That Drake sure is a rascal. We all know that a new Drake project usually means a new collection of slights against his critics, enemies — real or imagined, and any number of former paramours who’ve wronged him in some way. His latest release, For All The Dogs: Scary Hours Edition, is no different, bringing with it a slew of disses for former flames and current nemeses.
So, who does Drake diss on Scary Hours 3?
Well, in the song “Stories About My Brother,” Drake certainly responds to Joe Budden‘s lukewarm reception of the original For All The Dogs. “Imagine us gettin’ our validation from an ex-musician searchin’ for recognition,” he raps, which is most probably a reference to Budden’s former career as a rapper. Budden has since turned to being a volatile podcast host, slinging hot takes in the hopes of viral fame (to his credit and the chagrin of Budden haters everywhere, it mostly works).
Then, on “Wick Man,” Drake quotes Pusha T‘s 2018 diss track “The Story Of Adidon,” which effectively turned the audience against him in their beef at the time, but hasn’t seemed to do much for his rival’s fortunes since. “Man, I remember n****s was jokin’ ’bout some tick, tick / And now that rapper broke as f*ck / That boy a statistic.”
So, Drake’s streak of petty posturing continues. Since it doesn’t look like he’ll actually be taking that break anytime soon after announcing an extended tour with J. Cole, perhaps his targets will take the opportunity to fire back.
Before Cardi B, Latto, and Megan Thee Stallion were Nicki Minaj’s nemeses, there was Remy Ma (and Lil Kim, but that’s another story). Toward the middle of the last decade, after Remy Ma had been released from prison to find that her reign had been shorter than leprechauns — in part because of Nicki’s dominance — the two rappers engaged in a year-long tussle that saw them release actual diss tracks like “Shether” and “No Frauds” (a bygone era, truly).
Nicki appears to have put their feud on the backburner in favor of funneling her energy into rivalries with more contemporary hitmakers like those mentioned above — and, it has to be admitted, actually supporting newer girls like Doja Cat and Ice Spice. The last we heard of it was last year when Remy appeared on Drink Champs and insinuated they’d agreed to stop talking about each other. While Nicki denied that any conversation to that effect ever took place, a more recent, cryptic Instagram post has her fans thinking that she’s settled the old beef.
“Look over your shoulder / I’m in da rover, it’s over, b*tch,” she wrote. The post appears to be a quote from Remy Ma’s verse on Big Pun’s song “Ms. Martin,” which fans have interpreted as a hint that Remy will appear on Nicki’s upcoming album Pink Friday 2. “Nicki did say she might be forgiving one of the duds on TikTok live a while ago,” one fan wrote in the comments of a post reporting on the coincidence.
While it’s not an outright confirmation from Minaj, it would be nice to see a reconciliation among the women of hip-hop — especially one that brings us a step closer to getting that long-rumored Cardi/Nicki collab. While that might not be some fans’ cup of tea (seriously, just watch boxing if you want to see a fight), as Cardi once said, “Beef is bad for business,” and we here at Uproxx just want to see everybody win because we are not haters.
It seems like every time a new female rapper pops up and starts to build a buzz, rap fans can’t help but pit her against another. The latest entertainers to experience this trend are Ice Spice and Latto, who fans seem eager to see duke it out, even if they have to read into lyrics, mislabel fight videos, and stretch each of their new releases to make them about the other rapper.
Most recently, with the release of Offset’s new album, Set It Off, and Latto’s appearance on its song “Fine As Can Be,” rap fans have been speculating that Latto’s verse took lyrical shots at fellow hip-hop it-girl Ice Spice thanks to a reference to Ice’s breakout hit.
“That n**** a munch, your booking fee, ate it for lunch,” Latto raps. Obviously, fans have taken the reference to “Munch,” Ice Spice’s breakout hit, to mean that the next line is about Ice Spice — which is kind of a reach. Even Victor Wembanyama is jealous.
But why exactly do fans think that Ice Spice and Latto have a feud?
Unfortunately, it probably has to do with Nicki Minaj, who’s notoriously been at the center of a bunch of rap beef, whether invented by fans, manufactured by labels, or actively encouraged by Nicki herself.
After Nicki outright named Latto’s song “Big Energy” in an angry rant about the Grammys categorizing her song “Super Freaky Girl” as pop, Latto fired back, calling Nicki a “bully” while Nicki called Latto a “Karen” (apparently, she doesn’t get the context of the term).
