A lot of folks don’t realize that Hip Hop is more than just music. It’s an entire culture. Hip Hop encompasses so many aspects: music, fashion, dance, politics, etc. There’s another aspect that folks don’t consider when it comes to Hip Hop…beef. From its infancy to its middle age, Hip Hop was always deeply ingrained in the MC’s trying to prove who was the best on the mic, hence, the start of rap battles. Everyone from Roxanne Shante, LL Cool J, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Common, and of course, to Pac and Biggie, were involved in some type of Hip-Hop beef.
Even the film House Party shows Kid and Play embroiled in a rap battle, albeit a lighthearted one.
Then there’s one of my favorite films that perfectly embodies rap battles…8 Mile. Towards the end, we see Eminem triumph by tearin’ up every last one of his opponents, and the way he decimated Papa Doc at the end was masterful.
For the last few years, we haven’t had a really good rap beef. I see most of the ladies in Hip Hop go back and forth, but instead of taking it to wax, they put petty stuff on social media and/or they’ll actually fight each other in public. One of the few recent exceptions I see to this is Megan Thee Stallion’s “HISS,” which was a damn good track, if I say so myself.
However, we’ve lately seen a resurgence of Hip Hop beef between many of the fellas. It started with Kendrick Lamar coming for Drake and J. Cole, and not only is everyone getting a little piece of the action (mostly as far as coming for Drake is concerned), but the beefs have become a phenomenon that will definitely go down in Hip Hop history.
Chris Brown vs. Quavo
I’ll start with the smallest beef, involving two men who wouldn’t have made it onto my 2024 Beef Bingo Card…Chris Brown and Quavo. Apparently, Chris and Quavo have beef going all the way back to Chris’s time with Karrueche Tran. After Karrueche and Chris broke up, she spent some time with Quavo, and Chris was none too happy about that. I know what you’re saying: “But that was years ago!” Yes, it was. However, the beef was reignited recently for reasons unknown—I think Quavo mentioned Karrueche again or something to that effect—and now it’s on.
First Chris came out with “Weakest Link,” where he just straight up murders Quavo. Just as the line suggests, Chris states that Quavo is the weak link with The Migos, and he even mentions that everybody wished that Quavo was the one that was murked instead of Takeoff. Lord… I have to be honest, aside from the death wish (that’s a bit too brutal for me), the song was fire. I was pleasantly surprised. When I first heard that Chris had a diss track, I figured he’d sing all the putdowns. I didn’t even realize Breezy had bars like that!
Quavo came back swingin’ with “Over Hoes and Bitches.” A lot of folks thought the response was booty. Me personally, I give it an A for effort, but Chris definitely won this round. I haven’t heard anything else from these two since, but I’ll keep my eyes open.
Kendrick vs. J. Cole
From what I gathered, Kendrick and J. Cole didn’t have any real beef with each other beforehand, not really. If I’m not mistaken, they’ve taken some small shots at each other over the years, but that’s as far as it went (it was no where near as bad as the K. Dot/Drizzy situation that simmered into a boil…more on that later). However, J. Cole did a collab with Drake entitled “First Person Shooter,” and in that song, Cole refers to himself, Drizzy and Kenny as “the big three.” Kendrick was none too happy about that. A commenter on YouTube likened this song to Archduke Franz Ferdinand being shot (which led to the start of World War I). Truer words have never been spoken (again, more on that later).
Kendrick released his first diss track, “Like That,” with Future and Metro Boomin’, and made damn sure to address that that “Big Three” statement: “Motherfuck the big three, nigga it’s just BIG ME!” Not gonna lie, the entire track is a banger, but that line is my favorite part of the song.
J. Cole promptly fired back with “7 Minute Drill,” which was a hot track, but Cole later walked back his disses, saying that releasing the song didn’t sit right with his spirit. Not too long after that announcement, J. Cole had “7 Minute Drill” scrubbed from all streaming services. *Sigh* To quote a commenter on YouTube, Cole took the whole “Might Delete Later” thing a little too seriously.
I’m sorry, y’all. I’m from the old school. Like I said before, Hip Hop’s foundation is based on beefs and competition. A lot of folks think that Cole made the right decision in not continuing the beef and deleting his diss track. Some say that the beef may have gone beyond wax and into the streets, a la Tupac and Biggie back in the mid ‘90s. I get where people are coming from, but again, Hip Hop is rooted in beef between rappers. Pac and Biggie’s beef became violent because not only did they have ties to street shit, but it appears a certain demonic ass record mogul may have had his hand behind those murders…allegedly. But I digress.
