Since its earliest incarnations, rap music has always been boastful. In the beginning almost every rapper claimed to be the best, the bomb, the flyest, the illest, the dopest, the shit, and so on and so forth. This was all well and good, but there was one little problem. There can only be one ‘best.’ This discrepancy gave rise to battling, pitting 2 MCs against each other in a rap contest. Whoever had the best raps, and, by extension, the best insults, won. This worked in person, but eventually the insults began to continue even when the insultee wasn’t present. Then came dis records, and hip-hop beefs were born. Here is a history of hip-hop’s greatest battles and disses, and a look at the present and future of hip- hop wars.

From the Schoolyard to the Studio: 1980-89

"…the bridge is over, the bridge is over, biddy-bye-bye!"- KRS One, Boogie Down Productions, "The Bridge is Over."
"How many times on one album can you say you’re def?/ ‘I’m Bad,’/ Yo punk, save your breath!"- Ice-T, "The Syndicate."

Rap battles originated in the streets of New York- the playgrounds, the corners, and the block parties. When rappers started actually making records, it was only natural for the battles to carry over into the studios. Early hip-hop beefs were primarily about microphone skills and "biting," the practice of copying another rapper’s rhymes or beats, then passing them off as one’s own. Accusations of biting were commonplace in rap’s fledgling days, and the practice spurred one of the biggest feuds of 80s. Roxanne Shante and The Real Roxanne were 2 of the innumerable girls who took the "Roxanne" handle after UTFO’s "Roxanne, Roxanne" was a hit. Shante learned another female was calling herself the only true Roxanne, so she released the aptly titled "Roxanne’s Revenge." She destroyed the "real" Roxanne in the process.

Another feud of the 80s concerned mic skills, and ultimately the origin of hip-hop. New York rappers MC Shan and KRS One were known to attack each other at events they attended and took part in. But when Queensbridge-born Shan released "The Bridge," a song that claimed hip-hop was born in his neighborhood, it was on like Donkey Kong. Bronx native KRS One dropped "The Bridge is Over," a song that lyrically demolished Shan and Queensbridge. KRS One emerged victorious and continues to release albums today, while Shan’s career never quite recovered.

The biggest target for rappers in the 80s was one James Todd, aka LL Cool J. Many rappers saw him as nothing more than a pretty boy who talked about his sexual prowess and how bad he was…and that’s it. He was viewed as the guy who hadn’t paid any dues but got by with his looks. LL’s biggest rival of the time was another hot young rapper, Kool Mo Dee. Their lyrical battles at Harlem’s Apollo Theater have taken on a mythical status, with one rumored to have gone for 3 hours (it was a draw). They traded barbs on record, too, first Mo Dee with, "How Ya Like Me Now?" then LL with "Jack the Ripper." Other rappers who attacked LL in the 80s; the aforementioned MC Shan, on "Beat Biters," and Ice-T, on "I’m Your Pusher" and "The Syndicate." (On a side note, even if LL lost all of these battles, he’s clearly won the war.)
Overall, rap squabbles of the 80s were kept on wax, with no physical ramifications on either side in most of the beefs. The decade closed on a positive note for hip-hop, which was rapidly becoming the music of a generation. A darker period, however, was looming ahead.

East vs. West: 1990-96

"…that’s why I fucked your bitch, you fat motherfucker!"- 2-Pac, "Hit ‘em Up."
"Fuck all the critics in the NYC/ tryin’ to gain an east hip-hop monopoly/ But I been dropping gangsta shit since ’83/ when y’all were still scared to use profanity…"- Westside Connection, "All the Critics in New York."

"Now you wanna go at my team/ you must of been drunk when you wrote that shit/ too bad you had to did it/ to your own self/ my rebellion, I retaliate, I had the whole New York state/ aimin’ at your face"- Mobb Deep, "Drop A Gem On ‘em."

The 90s began with serious West Coast infighting. The breakup of NWA led to a beef between the group’s remaining members and Ice Cube. NWA included a track called "A Message to Benedict Arnold" on their groundbreaking Niggaz4Life album. Not really a song, the track was a series of phone messages from various fans calling Cube a punk, a faggot, etc. Cube responded with the devastating "No Vaseline," a song that was virtually a lyrical rape of NWA. The song took the dis record to new levels, with Cube calling each member of the group out by name, then breaking them down to nothing; "Yella boy’s on your team so your losin’/ Hey yo Dre, stick to producin’…." Then later, "…Eazy’s dick, is smellin’ like MC Ren’s shit." After "No Vaseline" the boundaries were gone. Nothing was off limits, as was proved when the remaining members of NWA split up. Dr. Dre’s song and accompanying video for "Dre Day" utterly ridiculed rappers Eazy-E and Luke of 2 Live Crew. It was clear that in hip-hop, the gloves were now off.

