Feuds
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It’s been just over six months to the day J. Cole waved the white flag at his Dreamville Festival to withdraw from the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud.
With the added perspective from watching how it all played out, Cole addressed bowing out of the beef on a new track titled “Port Antonio.” The Dreamville boss released the track via his Instagram account on Wednesday night (Oct. 9).
“I pulled the plug because I seen where that was ’bout to go/ They wanted blood, they wanted clicks to make they pockets grow/ They see this fire in my pen and think I’m dodging smoke/ I wouldn’t have lost a battle, dog, I woulda lost a bro/ I woulda gained a foe,” he raps.
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Cole went on to show love to Drake, as he appreciated his “First Person Shooter” collaborator’s support while having enough of people trying to paint him taking a side. “They say I’m pickin’ sides, don’t you lie on me, my n—a to start another war/ Ay, Drake, you’ll always be my n—a/ I ain’t ashamed to say you did a lot for me, my n—a/ F–k all the narratives/ Tapping back into your magic pen is what’s imperative,” he rhymes.
With the jarring allegations made by both sides in the Drake and Kendrick feud, Cole believes they crossed lines that shouldn’t have been. “I understand the thirst of being first that made them both swing/ Protecting legacies, so lines got crossed, perhaps regrettably/ My friends went to war, I walked away with all they blood on me,” he continues in the track.
Instead of opting to feud, Jermaine explains his approach to rapping and pushing the culture forward rather than beating one another down. “Reminding these folks why we do it/ It’s not for beefing, it’s for speaking our thoughts/ Pushing ourselves, reaching the charts/ Reaching your minds, deep in your heart/ Screaming to find emotions to touch/ Somethin’ inside to open you up/ Help you cope with the rough times and s–t,” he finishes on the track.
Just a couple of days after releasing his “7 Minute Drill” Kendrick Lamar diss track, J. Cole immediately expressed regret for doing so while on stage at his Dreamville Fest in his home state of North Carolina back in April.
“I’m so proud of [Might Delete Later], except for one part. It’s one part of that s–t that makes me feel like, man that’s the lamest s–t I did in my f–king life, right? And I know this is not what a lot of people want to hear,” he told fans. “I was conflicted because, one, I know my heart and I know how I feel about my peers, these two n—as that I just been blessed to even stand beside in this game, let alone chase they greatness. So I felt conflicted ’cause I’m like, bruh I don’t even feel no way. But the world wanna see blood. I don’t know if y’all can feel that, but the world wanna see blood.”
He eventually removed “7 Minute Drill” from streaming services, and Cole’s side-stepping led to Lamar and Drake battling, which played out over the course of the next month into May.
Listen to “Port Antonio” below.
Drake rapped about having “No Friends in the Industry” on 2021’s Certified Lover Boy, and he’s continuing to see it play out years later.
Drizzy took the stage at Tyrone Edwards’ Nostalgia Party in Toronto on Saturday night (Oct. 5), where he went on a cryptic rant regarding his “real friends” and those who have switched up on him and stabbed him in the back recently.
“My real friends are definitely in the building,” he began. “But let me tell you that you’re going to come to a point in life where people you thought were friends, people you thought were close to you switch up.”
The 6 God continued to snipe at his opps: “They might try to move funny with you. They might stab you in the back. They might do a lot of things to you. You’ll come to that realization, wherever you’re at in life. You’ve probably been there and you’ll be there again. That’s how life is. Sometimes it’s you and you alone by yourself.”
Drake spoke on “real friends” last night 🤔“People you thought were friends, or people you thought were close to you… they might switch up… they might stab you in the back.” pic.twitter.com/pkCwAgxU1t— Kurrco (@Kurrco) October 6, 2024
Drake continued to have the DJ press play on a couple of records that could be tied to his rant, such as 50 Cent’s “Many Men,” and then finished up with Beyoncé’s 2003 independence anthem “Me, Myself and I,” per XXL.
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Drake is still dealing with the fallout from his feud with Kendrick Lamar, which also saw him spar with The Weeknd, Future, Metro Boomin, Rick Ross and more.
Last week, Drizzy reportedly slammed the unfollow button a few of the aforementioned artists, including Future and Playboi Carti. He also unfollowed a couple of NBA stars he was previously tight with, such as LeBron James and former Toronto Raptor DeMar DeRozan, who appeared in K. Dot’s “Not Like Us” video and his Pop Out concert in June.
