Months after Prez Mafia was caught stealing full verses for his battle rounds, the Bronx rapper has finally spoken publicly, admitted to the plagiarism and explaining his side of the story.
Prez was caught red-handed in April after lifting an entire verse from Mr. Meredith's 2007 track "Snap Out Of It" in a SupaNova battle against Dynamite. The incident led fans and bloggers to return to his earlier footage and find examples of him recycling content. Read our full story on Prez's stolen bar fiasco here.
Speaking with 15MOFEin an interview released Thursday night, Prez details how he ended up stealing an entire verse for a battle.
"Let me take the time out to apologize to the culture as a whole, and to the fans, the people that fuck with me, the people that don't fuck with me," Prez says in the beginning of the video. "At the end of the day you click the battles because you want to see good content. I let the culture down with that shit. From the bottom of my heart as a man, I really, really feel bad about that shit because I'm way better than that."
Admitting that he took on more battles than he could handle, Prez explained that he "bit off more than [he] could chew" and turned to Mr. Meredith's bars in a last-minute act of desperation.
"As a man, I'm gonna say this just like this, Mr. Meredith is somebody that since I started rapping, I mean like first verse ever, I used to go to him and ask him for advice," Prez says. "This is before battle rap, before I even made a first song or anything. He used to give me pointers and everything. To be honest, that man is my family. Niggas don't know that. That's my family. Real shit ... Took the verse because I thought the shit was fire. I'm not gonna hold back nothing. Thought the nigga was fire, I'm like, 'Yo, I don't have shit.' I had three rounds but I really couldn't grasp'em in my mind at that time. There's original bars in there, but there's also that verse, the infamous Mr. Meredith verse ... Shout out to Mr. Meredith, nigga is an awesome lyricist, he's a great artist, mentions by Pharrell. Me and him spoke too, we buried the hatchet."
Prez also mentions being interested in battling John John Da Don for his return.
Watch the full interview below:
Check out some of Prez's recent Twitter posts about the matter below:
Blog dropping tonight .
— 🤬preZMafia🤬 (@prezmafiabx) June 19, 2015
Rt to let the culture kno .
Heckle
Troll
Do wat u do #w00sah
Salute to @mrmeredith For The Love Through It all pic.twitter.com/xh4orla0Gn
— 🤬preZMafia🤬 (@prezmafiabx) June 19, 2015
Me n Mr Meredith had a man to man . Although I cnt change wat I've done I'm forgived
— 🤬preZMafia🤬 (@prezmafiabx) June 18, 2015
Step 1 . Complete
What do you think? Does Prez Mafia deserve a second chance?
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