Little Brother rappers Phonte and Big Pooh recently discussed getting a shout-out from Doja Cat during an interview with HipHopDX. Speaking with the outlet for a piece published on Saturday, they admitted that it was a humbling experience. Doja Cat praised the rappers’ track “Whatever You Say” from Little Brother’s 2003 debut, The Listening, on Instagram Live in 2021.
“To see someone like Doja Cat just to say, ‘Yo, I’ve listened to y’all’s shit, this is the best verse ever,’ it’s just really humbling,” Phonte said. “To me, it’s just a testament of just not knowing how far your music is going to go. And even if something in 2003, something that when you put it out, it felt like, ‘Damn, people sleeping on this, they don’t get it, they don’t get it,’ for 20 years later, one of the biggest pop stars in the world, like legit pop stars to be like, ‘No, this is the shit. Y’all need to get up on this.’ Yeah, man, it’s extremely humbling. And I’m just grateful that we’re still around to get those flowers, and I’m thankful that our music just stood that test of time. That people can appreciate it now, more so than they did back then.”
Doja Cat’s Instagram Live
From there, Phonte revealed that he spoke with Doja Cat after the live stream over text. “It was around the time, because I want to say shortly after she made that video, that was when I think … She was on tour, and I think she had to stop the tour because of COVID and stuff. But we texted briefly, and I just said, ‘Look, thank you. I appreciate it.’ But it was just brief. But other than that, we had no relationship. It was totally, it came out of nowhere. But boy, the thing I came to realize is that, in the music business, the musicians and the business people are kind of different in that the musicians are pretty much, no matter what kind of music they make, they’re still pretty much kind of nerds. You know what I’m saying? And so, they’re studying. They’re always studying.”
As for Doja Cat’s original comments, she had labeled “Whatever You Say,” “one of my favorite verses in the entire fuckin’ history of rap, ever.” While doing her makeup, she added: “That shit was so smooth. He didn’t rhyme one fucking word. I don’t care what anybody says. Maybe the last bar. He said, ‘personal time inversed in rhyme.’ That was the only thing he rhymed together. The whole rest of that verse was not rhymed. Nothing. Not one fucking rhyming thing, but it worked. It worked. You don’t have to rhyme.”
[Via]