American rapper Lil' Cease believes it is okay for an MC to pay homage to another MC.

"All of us had an influence in the game," Cease said during a visit to MTV News earlier this week.

"We all came up listening to somebody, so it's not bad to say it."

Like most hip-hop fans, Cease is also keeping a track on the brawl between Lil' Kim and Nicki Minaj. Kim came forward and claimed that Minaj was imitating her fashion style without paying homage. The Queen Bee also said that the Young Money artist dissed her through the remix of the track "Hello, Good Morning", taking exception to the line "Did I kill the Queen?'

"When I heard about that, I didn't have no real reaction to it," Cease said.

"At the end of the day, it's a real competitive sport in hip-hop. Kim is one of them people. No matter how you look at her, as an icon or whatever, she's definitely [an icon]. But she's also an MC. She feels like she still maintains that [top] spot. She still feels like she holds that spot. You can't knock her for that. But the paying homage thing, when I seen Nicki Minaj with the green hair, when I seen her do similar pictures that Kim has done - I look at that as paying homage. I saw other things where Nicki did pay homage; she said some [complimentary] things about Lil' Kim.

"But we don't know what's going on," Cease added. "We don't read between the lines like MCs do. Kim probably sees or hears things none of us probably sees or hears. She's just making her judgment from what she's seeing. We can't knock her for that. At the end of the day, Nicki is Nicki. She's building her own lane. She's doing what she's gotta do. She's hot, she's sexy. I'm sure she's got some things from Kim, but [Nicki's] setting her own lane ... But Kim's got a right to her opinion, she's got a right to say how she feel. I'm used to Kim being that way. She's very aggressive. If she feels like she ain't getting the proper respect, she's gonna speak her mind."

In the recent weeks, Kim has backlashed Minaj, while the other kept her silence. However, Diddy, a host of female MCs and Drake have joined in the scuffle. On Tuesday, Drake told Houston radio station 97.9 the Box that he had no comments on Lil' Kim's remark that he was a "punk" in an interview with Thisis50.com. She was enraged with Drake's scuttlebutt about her jabs at Minaj.

"Nicki's got records climbing the charts," Drake said Tuesday, as he celebrated his debut album's official release.

"Today, Thank Me Later is out. It's just about relevant people today."