Travie McCoy Just Performed ‘Stereo Hearts’ With Adam Levine Live for the First Time in 14 Years, Months After Calling Maroon 5 Out

It’s been 14 years since Travie McCoy of Gym Class Heroes and Adam Levine of Maroon 5 performed the 2011 song “Stereo Hearts” live together. Marking what must be a Thanksgiving Week miracle, that streak is now broken.

Last week, while the Grammy-winning pop band was performing at Madison Square Garden in New York City, they brought the hometown rapper out to do the song with them. From the looks of things, the vibes were synced, and the crowd was loving it. Check out a clip below.

Interestingly, the long-awaited live collab comes months after McCoy made eyebrow-raising comments about the band during a guest appearance on the Go With Elmo podcast. During his conversation with podcast host Elmo Lovano, McCoy called out Levine over what he saw as his erasure from the song over the past decade.

Giving some backstory, McCoy explained that he worked with Benny Blanco on the song “Stereo Hearts” for his band Gym Class Heroes. As they worked on it, Levine expressed interest in it for Maroon 5.

McCoy stood firm, however, saying that he’d love to have Levine sing on the track. But he wasn’t giving it up. “As much as Adam wanted ‘Stereo Hearts’ for Maroon 5, I crushed it and said, ‘You can’t have that,’” McCoy recalled telling the singer.

Travie McCoy says that Benny Blanco gave Maroon 5 “Moves Like Jagger” Instead

Levine seemed disappointed not to get the song, McCoy said. He then revealed that Blanco more than made it up to The Voice coach. “That same night, he did ‘Moves Like Jagger’. It was like, ‘Here’s this other song to kind of appease that.’” McCoy pointed out that this was a great consolation prize, as it “shot Maroon 5 back into the stratosphere.”

This is where the story starts to get a little prickly. McCoy then went on to indicate that, once the song was out there, Maroon 5 didn’t “need” him anymore. “They [Maroon 5] didn’t need me to play these songs, obviously. They play them every night without me.”

“Once people get what they need from you, I want to say you’re chopped liver,” he continued. “But it’s like, ‘We could do these songs without you. And people think these are our songs.’ When I go to play my song, it’s, ‘Oh, he’s covering Maroon 5′”

McCoy said he wasn’t necessarily harboring resentment. He did wish, however, that the band had shown up for him more. “The least you could do is let motherf***ers know where these songs came from,” he said.

Finally, he shared a story that summed up his whole gripe. “I’ll never forget once I got off the stage and a radio [reporter] was once like, ‘Yo, you killed that Maroon 5 song!’ I literally laughed in his face and walked away.”

It seems the two parties have buried the hatchet.

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