Few years ago, Royce da 5’9” and Yelawolf had fallen out. The two were taking shots back and forth on Instagram. In January, 2020 Royce put his former label mate on notice with the song “Overcomer,” featuring Westside Gunn.
Royce discussed the feud in a interview with Real 92.3. While he did not reveal the actual reason that led to the beef, he spoke on the underlying issue. “It falls into the category of respect. He did something I felt was disrespectful. There was a window of time where he could have called me to clarify or just say something to me. He didn’t even think he needed to call me—he didn’t even extend me that respect. It was something that happened behind closed doors and he knew I knew about it. I took offense to it, and how I handled it was addressing it on a song. I felt it was the only way I could handle it—for me to air it out publicly would imply I’m using it as a vehicle to push an album or be vindictive. I’m not a vindictive person…I felt the only way to do it was let him know it’s on my radar. I’m aware.”
In December, 2020 Royce was a bit more explicit about why he and Yela weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. “It’s a situation going on, especially in hip-hop. We have all kinds of different people, but we have a type of person in particular. We have white people, white people who come into the business and they use the culture. We got some white people that come in and use that, and then go and do very evil things behind closed doors—very evil, racist things behind closed doors.” said Royce in Joe Budden Podcast.
After “Overcomer” track dropped, Royce took to Instagram to call out Yelawolf for a since-deleted post where Yela blasted the Detroit rapper: “I can remove you quicker than you Deleted this post, David Duke and nobody can stop me,” Royce wrote, responding to Yela, who said, “Yo @eminem get your hype man before the wolves do …I ain’t worried.” Allegedly, Yelawolf used to use the N word inside his close circle which lead Royce to feel the way he felt.
In the new interview with Bootleg Kev, Yelawolf talked about it and said that the beef is in the past now and he still loves and respects Royce.
“I love Royce. I have not spoken to him since that incident happened. But that’s my dude. I don’t harbor any bad feeling about Royce. I have not spoken to him, like I said, since that time but at the end of the day, we did a lot of great things together. A lot of amazing moments happened with my boy and it’s all good. For me, it’s all good. It is what it is.” said Yelawolf.
Then he continued: “DJ Premier, Royce, me…C’mon, there’s a lot of moments. Royce and Rittz. Royce, Marshall, myself. F–king gang. There’s history there that I can’t just make disappear and to put some discrepancy or disagreement or whatever it is. Whatever. To me it’s water under the bridge. Period.”
You can watch the interview below. If it does not start from the specific timestamp because of the age restriction, click “Watch on YouTube” and listen from 2:04:43.
