![Memphis Bleek and JAY-Z](./media_1a7f5ac5766a93d409caaf39b1d3358cb9a64645c.jpeg?width=750&format=jpeg&optimize=medium)
Memphis Bleek recently revealed why he hasn’t collaborated with JAY-Z in over two decades.
In an encounter with TMZ on Friday (Nov. 18), the “I Get High” artist humorously attributed it to his own superior rap skills. He joked, “He know I’m nicer than him. That’s why. He know I’ll burn him. He don’t want to put me on no record with him when I’m a smoke his boots. He like, ‘Bleek? Nah, put Bleek away. He too nice right now.'”
The rapper continued, “I’m just nicer than him. That’s why he told me sell liquor. He’s like, ‘Bleek, you gotta stop rhyming. You too nice, n**gas going to think you write my rhymes. Just f**k with the liquor.’ I was like, ‘Aight Hov.'”
Notably, JAY-Z and Bleek have nearly a dozen collaborations. A few of the tracks that rose to popularity include 1996’s “Coming of Age,” 2000’s “Is That Your Chick” and “Change the Game,” as well as 2005’s “Dear Summer.”
In the same interaction, Bleek commented on Coach K’s claim about Jeezy’s influence over JAY-Z at a certain point. The Quality Control Music founder previously suggested the Atlanta rapper was more relevant than Hov at a time on the “Business Untitled” podcast.
Bleek chimed in, “Bigger where? As in weight or music? Jeezy is humongous… When I first went to Atlanta, the snowman I always thought was frosty, and then they told me, ‘No, it’s Jeezy.’ And so I said, ‘He’s a big motherf**ker, he killed that.’ But bigger than Hov? Hov is the… C’mon man, what Drake and them say? Big as the Super Bowl.”
During his September interview with “Drink Champs,” the New York native gave insight into how JAY-Z works. He told N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN about how the Grammy winner wrote his verse on “Coming of Age.”
Bleek explained, “[JAY-Z] opens the notebook, he rips a piece of paper out the notebook and just hands me the piece of paper. He said, ‘As fast as you remember this piece of paper is as fast as you’ll be on.’ No beat, no nothing. I take the piece of paper… First of all, Hov used to write in the smallest handwriting, so you could barely understand it.”