When it comes to hypemen, Tony Yayo [click to read] calls himself an “Energy God.” After an encounter with iconic hypeman Flavor Flav, he shared the advice given to him, and spoke on more regarding the 50 Cent/Kanye West feud.
“Both energies together,” Tony Yayo told MTV. “It was a while back when we was beefing with Fat Joe, and he said I was the ‘2008 version of Flavor Flav.’ I took it good. Me and Flav kicked it backstage, and the two things he said to me: ‘Stay alive and stay out of jail.’ “
This weekend, The Unit welcomed Flav as their special guest at a show in New York. Tony added that he has respect and admiration for what Flav has done.
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“The energy onstage when I said ‘Flaaaaavor Flaaaaaaaaav!’ — the crowd went crazy. Me and him got the same kinda energy. I look up to a lot of the old-school rappers: Flavor, Chuck D, Whodini. I seen that rap from the ’80s to ’90s to now. Flavor Flav, for you to get out of jail and be in one of the biggest rap groups in the country, come off Rikers Island, create your own hustle, create your own show, then have the number-one show in the country. When I came out, I was on easy street. 50 took care of me.“
The two even got to speak on life, meet families and more.
“We was backstage, I got to meet a lot of his kids, five of his kids. I talked to his baby mother. He got to meet 50 and [Lloyd] Banks. I’m a big fan of Flavor. His energy when he gets onstage, his is 10 times what mine is. He’s entertaining. That’s what people want. That’s what I try to do — entertain people on the stage. When I see a boring show, I get bored. That’s why I looked up to people like Flav and Doug E. Fresh. I asked Doug the secrets of shows. I ran into him at the airport. He said, ‘Before a show, I don’t eat, don’t drink and get a lot of rest.’ I listened to that. Then Flavor, when he came out on that stage and we did ‘So Seductive,’ I did his dance. Right now, he’s happy I made the dance popular. We talked yesterday.”
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During the show, 50 made some headlines by making his own remix of Kanye West‘s “Love Lockdown.” Yayo admitted that it wasn’t a serious beef, but that the crew would not back down from another release date show down in December when Kanye and 50 drop albums around the same time.
Unafraid of showing bias, Yayo noted that 50 was always the winner in his eyes.
“That’ll be fun. In my eyes, I don’t think Kanye will never be bigger than Fif, no matter what his numbers do.“
