Ed Sheeran is best known for his world-dominating pop songs, but he has long had a relationship with hip-hop during his career. From his 2011 EP No. 5 Collaborations Project to the similarly named sequel released last summer and beyond, Sheeran has shown off an at-the-very-lease passable ability to rap. It turns out that he can apparently hold his own against legitimate rappers, and did so on one occasion in the presence of Ty Dolla Sign, The Weeknd, Belly, and others.
Ty spoke with Zane Lowe in a recent interview, and when asked about his best story involving The Weeknd, he said:
“One time we went to Toronto and it was him and Belly. They both had like the top floor of this… I can’t remember what hotel it was.. but they had the resident side. And we went up there and he had a bunch of people over and we were playing pool. And he had my man Ed Sheeran over there, and everybody got into like a cipher, freestyling, and this fool Ed Sheeran came through and smacked everybody, bro. I’m like, ‘What the f*ck?’ Shout out, Ed. I was surprised. I was not expecting that. But he killed everyone, bro. Like real rappers. I’m not even naming people because it was f*cked up. That’s my most memorable Weeknd story, man.”
Sheeran is in the midst of a musical break after years of near-constant touring, and he said he will “be back with some new music when the time is right and I’ve lived a little more to actually have something to write about.”
Watch some of the Ty interview below.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.