Carnival of Soul

On the track, Jennings sings: “I’m gon’ beat it like a slave / so you don’t run away / got the whips and chains / call me master.”  The words did not sit right with many. Lyfe responded in a TMZ interview where he defended his lyrics, clarifying that the song was made in reference to BDSM.

Shortly after, Charlamagne chimed in to say he wasn’t coming for Jennings personally with an open invitation for the R&B veteran to come hash things out on The Breakfast Club.

On Monday (Oct. 14), the “Must Be Nice” singer sat down with The Breakfast Club crew to clear up any misconceptions and squash the beef face to face. The soul singer stood by his choice of lyrics and hit back at allegations that he released the song to generate attention off of the controversy.

“It never crossed my mind one time with this song when I put it out,” he told the hosts. Charla was quick to point out that nobody was coming for Jennings personally, but that slavery is a touchy subject in America. He pointed to the flack Britney Spears got for “Slave 4 U.” He also added that Lil Wayne got in trouble over his Emmett Till lyrics on Future’s “Karate Chop (Remix),” where he rapped he’ll “beat that p*ssy up like Emmett Till.”

Still, the soul singer wasn’t satisfied with that reasoning and felt the reactions online had more to do with the lack of support older Black artists get when they are deemed out of style.

“As Black artists, we the only genre of people where people be like ‘Oh, we old school now. He ain’t poppin’ no more. When you dealing with country artists and that other stuff, they protect their artists and  put them on pedestals,” he said.“We don’t do that.” 

He added, “Everybody so quick to take the negative and try to turn it into something that it ain’t.”

He continued, “Just the words that go along with getting old, [like] ‘fell off’ [or] ‘old school.’ I just don’t see that in other genres. When you talk about country, they hold [the] cats who paved the way to a higher regard.”

Do you agree with Lyfe?