kilt all dem boys.” However, Sean took issue with Chainz’s assessment and it’s no surprise; in 2013, he similarly had a song swiped from under him after the rap internet went utterly ballistic over Kendrick Lamar’s name-calling verse on the leaked “Control.”
On the latest episode of The Rap Pack podcast, Sean explained that he just had to check his compadre over the claim. “I immediately called him like, ‘What the f*ck you talkin’ about bro?'” he says, grinning. “He was like, ‘No, no, I wasn’t talking about you, bro. I was talkin’ about the whole game. Obviously everybody on there was going crazy.’ I’m like, ‘That’s not how it seemed.'”
However, he says there were no hard feelings after he explained, “I was like, ‘N****, as far as ‘Mercy’ goes, I was the first one doing my verse on the song. Like, it was just the beat and I freestyled my verse. I did it without trying and Kanye was the one who loved it so much… He didn’t have no objections to that. He knew. I’ve done a lot of songs with 2 Chainz. I was gonna be like, ‘Oh OK, I got you on ‘K.O’ and ‘All Me’ and ‘Big Bank.’ But that’s my brother. We was just really kinda kidding around.”
In any case, with 2 Chainz looking for a Verzuz hit battle partner, he may have just found the perfect matchup in Big Sean. Let’s all bother Swizz Beats into making it happen.
Watch the full interview above.