On the contrary, Cole and Kendrick aren’t affiliated with anything to do with the streets, and have never had any violent interactions with anyone. In hindsight, J. Cole may have decided to let go and let God because he didn’t want the smoke with K. Dot after all.
Drake vs. the World
I don’t know what Drake did to piss off just about every rapper in the Hip Hop world, but Lord knows whatever it was had to be something big…’cause these fellas are pissed! Everybody and their mama is gunnin’ for Drake right now!
First, Metro Boomin’, Future, and The Weeknd—yes, The Weeknd—all got together for the album We Still Don’t Trust You. I haven’t heard all the songs, but I’m loving the title track (which ironically, is the one of the few songs that may not contain any jabs at Drizzy). The Weeknd can make anything sound ethereal. Speaking of The Weeknd, I was confused as to why he was so pissed at Drake. I always thought he and Drizzy were Canadian homeboys, but it turns out I was wrong. Lovelyti confirmed the long-standing beef between The Weeknd and Drake in her most recent video.
By the way, Abel’s contribution to Metro Boomin’ and Future’s track wasn’t lost on Drake. He hit my boy with some subtle jabs on his “Push Ups” diss track. Not only that, but instead of J. Cole’s and Kendrick’s fans taking the beef too far, it appears that maybe Abel and Drake’s fans are the ones trying to make the beef go beyond wax. Both the XO (The Weeknd’s production label) and OVO (Drake’s production label) camps have been fired upon, literally. Again, I just want this beef to stay in the music, not to be taken to the streets.
Metro, Future, and The Weeknd weren’t the only ones that came at Drake. Rick Ross decided to get him some, too. A few weeks back, Rick came out with “Champagne Moments.” I like the beat, but the song itself was okay. Rick’s worst diss to Drake is calling him a “white boy” over and over. Okay. Drake made sure to address that as well as how he felt about Rick in “Family Matters.” Again, I’ll speak more on that later.
As I was putting the finishing touches on this post, Metro Boomin’ came out with another song, “BBL Drizzy.” I have to say, I’m loving the beat and the sample used. It’s nails! At first I thought it was a sample of a woman singing, but I later learned that a comedian named King Willonius made the song about a month ago, after Rick Ross first called Drake “BBL Drizzy.” After Drake uttered the line, “Metro shut yo’ ho ass up and make some drums, nigga,” on “Push Ups,” I guess Metro said, “Why not?” and decided to speed up King Willonius’s original song and add his own drums to it. Brutal. Believe it or not, I actually am a Drake fan, but as far as this beef is concerned, I have to give credit where credit is due…and these folks are cookin’ my boy.
I will say this, though…Metro probably should’ve sat down and ate his food. After he dropped “BBL Drizzy,” the Drake fans came together like Voltron and exposed some very disturbing past tweets he posted about pedophilia and sexual assault. Not cool.
K. Dot vs. Drizzy (An Epic Saga)
Man…this one is off the chain! As some of you may have guessed, I’m a Millennial, and like most Millennials, I had no idea what started this damn beef. I had to look it up, and thanks to Billboard and Variety, I was able to follow a timeline of Kendrick and Drake’s back and forth (no pun intended), and it’s a lot. Apparently, these two have been throwin’ shots at each other for years, as early as 2012!
After Kendrick lit the fuse on “Like That,” Drake made it clear that he wasn’t going to go the same route he did when Pusha T came at him (thank goodness). This time he was gonna fight back. Drake’s response was “Push Ups,” a diss track that a lot folks claim doesn’t hold up to the caliber of “Like That,” but I personally thought it was fire.
Drake couldn’t let it rest there. Homeboy released another diss track not very long after “Push Ups” was made available. This time, Drake came out with “Taylor Made Freestyle” which went as far as to feature an AI version of Tupac and Snoop Dogg! “Taylor Made Freestyle” isn’t bad, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as “Push Ups.” The Pac and Snoop AI was cool, kind of (what folks are doing with AI nowadays makes me a bit uneasy).
