Over the years, there’s been much made about a teenage Lil Mama crashing JAY-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” performance at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
Hov put the uneasiness to rest on Tuesday night (December 21) when he cleared the tension up in a Twitter Spaces by explaining that he’s forgiven Lil Mama for joining him on the Radio City Music Hall stage.
“Of course, of course,” Jay told journalist Rob Markman regarding accepting Lil Mama’s apology. “C’mon. Don’t do that… That’s our sister. Man, we love her. I wouldn’t recommend people just jumping on other artists’ stages.
“She’s a New Yorker… She got excited. Things happen. Of course, we love her… yes, she’s forgiven. It’s all love and she was coming from a place of love it’s just… may have been a little too excited.”
Now Jay-Z talks about Lil Mama jumping on stage on spaces?
“Jay, are we forgiving Lil Mama?” pic.twitter.com/ttwYXUJBJ4
— Bttm(Originals) (@imeverybottom) December 22, 2021
Lil Mama breathed a huge sigh of relief and took to Instagram to exhale and show how much she appreciated JAY-Z publicly stating he forgives what she did.
“I appreciate hearing this portion of last nights conversation,” she wrote. “This has always been my stance, Love. Love for both my big brother, big sister and my city. It brings clarity to all of us as a community to actually hear these words from our legendary leaders.
“Hip Hop has always been a culture to me, not just music.. with that, I believe fellowship is very important to cultural growth. Reaching out to say you can do better or even to say you’re doing great can make the world of difference. Thanks #JayZ and @aliciakeys for using your voices in this conversation. Hopefully, we can have one together soon.”
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As for Alicia Keys, she recently stated in an interview that she had no idea the “Lip Gloss” rapper was on stage until JAY-Z told her after the performance. Keys also made sure to add that she’s forgiven Lil Mama.
“Listen, to this day, I truly never knew she was even on the stage — that’s the craziest part of the whole thing for me,” she said. “I was on that stage, [JAY-Z] was in the middle, she was on the other side of Jay, and I never saw her.”
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