Charlamagne Tha God was taken aback after hearing the audio of Drake’s Toronto rant, as he didn’t realize how “hurt” Drizzy was in the months following his battle with Kendrick.
“I thought that Kendrick’s execution of this battle was flawless, the strategy, the songs, everything,” The Breakfast Club co-host said on Monday (Oct. 7). “But I didn’t think that it had that much of an impact on Drake. Drake’s hurt. Oh my God, he is hurt … When I tell you Kendrick Lamar put his foot all the way up Drake’s a–, he put his foot all the way up Drake’s a– and he is wiggling his toes.”
Fans are still awaiting Drake’s next move on the music side as the calendar flips to his birth month of October. He’s previously stated he and Partynextdoor are teaming up for a joint project, but there’s no release date imminent.
Slipknot‘s Corey Taylor isn’t afraid of a heated disagreement with other rockers — but spicy hot wings are a different story.
On the latest episode of Hot Ones Versus posted Tuesday (Oct. 1), the frontman battled tastebud-burning chicken wings with bandmate Shawn Crahan, aka Clown — and yes, both musicians wore their signature spooky masks while chowing down. At one point, Taylor avoided having to take a spice-loaded bite by ranking three of his famous feuds with opponents Limp Bizkit, MGK (formerly Machine Gun Kelly) and Nickelback.
“If I was going to say it with that ugly ego… at the top, I would put Limp Bizkit,” he began of the two bands’ name-calling spat in the 2000s. “My issues truly weren’t even with Limp Bizkit, they were with Fred [Durst]. It was just about what Fred represented at the time, the things that were being said and the people in the band that were actually saying stuff about us.”
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“I would put MGK in the middle,” Taylor continued of the “My Ex’s Best Friend” musician, with whom he traded jabs throughout 2021. “Before the beef, I did have respect for him and I liked his music. We butted heads ego-wise and creatively because of a song he and Travis [Barker] invited me to be on. Him and I are very similar, and I hope he’s figuring s–t out.”
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Finally, the “Unsainted” singer ranked his mutual trash-talking with Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger in 2017 last. “Honestly, they’re just a musical echo,” he said. “It’s just the same thing.”
“There’s some stuff of theirs that I like,” Taylor added, making Crahan scoff.
Throughout the episode, Crahan also criticized the getups of other mask-wearing musicians — Daft Punk, Gwar and Marshmello — and revealed that his favorite “pop princess” is Britney Spears. “Real deal,” the percussionist said of the “Toxic” singer. “She’s a legend.”
Plus, the duo enjoyed a spontaneous 25th birthday party for their band’s debut album Slipknot — which reached No. 51 on the Billboard 200 in 2000 — complete with a piñata. The group recently wrapped up the North American leg of its anniversary tour in September, and they’re set to perform in Latin America and Europe later this year.
Watch Taylor and Crahan take on Hot Ones Versus above.
While accepting best crossover song at the 2024 People’s Choice Country Awards Thursday (Sept. 26), MGK (formerly Machine Gun Kelly) gave the biggest thank you to someone he used to have bad blood with: Jelly Roll.
Now, the two are both friends and collaborators, with their July duet “Lonely Road” taking home the crossover award at the ceremony, which the “Son of a Sinner” star didn’t attend. “Dude, Jelly Roll. Bubba!” MGK cheered on the stage on behalf of his song partner. “Jelly, I love you. We went from 10 years ago, hating each other, to elevating each other.”
“Comparison is the thief of joy,” the rapper-turned-rocker added, holding up his trophy. “There’s enough room on this couch for everybody. We found camaraderie in the chaos.”
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Jelly and the “My Ex’s Best Friend” singer previously addressed their decade-old feud in a Sept. 13 vodcast episode, helping Spotify launch its musician-focused Countdown To series. “It is so funny how much I love you now,” MGK said during their conversation, sitting face to face with the country star. “God, I hated you so much back then.”
“You gotta understand there was only like seven white rappers on Earth at this time, so it was so competitive when you was in that pool, that we were kind of automatically forced against each other anyways,” Jelly added with a laugh at the time. “You were just like, just skinny and handsome. So I was like, I was just a hater. I was just a hater, dude! It’s hard to grow up in front of the whole world.”
