Sitting down with VladTV to speak about the SMACK/URL NOME 4 event next month, DNA detailed his misstep of taking too many battles to cover his bills.

“I always try to tell people—and this is my fault—sometimes we’re taking a lot of battles,” he said. “Having life situations where you have to pay bills and shit, you start taking the battles for the bread and stop taking them for the love. It’s been a couple battles recently where I might have bullshitted. I came in there, wrote my rounds 24 hours before, did mad name flips, didn’t really take my opponent serious. Which leaves room for error. So now people go, ‘Oh, look at his performance there. Look at that.’ Then they forget when it’s a hungry DNA, what I’ve done. Me and Dizaster is one of the most legendary battles in Battle Rap. I have performances that a lot of niggas can’t top.”

To read about DNA’s prediction for the Cortez vs. T-Rex battle, visit Battle Rap.