Drake thought he was doing something with those two-for-one special diss tracks. Little did he realize that all he did was incense the dragon. A few days after “Taylor Made Freestyle” dropped, Kung Fu Kenny released “Euphoria,” a scathing diss track that goes completely in on Drizzy! Funny enough, on “Taylor Made Freestyle,” Drake mentioned that when Kendrick responds, he better come with “quadruple entendres.” Kendrick’s “Euphoria” is full of subtle disses that reference Drake’s grooming of young women, his lack of manhood, him not being a real father to his son, etc. Ask and you shall receive, Drizzy! And K. Dot still wasn’t done…
While I was writing this post, Kung Fu Kenny struck four more times. Never in my life have I seen someone release rapid fire diss tracks like that! The next song was entitled, “6:16 in LA,” and it was here that Kendrick not only cooked Drake to perfection a second time, but he also mentioned that folks in his own OVO organization are against him. “6:16 in LA” didn’t hook me as much as “Euphoria,” the but song and the disses still slapped, and there’s a lot of symbolism within the song as well! Check out Lovelyti’s breakdown of all the hidden meanings in the track.
Drake, to his credit, came back with “Family Matters,” which was a hot track with some sharp disses and a great beat. This is the aforementioned track where Drake addressed Rick Ross and Abel, as well as Kendrick. As I said, the track was fire, but unfortunately it was no match for the next two follow ups that K. Dot had lined up.
Without even breaking stride, Kendrick released “Meet the Grahams, where he speaks with each member of Drake’s family (including an illegitimate 11 yr. daughter we didn’t really know about), letting them all know that they’re related to a master manipulator/pedophile/man-child/all-around fake. Good-ness. Talk about not pulling any doggone punches.
The very next day, Kendrick saw fit to deliver a coup-de-grace with “Not Like Us,” where he gets even more brutal with the attack. Did I mention that the beats used for these two tracks were hittin’ on top of everything else? “Not Like Us” is a straight up club banger, and I like it even more than “Euphoria” at this point, which is saying a lot. Man, I’m living for this shit!
Drake released a response entitled “The Heart Part 6,” (which is a play on Kenny’s “The Heart Part 5” from his Mr. Morale album) which was…meh. I wasn’t really feeling that one as much as “Push Ups” and “Family Matters,” and neither were a lot of other people. In the song, Drake swears up and down that he fed Kendrick a bunch of false info to see if he would run with it, and he did. If you say so, Drizzy. I ain’t buyin’ it. In all honesty, there’s no proof to the allegations that Kendrick is making about Drake, but there ain’t no proof that Drake made all that shit up to make Kendrick look like a fool, either. Also, the track was just lackluster. You can’t go against diss tracks with fire beats, lines, and delivery with a song that’s overall weak and forgettable. Poor Drake ended up misfiring with this last installment, making Kung Fu Kenny the clear winner of this war.
Y’all, as I’ve stated numerous times throughout this post, I’m living for this beef. Some of you might think I’m a low-vibrational bitch that lives for drama, but when it comes to rap beef, I’m here for it, just as I always have been. These recent diss tracks have made Hip Hop fun and exciting again, because it’s bringing out these men’s creativity. Drake is putting out some of the best music he’s had in years (with the exception of “The Heart Part 6″…that was weak). Kendrick is consistently droppin’ gems that will stand the test of time. Although J. Cole bowed out of the beef, he showed that he could still be a strong competitor. Even Chris Brown proved that he couldn’t be messed with on the mic. Not only that, but The Weeknd reminded everyone of the reason why he’s loved after that fiasco of a TV show.
My mom—who is a HUGE Drake fan—believes this is all a publicity stunt. If it is, it was extremely well played and I ain’t even mad about it, because I’m having way too much fun listening to all these bangin’ tracks. These songs will live on forever, and we’re currently watching Hip Hop history in the making. Again, as long as all this is kept on wax, I’m all good with it (I’m lookin’ at you, Canada).
—Written by Nadiya
So what do you think about all the current rap beefs? Who do you think won each battle? Are you enjoying all these diss tracks coming out, or do you feel like it’s low-vibrational and could lead to something that happens off wax? Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on Drake and The Weeknd’s houses being fired upon? If you are enjoying all the beefs, which tracks are your favorites? Which battle is your favorite so far? Let me know in the comments section!
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