In the early 90s, or "the G-funk Era," the West Coast had hip-hop locked down. Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and Cypress Hill were the major players in the rap game. The West Coast gangsta style was so prevalent that several New York acts started emulating it, with horrible results. The East Coast had no real stars on the scene. It looked like the birthplace of rap had dried up, creatively. But a new school of New York MCs would change things overnight.

Suddenly, a 9-man rap collective with a love for sparse beats and kung fu movies appeared on Staten Island. The tightest street poet since Rakim roared out of Queensbridge with a 5-mic debut album. Most importantly, a rotund rapper that many would come to call the greatest of all time blew everyone away with his microphone wizardry. The Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, and the Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls) fiercely reclaimed the East’s supremacy in the rap game. As these acts rose to the top, the West Coast stars began to slide in popularity. The tides were changing fast in New York’s favor, but not everyone was pleased.

With New York now back on top of the rap game, some West Coast rappers felt they weren’t being given their due with the Big Apple’s rebirth. After all, before crews such as NWA and CMW were born, rap (with the exception of groups like Public Enemy) had been considered nothing more than party music. There was no street edge, no real message. Profanity was pretty much unheard of. Now that New York had its own hard street sound, the West Coast felt that they should be shouted out, recognized, thanked in album liner notes, something, anything that would say "thanks." None of this happened. The 2 coasts remained cordial, but the tension from the West was palpable. A catalyst was needed, andone was on the way.

Tupac Shakur was a relatively unknown New York rapper who got his start as a backup dancer for the group Digital Underground, best known for the novelty hit "The Humpty Dance." Tired of his background role, he decided the fastest way to succeed in the rap game was to follow the old adage: any publicity is good publicity. Taking the stage name 2Pac, his first album, 2Pacalypse Now, was named by then president George Bush as one of the most offensive rap albums of the year. The follow up, Strictly 4 My Niggaz, did little to change public perception of Shakur as a troublemaker (neither did the many arrests he was racking up along the way, either). Soon after Strictly… went platinum, Shakur was convicted on charges of forcible sodomy, and sentenced to 4.5 years in jail. The day after his sentencing, Tupac was recording in New York when he was shot and robbed in the studio lobby. One-time Shakur associate the Notorious B.I.G. had been recording in the same studio on that day. Tupac believed that his now ex-friend had set him up for the robbery, and from prison he openly accused Biggie. Only 8 months into his sentence, Tupac was released from jail. The person who arranged his bail was none other than Marion "Suge" Knight, kingpin of Death Row records, home to West Coast stars Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tha Dogg Pound. From that moment on, Tupac became a West Coast gangsta, straight up and down. The seeds of war were sown. If the West Coast was a powder keg waiting to go off, Shakur was the lit match that detonated it.

The West Coast’s first attack came in the form of Westside Connection, an all-star team of L.A. rappers featuring Ice Cube, Mack 10, and W.C. Their album Bow Down was an all out assault on New York City. It was a concept album where the concept couldn’t have been any simpler: fuck New York City- the West Coast is King. While the album was certainly incendiary, it didn’t really name names. So things remained quiet…for about 30 seconds.

When 2Pac released the single for the song "How Do U Want It," hip-hop heads rushed out in droves to buy it. Almost none got it for the title track. The B-side was a little number called "Hit ‘em Up," where ‘Pac claimed to have slept with Biggie’s wife and said he would kill Biggie when he saw him. Shakur also called out New York rap duo Mobb Deep, stating that one of them had "sickle cell." By the end of the song, he was just screaming, and it wasn’t nice: "Any of you niggas from New York want to bring it, bring it. But we ain’t singin’, we bringin’ drama. Fuck you and your motherfuckin’ mamas."

This was unheard of. Where was this coming from? Notorious B.I.G. had been proven to have nothing to do with the assault on Shakur. Mobb Deep had never publicly gone after Tupac. Everyone waited for Biggie’s response with baited breath. He responded, all right…with a deafening silence. Mobb Deep came back with "Drop A Gem On ‘em" and "L.A., L.A." with fellow New Yorkers Capone n’ Noreaga, which were solid responses, but no one really noticed. Everyone wanted Biggie, the king of New York, to hit back hard. He never did. The closest he came was on the song "Notorious Thugs," with the allusion, "Look at the bullshit I been through …so called beef with you know who…."

Sadly, the bi-coastal beef was brought to an end in the deadliest of fashions. In September 1996 Shakur was gunned down leaving a Mike Tyson fight in Suge Knight’s car. 6 months later, the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered in an identical fashion while visiting California. These horrible incidents illustrated just how dangerous hip-hop beefs had become. Both murders remain unsolved.

