Lol not at all. 05-08 Lupe was not to be fukked with. He dropped Fahrenheit 1 and 2, food and liquor and the cool in that span.
Royce has never been able to make anything close to failure and the original food and liquor. And that’s not a crazy take either it’s just preference my boy
and that’s what seperates the two. Lupe can and has done what Royce does but Royce can’t do what Lupe does. He tried to redo mural and it fell FLAT!!!
Royce was just as good or better a rapper than Lupe was in those years. He may not have made better music (legal shyt, label limbo) but he put out nothing but heat in those years and was definitely a top-tier artist albeit an underachiever
I’d take his mixtapes over The Cool and Fnl any day. Not saying they’re universally considered better but personally I’d go with TBE 1 and 2 over anything Lupe put out in those years
Malcolm X and the shyt he did to em and d12 is proof enough that he was also definitely a better battler (than he is now) and would’ve given ANYONE a run, incl Lupe, which was my original point
his energy was just different back then, shyt was perfect for beef