Their duel eventually simmered down, but with Nicki championing Ice Spice, then collaborating with her repeatedly, fans have apparently projected Nicki’s feud onto Ice Spice. (For what it’s worth, Nicki has waged war by proxy before, so this response is at least semi-reasonable.)
This has led to fans believing that Ice Spice took shots at Latto on “Butterly Ku” from the deluxe edition of her Like…? EP with a subtle reference to Latto’s “Put It On Da Floor” — a song that was widely interpreted as a diss toward Ice Spice’s benefactor Nicki (especially after the remix added longtime Nicki rival Cardi B).
So, the answer is likely “no, Ice Spice and Latto don’t have beef.” But they also probably won’t become best friends anytime soon with fans, mentors, and the recording industry stoking rumors of conflict. And as with so many pairs of women in hip-hop’s past, it’s probably only a matter of time until those rumors become reality, like a self-fulfilling prophecy that rap fans just can’t stop making.
With the hostilities between Cardi B and Nicki Minaj — and their husbands, Offset and Kenneth Petty — heating up again after a few years on simmer, you may be wondering how all this got started in the first place. Don’t worry; Uproxx has you covered. Here’s a timeline of just how the feud between Nicki Minaj and Cardi B got started and what’s happened since then. While there’s been plenty of speculation about who said what about whom, we’ll just stick with the facts.
The Beginning — 2017
In our original timeline of the Nicki/Cardi feud, we noted that everything likely starts with Cardi’s “Bodak Yellow” release. The ensuing fan and media frenzy surrounding it led to the song becoming the first by a solo female rap artist to reach No. on the Billboard Hot 100 chart since Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” — a goal Nicki had pursued and fallen short of for nearly a decade prior.
However, the song was still several weeks away from its peak when Nicki Minaj’s fans, known as Barbz, began throwing shade at Cardi. At the time, it had been nearly three years since Nicki had last released an album. Perhaps the Barbz perceived a threat to Nicki’s dominance or simply wanted to see a fight, but either way, they got one — ironically, as a result of the two women’s attempted show of solidarity.
Open Conflict — 2017 – 2018
In October 2017, Migos added Cardi B to their Culture II single, “Motorsport.” This turned out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. After the song’s video was released in November, news of behind-the-scenes drama between the two began to trickle out. Nicki and Cardi’s scenes were shot separately, leading to more speculation of tension between them, and after it was revealed that Migos added Cardi without consulting Nicki and that Nicki’s verse was allegedly changed at the request of Cardi’s label, Atlantic, there was no stopping the oncoming train wreck.
In April 2018, Nicki began openly throwing Cardi under the bus in interviews while promoting her 2018 album Queen, which was due just a few months after Cardi’s debut Invasion Of Privacy. Invasion turned out to be a coronation, Cardi’s victory lap solidifying her as a breakout star. In interviews, Nicki called out Cardi for being “ungrateful” and for not backing up her explanation for their separate shoot days, which involved a scheduling conflict with her hairstylist.
In September 2018, things erupted, as their meeting at a New York Fashion Week party that year led to a physical altercation in which Cardi threw a show at Nicki, getting a bump on the forehead from one of the older rapper’s bodyguards in return. Since then, they’ve returned to less open hostilities, settling into a cold war, complete with proxy fighters and accusations of sneak disses flying from fans on both sides.
The Cold War — 2019 – Now
Since then, the closest either side has come to outright beef has been in the wake of Nicki’s 2022 “Super Freaky Girl (Queen Mix),” which featured rappers Akbar V, BIA, JT, Katie Got Bandz, and Maliibu Miitch. In the weeks after its release, Akbar V and JT both lashed out at Cardi — ostensibly at the behest of Nicki Minaj, if you were to ask fans what prompted the exchanges.
Eventually, both feuds petered out though, returning to status quo until the 2023 MTV VMAs — the first time they’d both appeared at such a function since their NYFW fight. Now, details of the inciting event are murky, but it appears that some sort of exchange between the two rappers’ crews backstage took place that led to Cardi apparently being threatened but later boasting on Twitter that “I ain’t even flinch.”
Then, the next weekend, Nicki’s husband, Kenneth Petty, posted a video with his crew roaming New York, apparently looking for Offset. While Offset laughed off their threats, a judge apparently did not, slapping Petty with a probation violation (he is serving a suspended sentence for failing to register as a sex offender in California) and sentencing him to house arrest.
In the aftermath, Nicki seemed not to sweat the sentence, sharing a song snippet from her upcoming album Pink Friday 2 that references her husband’s “G” status and having shooters.
The key to all this might just be in that last bit, though; beef sells — supposedly — and with both rappers gearing up to release new full-length projects, don’t be surprised if this list gets longer in the near future.
