N.O.R.E. Apologizes for Hosting Kanye West’s Recent Controversial Interview

After receiving backlash for his comments on Bad Bunny’s career and overall hosting Kanye West on his Drink Champs show, N.O.R.E. has now apologized. The interview has also been removed from YouTube and Revolt. The controversial three-and-a-half-hour interview featured West’s anti-Semitic rants, false claims about George Floyd, and comments on other major artists. 

“I have a relationship with Ye. When he was going through a lot of the things he was going through, he would call me, and he would actually listen to me and take my advice,” N.O.R.E. told Hot 97. “So I felt I could control the situation. I felt that I could control the interview and learned early on that I didn’t.”

He continued, “As a Black man, I feel like I failed. As a human, I feel like I failed. But as a journalist, I succeeded. Because as a journalist, you’re not really supposed to have an opinion… You’re supposed to let people talk. And my biggest critique on Drink Champs is, ‘N.O.R.E., you always cut people off!’ And this is the one time I didn’t cut the people, didn’t cut ’em off, and everyone’s mad.”

He then apologized to anybody who felt he had let them down. He also said that it was a “learning experience” for him since he didn’t go to journalism school.

The Puerto Nuyorican rapper N.O.R.E. also apologized on a call with The Breakfast Club. He told them, “I want to be honest. I support freedom of speech. I support anybody not being censored. But I do not support anybody being hurt.”

He said that he didn’t realize that the “George Floyd statements on [the] show were so hurtful,” and that he did “check [West]” on these comments as well as those made about “White Lives Matter.”

However, he realized that he “checked him” too late. “But they were later in the episode, and I was already inebriated at that time, that maybe people looked over it. But I apologize to the George Floyd family. I apologize to anybody that was hurt.”