In addition to dropping “Lonely Road” in July, Jelly and MGK also shot a music video costarring their respective partners, Bunnie XO and Megan Fox. The visual finds the musicians struggling to provide for their families, so they organize a heist that ends with MGK behind bars, leaving the Jennifer’s Body actress to raise their fictional newborn baby without him.
Watch MGK thank Jelly Roll at the People’s Choice Country Awards below.
Cardi B and Offset‘s relationship issues spilled over publicly onto social media on Wednesday night (Sept. 25).
The Migos rapper set things off during Cardi’s Instagram Live when he accused her of cheating on him while pregnant with their third child. (She gave birth earlier in September.) “U f–ked with a baby inside tell the truth!!” he wrote in a comment on her Live session.
She tweeted, “AND DID !!!!!!,” which left some fans on X wondering if she was confirming her estranged husband’s accusation. (Billboard has reached out to Cardi and Offset’s reps for comment.)
Cardi — who is in Paris for Fashion Week — then carved out some time to blast her estranged husband on Instagram Live. “All weekend you was blowing up my phone, I blocked you … You tryna get me mad, ‘Let me show you the b—-s I’m f–king,’” she said. “I don’t care. … You’re f–king lame.”
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Cardi continued to explode on Offset, from whom she filed for divorce over the summer. “I’m too much woman for you. I’m too much of a boss b—h for you. And I always been too good for you … I don’t make you feel like you’re that n—a in this home,” she said. “I make you look good.”
While she’s thankful for her three kids with Set and credited him as a father, Cardi admitted she regrets her relationship with the Atlanta native. “All three of them — I don’t regret none of them, but I regret you,” she claimed. “I don’t regret my kids. You a good daddy. You aight. I don’t regret none of them. … But f–k you. I regret you. I’m too good for you. I’ve always been too good for you, n—a.”
Offset fired back in the comment section of her live, as captured by DJ Akademiks. “Insecure,” he wrote. Another captured by Akademiks saw the Migos rapper write: “The fact u keep going shows you hurt leave along don’t you got a n—a ain’t we divorced.”
Cardi and Offset married in 2017. She filed for divorce the first time in September 2020, but quickly called it off. The former couple share three kids — Kulture, 6, Wave, 3, and welcomed their third on Sept. 7.
Watch Cardi’s explosive IG Live session below.
Metro Boomin has addressed the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud. While speaking at the Forbes Under 30 Summit on Monday (Sept. 23), Young Metro talked about his role being in the middle of rap beefs as a producer.
Metro believes the competition is ultimately a positive for the art form, but thinks the internet culture can take things out of hand when two sides are at odds.
“I feel like the competition is great for the game. Hip-hop has always been a competitive genre. Even if just keeping it on music it’s not serious how everybody tries to make it,” he said. “Also with hip-hop, there’s a lot of ego involved. You’re supposed to feel like you’re the best.”
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Metro continued: “When two of the top dogs in the game and you both feel like you’re the best, it’s like, ‘OK, now we gotta have a showdown.’ We saw it with Jay-Z and Nas before. I feel like more today it’s more stan culture makes it kind of weird. Back in the day, Jay-Z and Nas went at it, I was a fan of both of them. Most people were. It was like, ‘OK, it’s OK.’ It’s not like, ‘I had this side. I hate this side.’ The internet makes it a little too wild now.”
At the end of the day, Metro Boomin looks at the feuds as purely “entertainment” and believes with hip-hop’s innate competitive nature, it’s on artists and producers to “help push” the genre forward.
“As far as me being diplomatic, it’s just entertainment,” he added. “I have love and respect for all my collaborators. I just want to see everyone do the best and help push this forward. We’re all here to deposit in and uplift this genre.”
Metro Boomin played an integral role in the Drake-Kendrick Lamar feud. He produced We Don’t Trust You‘s “Like That” featuring a nuclear assist from Kendrick, which lit the fuse for the battle after the hit topped the Billboard Hot 100.
Drake returned fire weeks later when he dissed Metro on “Push Ups,” and continued to take shots by calling out his government name later on “Family Matters.”
Watch the discussion below:
Nicki Minaj isn’t letting anyone play with her name. After voicing her frustration with the NFL for overlooking Lil Wayne for the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show performer in favor of Kendrick Lamar, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith criticized her history of feuding while he defended Jay-Z.
