On Sunday (Aug. 20), TMZ ran into Memphis Bleek as he was leaving LAX. During the short exchange, the Brooklyn rap veteran was asked to give his critique of the culture’s current generation, which he feels is suffering from “a lack of creativity.”

“I’m not gonna knock the young boys; I just feel they fell into a zone of following, where our era, you had to create new,” he explained. “You couldn’t be the same. If you rhymed like Big L, you got crushed. If you rhymed like Biggie, you got crushed. You couldn’t have two artists sounding the same. [Ghostface Killah] told people don’t even put a baby picture on they album cover!”

He continued by stating that the new artists have yet to go through certain stages that will help to better their music overall. “They haven’t lived life. Think, they 22 years old, $20 million in the bank, they ain’t been through nothing. So all they know is women, cars, jewelry, clubs. That’s it. They gotta live life to talk about it.”

When the reporter inquired about the possibility of a joint project with longtime collaborator JAY-Z, Bleek was honest and forthcoming about his odds.

“I wish. I’m on that boat, too. I wish,” the “Round Here” rapper responded. “I don’t think so. Hov too far gone, man. I was supposed to try this when he had $100 million, not a billion (laughs). When you got a billion, it’s hard to get you in the booth. Only his wife can do it, Beyoncé… I still send him joints, I get shot down like a clay pigeon. Something gon’ stick one day, ya know? But if we could drop an EP together, that’ll be… C’mon, that [would] close off the whole trilogy of the Coming of Age story. [The fans] need something classic.”