T-Pain Says He Thought Jay-Z's "D.O.A." Was A Diss Track Aimed At Him

T-Pain says he thought Jay-Z's "D.O.A." was a personal diss track when he first heard it.

BYCole Blake
Link Copied to Clipboard!
13.8K Views
Timothy Hiatt / Getty Images

 T-Pain says he took Jay-Z's “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” as a personal diss because he saw himself as "the face of Auto-Tune" at the time. Pain discussed his reaction to the classic track during a new interview on the Drink Champs podcast.

“Of course! A wise man once said, ‘You can’t knock the hustle,’” T-Pain said when asked by Co-host N.O.R.E. whether he thought the track was a diss was he first heard it. “I’m the face of this. Just like Lil Yachty was the face of mumble rap—anytime somebody talk about mumble rap, Lil Yachty was the first person to come up. I was the face of Auto-Tune. Anytime somebody said, ‘Auto-Tune,’ I’m the face. So, when you say Auto-Tune is wack, I’m the face.”

He continued: “If I woulda said fuckin’ blue Yankees are terrible, everybody woulda been like, ‘Oh you dissin’ Jay-Z now?’ … Anytime [Jay] says something is wack, it’s trash.”

Sergio Dionisio / Getty Images

"D.O.A." was released in 2009 and fans quickly assumed it was T-Pain who was being targeted, but Jay shut that rumor down in an interview with Hot 97 shortly after the track's release.

“You n***as singin’ too much/Get back to rap, you T-Painin’ too much,” Hov rapped on the track.

Check out the interview below.

[Via]


  • Link Copied to Clipboard!
About The Author
Cole Blake is currently an Editor at HotNewHipHop based out of Brooklyn, New York. He began working at the site as an intern back in 2018 while studying journalism at St. John’s University. In the time since, he’s graduated with a bachelor's degree and written extensively about a wide range of topics including pop culture, film & television, politics, video games, sports, and much more. He’s also covered music festivals such as Gov. Ball and Rolling Loud. You can find him publishing work for HNHH from Monday to Wednesday or on weekends. On the sports front, Cole’s a passionate NBA and NFL fan with his favorite teams being the Indianapolis Colts and Los Angeles Lakers. He also roots for the Yankees whenever he finds himself at Yankee Stadium or the Red Storm when in the company of other SJU alumni. His favorite hip-hop artists are billy woods, Earl Sweatshirt, Cam’ron, MIKE, and Mach-Hommy.