While speaking on mental health, Wale recalls being accused of “pressing” Kai Cenat when the streamer failed to recognize him at the 2025 BET Awards.
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Earlier this year, BET hosted its annual awards show in Los Angeles, California. Kai not only attended the event, but livestreamed the ceremony on his Twitch channel. During his stream, viewers saw Wale approach Kai to dap him up.
After the encounter, Kai admitted on his stream that he had no idea who the rapper was. Word quickly got back to Wale and later during the ceremony, he approached Kai again. This time, he confronted him over his comments and said, “That sh*t making me look crazy now, just so you know. That’s making me look crazy, the exchange we had in the hallway. I mean, they running with it, but we’ll talk later.”
Kai ended up apologizing during a later livestream. He told his audience, “I’mma go ahead and say to Wale, I hope he didn’t take my interaction personal. How can you blame me from being who I am? You feel me? I’m young!” Kai continued to highlight that he was only 9 years old when Wale’s October 2011 hit “Lotus Flower Bomb” dropped.
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Wale Talks Mental Health While Recalling ‘Pressing’ Kai Cenat After Streamer Failed To Recognize Him: ‘I Was Upset For Like 5 Days, I Could’ve Handled It Differently, But I Wanted To Make It A Teachable Moment’
Six months later, Wale is recalling his viral run-in with Kai Cenat and accusations of “pressing” the streamer for not knowing who he was. During the December 17 episode of Shannon Sharpe‘s ‘Club Shay Shay‘ podcast, Wale talked about the incident. He began by addressing Kai recently talking about mental health, noting how the streamer “gets it now.”
Wale told Shannon, “I’m very—I’m like notorious for not remembering—I’m not good at—Bro, I’ve been doing like the music business like this. Bro I don’t remember people like—and then a lot of people take offense to that. So I get it a little bit. I did play the [BET] celebrity game with him the week before, but..”
Shannon asked, “He didn’t remember?” Wale said, “Ehhh. Whatever. It’s cool.” Shannon asked, “I mean, couldn’t you have given a little grace? The man [is] 20.” Wale continued to explain:
That’s the thing—now you got me. Y’all acting like he was born like two days ago. Look, alright so, I gotta be super careful ‘cause these motherf***ers is cold-blooded, man. I was upset for like five days in a row. So, when he was talking about mental health at the Streamer Awards, I’m like, ‘Yes. Yes, mental health. You get it now.’
Imagine giving your life to this game, and then you go to the awards to just support the the culture—that you’ve been a part of for 13 years—and then somebody asked you to play a video, like, ‘Yeah, let’s play one day.’ ‘Cause you saw them last year. And then you go online and everybody’s like, ‘Oh. Kai Cenat. He didn’t know who you was. That was funny.’ And you in a room full of your peers.
And I was like, ‘Wait, let me go holler at him real quick.’ And, through my vantage point, I’m just like, ‘Yo, that made me look crazy, bro.’ But, I think the way that people saw it is like, ‘Yo! [punches pillow repeatedly] Kai Cenat. F**k you. Ahhh! You 20-year-old!’ Like, you feel me? That’s what they acting like I did and I’m like, ‘Yo, I’m just saying you made me look crazy. I feel uncomfortable in this room.’
At that moment, I’m like, ‘Damn. Everybody making me the bid on the internet just because he didn’t know. I was just confused and then when they said, ‘I pressed him.’ I was like, ‘Oh. Oh, so that means I gotta leave? I gotta go. I gotta go to my hotel for like a couple days.’ It was just—it was like not that.
I didn’t—I don’t expect no—I introduce myself to at my meet-and-greet sometimes. Like, that’s how I move. Like, I don’t be like, ‘You have to know how I am.’ It seemed like it was a little bit like downplaying a little bit. I’m looking at the kid on the cover of these magazines and I’m like, ‘It looked like how I dressed when I first got—like when I was first started. I could see my influence on you daily.
So, I’m not saying, ‘I influenced you,’ but I definitely—your stylist got me on his vision board. I just didn’t like how I felt in the moment. I’m like, ‘Yo, bro. I’m coming here to celebrate the culture and I’m looking at all these people like, ‘Yo he doesn’t know who you are… So funny.’
And I’m watching all these people receive awards and I was just like, ‘Let me say something before I roll.’ And they took it as me ‘pressing’ the youngin’ out. And I’m like, bro. I got PT—I can’t even look at them little cameras no more. I start sweating… when I see them joints. I be looking at everybody. Anybody that has the archetype that could be on a Twitch, I be like [searches around him].
I wanted to make it a teachable moment. I wanted to go on a stream and talk about the the generational divide, and like how that happened and like, you know, just have conversations around the how these the generations go. Because it’s like It’s a deep conversation we can have, and I’ve been dying to have that joint on stream with the right people of both sides of the culture.
Because, I mean, he’s accepted a role—whether he really planned or not—to be one of the voices in Hip-Hop. You know, whether you like stuff or not, we still have to preserve the culture. You know what I’m saying? The guys who came before me: The Jeezy’s the JAY-Z’s, Ludacris’s. We preserve the culture. You know what I’m saying?
It’s not like, ‘Oh, you’re older…’ So, that’s what that was about. I wish I would have handled it differently. But, at the same time, I definitely thought it could be a teachable moment. Because a lot of the artists, that come from my era, they don’t know how to interact with y’all. Because y’all act like y’all don’t like nothing that don’t sound a certain way or whatever.
Y’all like Hip-Hop for a certain other reason. So, some of them don’t know how to talk to them and some of them is like,’Yo we getting money. We don’t care about what y’all gotta say.’ So, you know, the goal after that was to have a teachable moment. But, we couldn’t get a comment from our guy. So… Shoutout to him, man.”
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