DJ Mustard and YG are longtime collaborators and friends, which is what made their public feud during the last week of 2014 such a surprise. Thankfully, the two squashed it by the New Year, and the powerhouse producer says it was all a miscommunication.

"It wasn't a shot at YG; it was a shot at Def Jam," Mustard told MTV News exclusively on Thursday (Jan. 8), while in New York to DJ at Friday's Roc Nation Sports Throne Boxing event. "But, at the same time, it was a miscommunication, because it was already all done with."

According to the hit producer, he was frustrated when people were hitting him up to help resolve a personal matter related to YG. He didn't disclose what that matter was, but was bothered by others trying to involve him.

That lines up with what he wrote in the since-deleted Instagram post, which was a screenshot of a note from his phone. "Stop asking me about the Yg sh-- !!!" he posted. "I don't kno none of it on top of that I still ain't got payed for his album! So I don't give a f--k !!!!!"

Despite that, as well as YG's response -- which included "F--k you n---a" and "I know where yo studio at" -- the two ultimately moved past the incident. DJ Mustard also confirmed with MTV News that he was eventually paid by Def Jam for his work on My Krazy Life, though it wasn't as quickly as he would have liked.

"I mean, we exchanged words, but we brothers," he said. "That's what brothers do. And then we handled it like men."

Not only did they handle it, he says, but there was an unexpected positive outcome from the beef.

"It helped me and YG in a lot of ways," he explained. "Because we got, like, a big, big, big, big entourage, and you just got to see who would pick whose side, you know what I'm saying? And you would see who wouldn't pick each other's side. And you got calls from people -- I got calls from people, he got calls from people -- that were saying, 'Yo, I'm riding with you,' or 'I ride with you.' At the end of the day, why are you riding with either one of us? We brothers. We supposed to fight and get it over with it...So it just helped us cut the snakes out the grass, and move into 2015 in a good way."