In 1994, Hot 97 became the country's first true rap station.
Nearly 20 years later, FM rap music's holiest institution is using its annual Summer Jam festival as a forum to diss one of contemporary hip-hop's most powerful crews, Young Money.
Hot 97 DJ Peter Rosenberg was addressing a large crowd outside of New Jersey's MetLife Stadium yesterday -- the site of this year's Summer Jam -- when he blindsided Nikki Minaj with a verbal attack on her music.
"Now hold on, before I get to the real hip-hop shit of the day, 'cause I see the real hip-hop heads sprinkled in here, I see 'em," Rosenberg said. "I know there's some chicks here waiting to sing 'Starship' later. But I'm not talking to them right now. Fuck that bullshit. I'm here to talk about real hip-hop shit."
Of course, the "chicks" who were "waiting to sing 'Starship' never got their chance.
After hearing what Rosenberg said, Minaj's boss and Young Money label chief, Lil Wayne, retaliated and pulled the plug on his crew's scheduled appearance. "Young Money ain't doing summer jam," Weezy tweeted.
Moments later, Minaj confirmed via Twitter that she was bailing out of her performance, killing any rumors that Weezy would join her on stage. "I go above and beyond for my fans. But won't ever go against Wayne's word. What he says, goes."
Weezy later tweeted that he'd spend his Sunday like he usually does, at LIV.
As for Rosenberg, he went on the radio today to address the beef and adamantly stand his ground.
"There's a movement to get me to apologize; a movement to which I can say, I'm absolutely not apologizing," he said. "I've been saying ['Starship' sucks] for six-months. What she should've done is played the game.... She knows how to rap, let's get her on a song where she can rap."
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