“Who else you gonna get in a beef with. Lil Kim, Mariah Carey, Cardi B, Gucci Mane, Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato. Every time we turn around it’s something, Nicki,” the sports commentator began on the Stephen A. Smith Show Thursday (Sept. 12). “You disagree with the decision, you disagree with the decision. You got to talk about [Jay-Z] like that? And why are we talking about Jay-Z like he’s some sort of sellout or something?”
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The First Take host continued: “You know how hard it is for a Black man to pull off what Jay-Z has pulled off in terms of making sure Black folks get that kinda center stage to promote their brand and build their profile. How unappreciative can you be? It ain’t about you as an individual — it’s about all of us as Black people. And that brother Jay-Z has been front and center pushing envelopes.”
Minaj didn’t waste time getting back on the offensive, sharing harsh words with Smith on X Thursday, when she essentially called him a sellout.
“Oh look yall another paid laughy taffy alien who only comes off his knees to turn around & back dat azz up. LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Stephen, we don’t care. Ima tell u right now. We don’t care. If I say more it’ll be your fault. Sit down ugly,” she replied.
Oh look yall another paid laughy taffy alien who only comes off his knees to turn around & back dat azz up. LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Stephen, we don’t care. Ima tell u right now. We don’t care. If I say more it’ll be your fault. 🤨 Sit down ugly 😅🤣 #GagCityBUFFALO TONIGHT #Dtlr https://t.co/qFNq19DafN— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 12, 2024
Stephen wasn’t you just moanin & groanin on live in your bedroom ? LMFAOOOO. And since we here in women’s business…ladies; when should men just shave their full head? Should it take its normal course like SAS Sassy ass or should he look into lace fronts? #GagCityBuffalo TONIGHT— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 12, 2024
The rapper then appeared to sarcastically mix Smith up with his First Take partner Shannon Sharpe, who accidentally went on Instagram Live while getting intimate earlier this week. She also clowned Smith’s receding hairline.
“Stephen wasn’t you just moanin & groanin on live in your bedroom ? LMFAOOOO. And since we here in women’s business…ladies; when should men just shave their full head,” she added, insult to injury. “Should it take its normal course like SAS Sassy a– or should he look into lace fronts?”
Lamar was announced as the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show performer Sept. 8, and Lil Wayne publicly spoke out about the NFL’s decision early Friday (Sept. 13), admitting that it “hurt” him to not be selected.
“It hurt a whole lot. I blame myself for not being mentally prepared for a letdown. And for automatically mentally putting myself in that position like somebody told me that was my position,” he told fans in a video posted to Instagram. “So I blame myself for that. But I thought that was nothing better than that spot and that stage and that platform in my city, so it hurt.”
Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj set the tone for a beef-filled year, with the reignition of their feud sparked by the Houston Hottie’s “Hiss” diss track back in January, in which she appeared to spray at Nicki, Drake, Tory Lanez and Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty.
The scathing “Hiss” would go on to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — her third chart-topping smash — and Minaj returned fire, punching back at her “Hot Girl Summer” collaborator with “Big Foot” days later.
Megan graces the cover of Billboard, and in her feature published Wednesday (Sept. 4), she addresses clashing with Nicki, and shares still doesn’t know what the root cause of the friction is.
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“I still to this day don’t know what the problem is,” she tells Billboard‘s Carl Lamarre. “I don’t even know what could be reconciled because I, to this day, don’t know what the problem is.”
Nicki and Meg joined forces when Minaj hopped on “Hot Girl Summer” in 2019, but things appeared to have gone awry since. Some theorize it’s because Thee Stallion has repeatedly teamed up with Nicki’s rival Cardi B.
Barbz chimed in on social media, speculating that the cause may be a time fans recalled Minaj on IG Live in 2019 with Megan, who allegedly continued to offer the “Super Bass” artist liquor while knowing she was trying to get pregnant.
With the Nicki relationship remaining icy, Megan is brushing things off and turning her focus to her plethora of lucrative endeavors going on in her busy career. If people are talking about her, Thee Stallion feels like she must be doing something right.
“I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing,” Megan added. “If people feel like I’m somebody to aim at, then I must be pretty high up if you’re reaching up at me. I must be some kind of competition. That makes me feel good. That makes me feel like I could rap because if I wasn’t the s–t, y’all wouldn’t be worried about me.”
