Erick Sermon Gives Lil Uzi Vert Mad Respect at 2016 The Roots Picnic in New York

Over the past couple months, it's felt like the generational gap in hip-hop has been widening. Yesterday (Oct. 2), however, Erick Sermon showed love to Lil Uzi Vert at The Roots Picnic in New York.

The rift between new and old school has been especially apparent as of late, but Sermon made an effort to bridge the gap at the all-day event in NYC. The legendary EPMD rapper addressed a crowd at Bryant Park, saying, "A lot of people - people love him here tonight. And for us to come from that stage, and anybody who moved from my area and come in here to watch this man, mad respect."

In early September, Pete Rock called out mumble rappers and essentially told them to start making better music. Many people speculated that the producer was talking about new-school artists such as Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty. Around the same time, Ab-Soul also took shots at Uzi Vert, tweeting, “All these new ‘lil’ niggaz is weak as the time it took to create earth… We don’t pass on PRIMO beats in this sport kids! Hip-hop = Intelligent Movement.”

The Black Hippy MC is referencing an interview Uzi did with Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning (included below) in which the “Do What I Want” rapper refused to freestyle over the beat for Gang Starr’s “Mass Appeal.” When Ebro mentions the instrumental, Uzi says, “Oh he making me rap on that? I’m too young, I’m not into that.” Later on, when the discussion gets back to freestyling, Uzi says, “I’m telling you right now if you pull up one of them old beats I’m not rapping on it.”

It should be noted that DJ Premier recently said he has no problems with Uzi Vert. The young Philadelphia rapper contacted Primo directly, and the two seemingly had a solid conversation. Premier took to Twitter and typed, “Shout to the LiL Homie @LILUZIVERT for reachin’ out to me directly…dope things were said and I respect that…We all good…Salute." You can view the video of Sermon and Uzi Vert at The Roots Picnic in NYC above via YouTube.

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