Despite being on house arrest in Utah, Baton Rouge rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again has been menacing the rap world for the past several weeks, taunting would-be rivals like Lil Durk, Soulja Boy, and Drake. And while it appears they’ve mostly ignored his attention-baiting antics, there’s at least one person who took him seriously enough to take action.
However, unfortunately for fans of rap beef, J. Prince decided to put YoungBoy and Drake on a video chat to see if they could work out their differences. The Houston rap impresario posted a photo of himself with the young rapper, detailing how he encouraged him to take Drake off his “enemy list.”
“As you all can see, I had a good time kicking it with the homies in Utah,” he wrote.
On behalf of the lil Homie YB, me and my brother Birdman were able to have a real conversation face to face. We talked about the past, the present, and the future. But most importantly, we left each other with a mutual respect moving forward. Even though I wasn’t there for a meeting with bird man I must say the lord works in mysterious ways. With that being said, I must address the song where my name and drakes name were mentioned. To the lil homie, as I said to you privately, I say to you publicly that Drake is my son, he roll with me. Therefore, I think it’s a good idea to take him off your enemy list because the truth of the matter is that we got nothing but love for [Lil] Durk and your accomplishments. When I put Drake on that facetime call with you, my intent was for y’all to move forward, not backward. “Two things we get every day is a chance and a choice. The choices we make determine our destination.
The trouble appeared to stem from NBA YoungBoy’s new mixtape, Richest Opp, which featured the song “F**K The Industry Pt. 2.” The “How To Rob”-style track found the prolific spitter calling out names. While most of his ire was directed at Lil Durk, it seemed Drake’s association with the Chicago rapper was enough to earn a dismissive bar or two.
“B*tch, I send them hitters to hit at you, boy, don’t say sh*t to me / Talk to Drake ‘cross FaceTime, he wasn’t feelin’ me,” he raps on the song. “Told me that he f*ck with Durk, damn, that sh*t was gettin’ to me / Told me that he like the sh*t I’m doin’, but can’t do sh*t with me / So when we cross our ways, f*ck what you say, b*tch, you my enemy.”
To be fair, Drake already takes enough heat for his associations with Chris Brown and Baka Not Nice, one of whom is on his label. With YoungBoy’s seeming inability to keep himself out of trouble for 6 consecutive months at a time, that’s one collab the Canadian just might continue to avoid.
J. Cole is not generally considered to be a confrontational figure in hip hop. Compared to many of his contemporaries, he hasn’t necessarily engaged in many feuds. He tends to spread positivity in his music and is highly respected in hip-hop. However, J. Cole still has found himself engulfed in beefs with other MCs throughout his successful career. For the most part, J. Cole has steered away from directly dissing rappers in a song but he has a history of sneakily sending subliminal jabs towards them. Mostly, J. Cole’s beefs have been one-sided as some have taken offense to the subliminal disses and have directly addressed him, even without any real interaction.
This is a deep dive into some of J. Cole’s most notable public feuds in recent years. Many of them are one-sided where certain individuals responded to Cole’s sneak disses but there have been other times where he’s directly called out some of his peers and competitors. Take a look at all of the biggest J. Cole beefs below.
Diddy
J. Cole’s beef with Diddy was the most serious of all of his public feuds. The root cause of the beef is unknown, but their contention escalated to the point where they reportedly physically fought each other in 2013 at an MTV VMA Awards afterparty. The original reports of the fight were denied but J. Cole confirmed the beef on his 2021 song “l e t . g o . m y . h a n d.” He raps, “My last scrap was with Puff Daddy, who would’ve thought it?/ I bought that n***a album in seventh grade and played it so much/You would’ve thought my favorite rapper was Puff/ Back then I ain’t know shit, now I know too much.” Although Cole and Puff immediately laughed off the incident after the reports emerged, the track formally marked the reconciliation between J. Cole and Diddy as Puff appeared on the song’s outro.
Responses to “Everybody Dies”
In 2016, J. Cole released the pair of singles, “Everybody Dies” and “False Prophets,” which led to strong reactions from members of the hip hop community who took offense. Aimed towards mumble rappers, J. Cole raps, “Bunch of words and ain’t sayin’ shit, I hate these rappers / Especially the amateur eight-week rappers / Lil’ whatever – just another short bus rapper.” Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert both felt like the lyrics were aimed at them, but shrugged it off in interviews and on social media.
