Lil Wayne has been vocal about not being chosen to perform at the halftime show at Super Bowl LIX. Saturday (Nov. 2) the multi-platinum rap superstar addressed how he felt during the Lil WeezyAna Festival put on by Live Nation Urban in New Orleans after the long-awaited Hot Boyz reunion. This was also livestreamed globally exclusively on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch.

During his solo set, he exclaimed, “I said to myself, I want to be on stage for the Super Bowl one day in front of my mom. And I worked my a** off to get that f**king position and it was ripped away from me. But this motherf**king moment right here, they can’t take that man, they can’t take that from me.”

This follows his earlier public statement in which he passionately expressed, “I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a letdown, and for just automatically mentally putting myself in that position like somebody told me that was my position. So I blame myself for that. But I thought that [there] was nothing better than that spot, and that stage, and that platform in my city, so it hurt. It hurt a whole lot.”

Artists like Drake, Nicki Minaj, Birdman, Master P and many others came to his defense once the news was announced that Roc Nation and Apple Music would have Kendrick Lamar headline music’s biggest stage in New Orleans. He would join the ranks of artists like Usher, Rihanna, Shakira, Prince, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, as artists who have performed on the highly respected platform.

One fan stated, “I’m tired of hearing about Lil Wayne not performing at the Super Bowl. Please, stop crying over this. I never seen an artist publicly cry over not performing at the Super Bowl. I don’t care if it’s in his hometown.” While someone else claimed, “Lil Wayne performing perfect word for word at #LilWeezyanaFest straight hits and fire deep cuts with crazy energy I don’t want to hear anyone say he couldn’t do the Super Bowl ever again.. one of the best performers EVER.”

There were a lot of mixed reactions to his comments from fans. Lamar has yet to publicly respond to his statements. The “Not Like Us” emcee has been a longtime supporter of Wayne, having collaborated on “Mona Lisa” from 2018’s Tha Carter V.