Peace on the Streets, Wars on Wax: 1997-Present

"Tell Hallie it ain’t safe no more/ Daddy better watch your back at the candy store"- Benzino, "Die Another Day"
"I would never claim to be no, Ray Benzino, / An 83-year-old fake Pacino."- Eminem, "Nail in the Coffin"
"Suge Knight is a bitch/And that’s on my life"- Snoop Dogg, "Pimp Slapp’d"

Following the tragic deaths of its 2 biggest stars, hip-hop went into a peaceful period. The grisly consequences of the "East vs. West" conflict served as a reminder to all what could happen if beefs went too far. So rap returned to its roots, after a fashion, with party joints and songs about the player lifestyle. Everyone was more interested in having a good time than being hardcore. There were no verbal jabs at other rappers. This was fun for a while, but the bling-bling aesthetic grew old fast. Fans wondered: where’s the edge?

In the summer of 2000, an underground mixtape began circulating on the New York streets. It featured a minute and a half track by Nas in which he rapped, "H to the izz-O/M to the izz-O/ For shizzle you phony/ The rappin’ version of Sisqo." It didn’t take a genius to figure out who Nas was talking about. He had twisted Jay-Z’s hit "H.O.V.A." into a dis on the self-crowned "King of New York." Jay-Z responded with the blistering "Takeover," in which he insulted Nas, Mobb Deep, and a few other choice Queensbridge rappers. Here was a feud reminiscent of the KRS One/MC Shan days. Nas fired back with "Ether," in which he compared Jay to J.J. Evans of "Goodtimes." Jay-Z came back again with "Super Ugly," a freestyle for New York radio station Hot 97, saying he had sex with Nas’ baby’s mother, Carmen, rapping, "Skeeted in your jeep/ Left condoms on the baby seat." Ouch. In an unheard of move, non-rapper Carmen recorded a response for the mixtape underground.

This clash of the titans gave the green light to other rappers to go ahead and reheat the beef, and have they ever. Most of these battles occur on bootlegs and mixtapes. An excellent series that captures pretty much all of the beefs as they happen is P Cutta’s "Street Wars"(currently on Volume 5). Current beefs include; Jadakiss vs. Beanie Sigel, Snoop Dogg vs. Suge Knight, Dr. Dre vs. Jermaine Dupri, Lil’ Kim vs. Foxy Brown, Foxy vs. Eve, Jay-Z vs. Jaz-O, Jay-Z vs. Jayo Felony… the list goes on and on. Even underground DJs are starting to go at one another. DJ Kay Slay is attacking his colleagues every chance he gets; one of his favorite gimmicks is to call a rival DJ and record the call (the victim’s unaware the call is taped). He screams and intimidates the victim, makes him sound like a complete chump, then releases the call on his mixtapes.

The most highly publicized feud in recent memory has been that of Benzino and Eminem. Out of nowhere Ray Benzino, a relatively minor MC from Boston, dropped 2 diss records about the Shady’s latest. One, "Pull Ya Skirt Up," has been released officially on his new album. The other, "Die Another Day," has appeared on various bootlegs. "Die Another Day" crosses any boundaries that may have existed in rap before. Benzino warns that Em’s daughter will wind up "like Jon Benet" if he doesn’t watch his step. He further goes on to call him the "rap David Duke" and compares him to Hitler. Calling a guy who seems to have almost exclusively black friends David Duke is a little strange, at best. Eminem has responded with 2 tracks, "The Sauce," and "Nail in the Coffin" for his mixtape evil genius, DJ Green Lantern. To say Shady wins the rap battle is a massive understatement. He gives Benzino some sound advice at the end of "Nail in the Coffin"- "Put the mic down and walk away/ You can still have a little bit of dignity."

The Future

Rap feuds have erupted all over the place, and there’s no end in sight. Young rappers today can’t help but see the heaps of publicity afforded through battling and know that it’s a great way to get noticed. Rap’s next huge star, 50 Cent, first broke into the game in ’98 with "How to Rob," a song that ripped on pretty much every rapper around. He followed up with numerous dis records, attacking anyone who captured his fancy. He caught the eye of Eminem, who promptly signed him to his Shady records imprint for a reported $1 million plus. 50’s current beef with Ja Rule has captured the hip-hop nation’s attention. His latest underground smash, the subtly titled "I Smell Pussy," attacks Ja’s label, Murder Inc., and is appearing on countless bootlegs. His first official Shady release, Get Rich or Die Trying, is a shoo-in for a top 5 Billboard debut. Up and coming artists will no doubt employ the 50 Cent strategy.

The present battle situation in hip-hop is tremendously entertaining, and the future promises many more beefs to come. Battles and feuds have forced rappers to be razor sharp at all times. Lyrics and rhyme schemes have been elevated to new levels, thanks largely to the renewed sense of competition in the hip-hop community. However, the world has seen what can happen when a dis is taken too seriously. Artists must be aware of how quickly a lyrical battle can turn into a physical confrontation. As the Notorious B.I.G. once pointed out, "I’ve been in real life and death situations, and now (others) want to get into it over some rap shit? This is music. This supposed to be fun." One can only hope that the beefs continue to happen in the studio, not the street.

Check out the Hip-Hop Code of Principles

Tom Donnelly