“False Prophets”
“False Prophets” stirred up just as much controversy as “Everybody Dies.” Almost the entire song could be interpreted as a diss. Although J. Cole did not address anyone directly, many felt like the first verse was aimed towards Kanye West. Cole confirmed the verse applies to Kanye rather than being directly inspired by the Chicago artist. The issues stem from Kanye’s ego-driven rants but more generally, the concept of celebrity worship. Cole admittedly looked up to Kanye as a kid, rapping over many of his beats. Wale felt that the second verse was aimed at him, to which he responded in his song “Groundhog Day.” Since then, Wale and J. Cole have been on good terms, collaborating on “My Boy Freestyle” and “Poke It Out.”
Reactions to “1985”
“1985 (Intro to ‘The Fall Off’),” the outro song from J. Cole’s 2018 album, K.O.D, received similar reactions to “Everybody Dies” and “False Prophets.” In the song, J. Cole speaks directly to an unnamed rapper with advice on how to make it in hip hop. He speaks from the perspective of an older rapper who is teaching an up-and-coming artist the keys to a long and successful career. He asks them questions about their goals and how they want to leave a legacy, warning them about potentially falling off. Similar to “Everybody Dies,” many felt like J. Cole was dissing young mumble rappers.
Though J. Cole said that he was not talking to anyone specifically on the song, rappers Lil Pump and Smokepurpp took offense. Although they had already launched their “F*ck J. Cole” campaign slogans in concerts and on social media, “1985” certainly created further tension. and started dissing J. Cole on social media and at their live shows, sparking a short-lived beef. J. Cole and Lil Pump eventually sat down and ended the beef.
Noname
One of J. Cole’s biggest and most recent public beef was with Noname. At the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Noname criticized hip-hop’s most visible figures for profiting “off blackness while simultaneously being silent when it comes to black death.” J. Cole responded with a song called “Snow on the Bluff” which does not reference Noname directly, but still responds to her comment. In the song, J. Cole tells fans not to look to him for insightful remarks, feeling like he is not doing enough during the protests. He praises Noname for her intelligence and activism, but also felt like she was talking down to him in a self-righteous way. Cole mentions how the tone of Noname’s tweet bothered him, to which many took offense. The song sparked a short-lived beef between J. Cole and Noname
Noname responded two days later with “Song 33,” rapping about how J. Cole could have used the song to address the racism and police brutality that caused the protests. J. Cole and Noname did not officially end their short beef, but they have spoken since.
At one point in time, Benny The Butcher and Freddie Gibbs enjoyed a fruitful working relationship. In 2020, each appeared on the other’s album, with Benny turning in a verse on “Frank Lucas” from Freddie’s Alchemist-produced album Alfredo and Freddie returning the favor thanks to some assistance from Jay-Z on Benny’s Hit-Boy-produced Burden Of Proof offering “One Way Flight.” Both also appeared on Texas rapper Bobby Sessions’ 2021 Manifest single “Gold Rolex.” All of those tracks received praise and seemed to indicate that the two rough-voiced street rappers were on friendly terms — they even teased a potential joint album to be released in 2022 — so why are they beefing now?
Freddie’s sense of humor has been the impetus behind a lot of the trouble in which he finds himself, and this time appears to be more of the same. Things seemed to have gone south in late 2021, when Freddie jokingly tweeted about a recent incident in which Benny was shot in the leg during an attempted robbery. Unfortunately, Benny wasn’t amused; months later, when Benny was asked about the status of the joint project during an interview, he said the collaboration was no longer being released. Later, in another interview, he said the opportunity to complete the album “came and went.” When Freddie laughed off the response with an unsubtle reference to the robbery, Benny snapped back on Twitter.
From there, the pair’s problems appear to have escalated to physical violence; Benny and his crew were seen brawling with Gibbs at a local restaurant when he stopped in Benny’s hometown, Buffalo, to do a show. He performed that show with a black eye. Ever since, they’ve been taking jabs at one another via social media, such as a video Benny posted showing off a chain allegedly stolen from Gibbs’ girlfriend during their restaurant fight. While Fred has sent repeated invitations for another, one-on-one bout, Benny seems content to taunt him and demean his “gangsta” aesthetic after Gibbs failed to produce a gun during the brawl (which… should be a good thing, right? Like, do you want him to shoot you? Everybody I know who has ever been shot says it sucks). And so, not only do we not get that collab album, we get to watch two grown men squabble on the internet like high schoolers. This can’t even really be all that fun for fans of immature rap beef because we haven’t gotten one diss track out of it. Hopefully, that’ll change; even better, maybe they can actually hash out their differences and get back to making more great collabs.
