Phonte wished he responded differently to Rapper Big Pooh’s health scare in 2013. Following the release of Little Brother’s documentary, May The Lord Watch: The Little Brother Story, Phonte reflected on their past rift and explained why he didn’t check on Big Pooh in the hospital in an interview with SPIN.
“It’s definitely something I would have done differently,” Phonte told SPIN. “One of the things of the film is brotherhood and how that means different things to different people. And also conflict and how that means different things to different people. For me at that time, the conflict was, ‘If we ain’t f###ing with each other, then we ain’t f###ing with each other.’ When I got the call that Pooh was sick, it was never a thing of like, ‘I’m glad’ or whatever. There was a moment like, ‘Man, I hate to hear about that. I’m gonna pray for him and keep it pushing.’ But in my mind, I didn’t think he wanted to hear from me. I didn’t think me reaching out mattered to him because of where we were.”
May the Lord Watch explored the highs and lows of their complicated history. The two decided not to include a scene in which Phonte tried to rationalize staying quiet while Big Pooh was in the hospital.
“We had another version of the scene in the film where I was talking more about how I didn’t realize how severe his position was—because it wasn’t Pooh reaching out to me, it was another mutual friend of ours letting me know,” Phonte noted. “We had that in the film at first, but after watching it, me and Pooh talked and decided to take it out. We didn’t need to have a whole bunch of, ‘Well, see, what had happened was…’ No, own your s###. Your man was in the hospital, and you didn’t call him. Hindsight is always 20/20. Emotionally that’s where I was at the time, and the only thing I could do was just own that and grow past it.”
May the Lord Watch premiered in November. The documentary is available to stream for free on YouTube.