Benny The Butcher Reignites His Beef With Freddie Gibbs, Apparently Showing Off Gibbs’ Stolen Chain

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.

Pusha T Explains Why He Thinks Rap Beef Has Changed Over Time On ‘Hot Ones’

“[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?

Watch Pusha T’s full Hot Ones interview above