I’m not the biggest fan of rap beef. Really, most confrontations outside the realm of sports make me a little nervous since I’ve seen how far these things can go, but it’s also part of my job to keep readers abreast of trends in music. Well, one of the long-running trends this year has been the ongoing friction between collaborators turned combatants Benny The Butcher and Freddie Gibbs, so here we are.
Here’s the short of it; this spring, after Freddie made what appeared to be disparaging comments about Benny on Twitter, Benny responded by insinuating that his time to collaborate with Freddie had come and gone and that he’d rejected Freddie’s pleas to work on a joint album together. Then, two months later, Gibbs made an appearance in Buffalo, Benny’s hometown, sporting what appeared to be a fresh shiner on around his eye onstage. After some speculation by fans, a video emerged online the next day, apparently depicting the two rappers’ crews brawling at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que restaurant in Buffalo ahead of Gibbs’ show there.
It was later reported that Gibbs’ chain had gone missing during the altercation and now, it seems we know where it ended up: in Benny’s possession. According to XXL, Benny posted a video on his Instagram Story showing off a jewelry collection that apparently now includes Freddie’s ESGN pendant. Freddie responded on his own Instagram Story, writing, “Benny gay ass need to stop flexing because he was there and didn’t throw a punch. Hoe ass n****s did all that brought a camera man and all for promo. Still can’t pack a room. Go head start rapping about me so I can start talking about these sealed plea agreements and shit … Head up fade solve everything. But n**** aint built like that.”
Now, Benny has escalated their static, posting another video to his Story this time wearing the ESGN chain while calling Freddie “MC Dinosaur Bar-B-Que” and mocking him for getting beat up. Freddy followed up with his own text post, against disparaging Benny for being unable to draw a crowd (legit, by the way — the Griselda show at the Novo in 2020 was sort of dead and this was pre-pandemic) and invited him once again to a one-on-one fight.
My take: Both of these guys are too old to be squabbling over social media like a couple of middle schoolers. Freddie’s 40 and Benny’s 36 and both should know better. Threatening shootouts and running five-on-one fades is corny, especially over rap. Either call Ultimate Rap League or get a boxing match sanctioned so you can have it out and have it over with, because this? This ain’t it.
“[Rap beef] is really corporate now,” Pusha T says in between bites of hot sauced-covered chicken wings during his appearance on the popular interview show Hot Ones. The question he’s been asked by unflappable host Sean Evans is, “What would you say is the biggest difference between how diss tracks were exchanged 20 years ago versus today and why is still important who wins?”
Pusha would know; he’s been keeping a running feud going with Lil Wayne for nearly 20 years himself (over a hoodie, no less), pulling in Wayne’s protege Drake and outing the latter as the father of a secret child in 2018. Continuing to share his thoughts, he elaborates that “Now, you’ll have a rap beef and the record label gets involved. The CEOs are like, ‘Whoa! You can’t do this to my artist!’ I don’t think they end careers anymore, because people don’t have the same pride level about the art.”
He also thinks it’s less important who wins, because “Back in the day it was career-ending… Nowadays, people don’t care. They’re like, ‘Oh well, they lost today. No big deal.’”
And okay, I’m sorry, all due respect to Push but as the resident hip-hop historian, I gotta say GTFOHWTBS. 20 years ago, Jay-Z and Nas held a knock-down, drag-out rhyme fight over the King Of New York title that fans still debate about and neither’s career suffered over it. In fact, both became more popular, with Nas’ “Ether” arguably revitalizing his standing with fans after a pair of lukewarm releases to close out the ’90s. And if my man is talking about the 50 Cent/Ja Rule thing, it’s important to remember that Ja Rule’s label was shut down by the freaking FBI.
No one’s career was ever buried by a rap beef. Since the beginning, battle was an integral part of the genre; if there’s any culprit to blame for rappers’ short-lived careers, it’s fickle fans and quickly evolving musical tastes. Of course, the highest-profile rap beef with the highest stakes wasn’t even about rap, which explains why it came to such a tragic end — which, contrary to conspiracy theories that float around the internet to this day, had little to do with the rules of engagement in hip-hop.
Pusha’s entitled to his opinion but at the end of the day, the narrative of rap beefs ending careers is just that: a narrative. As a matter of course, these things are always much more nuanced than we tend to idealize them as with our nostalgia glasses on. Anyway, for Pusha’s latest beef, check out his McDonald’s diss track “Spicy Fish Diss,” which he made in conjuction with Arby’s. How’s that for corporate?