“Hiss” served as the second single for the Houston Hottie and carried her into her Megan album, which arrived in June and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 64,000 album-equivalent units sold in the first week.
Drake left a Kendrick Lamar breadcrumb within his “100 Gigs” project.
In a two-minute video filed under MVI_7806.MP4 in the 2.0 NWTS_1 folder, he, OVO 40 and OVO Hush are listening to a beat produced by 40 and Omen meant for Drake and an unnamed guest feature. As 40 talks about how the beats builds, Drake nods in agreement and says, “For him, where he’s at, I know he’s gonna murder this.” 40 then replied, “When he told me Kendrick, it just made so much sense. Oh, the brilliance! So good.”
The Toronto rapper ended up not using the beat and the collab never happened. However, the beat did find a home, ending up in the hands of Queens rapper Action Bronson for his song “Actin Crazy” from his 2015 album Mr. Wonderful.
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Drake recorded his third solo album, Nothing Was the Same, between 2012 and 2013, and released it on Sept. 24, 2013. This is relevant information because Kendrick’s “Control” verse in which he called multiple rappers out by name, including Drake, dropped in August 2013.
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Drake talked about said verse twice: once in a Billboard cover story (August 2013) and again during 2013 a sitdown with Elliott Wilson. “I didn’t really have anything to say about it. It just sounded like an ambitious thought to me,” he told Billboard at the time. “That’s all it was. I know good and well that [Lamar]‘s not murdering me, at all, in any platform. So when that day presents itself, I guess we can revisit the topic.” Then about a month later in September, he downplayed Lamar’s verse again, telling Wilson, “That [‘Control’] verse was a moment to talk about. Are you listening to it now, though?”
Those quotes led to Dot responding during TDE’s BET Cypher that aired in October 2013, in which he rapped, “Yeah, and nothing been the same since they dropped ‘Control’/ And tucked a sensitive rapper back in his pajama clothes.”
While Kendrick has remained quiet since releasing the “Not Like Us” video, Drake may have hinted at another round with the Compton rapper in the Stories of his finsta Instagram account @plottttwistttttt.
new posts by Drake’s finsta account alluding to Round 2/Game 2 👀 a picture of ‘A Better Tomorrow’ 1987 movieand the iconic 2004 Pistons Rasheed Wallace interview “yall put it on the front page, back page, middle of the page… we will win Game 2″they went on to beat the… pic.twitter.com/36CfjQcIDA— SOUND (@itsavibe) August 26, 2024
One person who’s definitely not going to be on one of Taylor Swift‘s guest lists any time soon is Scooter Braun — but at least he seems to have a sense of humor about it.
On Instagram Stories Tuesday (Aug. 27), the music manager poked fun at his yearslong feud with the pop superstar by sharing a screenshot of TMZ‘s report about her recent beachside getaway with Travis Kelce, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Patrick and Brittany Mahomes and other famous friends. “How was I not invited to this?!?” he wrote, adding the hashtag, “#laughalittle.”
Just before that, Braun also revealed that he’d given Max’s Taylor Swift vs Scooter Braun: Bad Blood a try. “I finally watched it…,” he wrote, sharing a screenshot of the project’s poster.
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Released on Max in June, the documentary chronicled the SB Projects founder’s clash with Swift over the sale of her masters in 2019, the catalyst behind her “Taylor’s Version” re-records. The 14-time Grammy winner claimed at the time that she hadn’t been informed of Braun’s acquisition before it happened — which her former label boss Scott Borchetta denied — writing in a Tumblr blogpost that she’d only learned of the news “as it was announced to the world.”
“All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years,” she’d added of Braun at the time. “This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept.”
With all of that in mind, it’s not shocking that Braun wasn’t on the guest list for Swift’s gathering at her Rhode Island mansion, which Channing Tatum, Jason Kelce and Bradley Cooper also reportedly attended. The vacation comes on the heels of the “Anti-Hero” singer’s final shows in London on the European leg of the Ears Tour, which ended with five nights at Wembley Stadium.
“London felt like a beautiful dream sequence,” Swift wrote of the concerts in an Aug. 21 Instagram post. “All five crowds at Wembley Stadium were bursting with passion, joy, and exuberance. The energy in that stadium was like the most giant bear hug from 92,000 people each night, and it brought me back to a place of carefree calm up there.”