Feuds
Page: 3
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.”
Trending on Billboard
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.”
Trending on Billboard
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.”
Trending on Billboard
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?”
Trending on Billboard
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.
Trending on Billboard
“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.
[embedded content]
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.
Trending on Billboard
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.
Trending on Billboard
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.”
André 3000 has weighed in on the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud. Three Stacks shared he was disheartened when looking back at the aftermath of the battle’s carnage.
“I got a little sad, at a certain point,” he told Crack Magazine in a new interview. “In early rap battles, you had kids in the park rapping against each other. But it’s not just people rapping now. You got people with 100 employees. You have livelihoods, empires, companies, deals — all of it can be jeopardized.”
With rappers serving as brands — and in Drake and Kendrick’s case, worth hundreds of millions of dollars — the Outkast legend questions whether the juice is worth the squeeze with that much at stake in battle. “If you don’t have anything to lose, sure, go for it,” he said. “But if I already made it, I’m not sure it’s even worth it any more”
Trending on Billboard
Drake expressed a similar sentiment on “4PM in Calabasas,” which arrived in 2016 and saw Drizzy sniping at Joe Budden, Diddy and more. “I got a lot to lose ’cause in every situation I’m the bigger artist/ Always gotta play it smarter,” he shrewdly raps about being militant in battle.
Elsewhere in the Crack profile, André 3000 gave his reaction to receiving a shout-out from Kendrick Lamar on the explosive “Like That” with Future and Metro Boomin. “If he walk around with that stick, it ain’t André 3K,” K. Dot rhymes.
“As a 49-year-old rapper, you’re just happy to get a shout-out,” the Atlanta artist responded. “But as a rapper, I’ve noticed myself walking around with this stick. So it was a line for me, too, and I was trying to find a way to use it. But Kendrick used it, so I had to say ‘Yeah, he got it.’”
A trio of records Lamar was involved with that were integral parts of the battle with Drake are still holding strong on the Billboard Hot 100. K. Dot’s “Not Like Us” sits at No. 3, while “Like That” is in the top 20 at No. 18. Even the unnerving “Euphoria” is still on the chart at No. 78.
As for Three Stacks, he’ll be performing nine sets across three days at the Blue Note Jazz Festival’s Black Radio Experience 2024, which is going down in the Estate Wine Cave at The Meritage Resort & Spa in Napa, Calif., happening Aug. 30-Sept. 1.
In the eyes of Swifties, nothing is ever an accident. That’s why some fans are convinced that Taylor Swift subtly shaded Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — at her latest Eras Tour show following the rapper’s reference to her on his new album with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 2, which dropped hours before her performance in Warsaw Saturday (Aug. 3).
On the track “Lifestyle (Demo),” Lil Wayne name-checks the 14-time Grammy winner and her boyfriend — Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — on his guest verse. “I twist my Taylor spliffs tight at the end like Travis Kelce,” he quips.
Though Ye himself doesn’t mention Swift, his choice to include a nod to her on his second joint LP with Ty Dolla $ign is noteworthy considering the “Donda” artist’s past feud with the pop star. That’s why the “Anti-Hero” musician’s wardrobe choice on her first Eras show after the track’s release turned some heads, with Swift sporting a T-shirt during the Red set reading, “I Bet You Think About Me.”
Trending on Billboard
“She’s so funny for wearing the I bet you think about me shirt after Ka*ye name dropped her and Travis in his song an actual comedian,” one person tweeted.
Though Swift has worn the shirt at past shows, a few fans think her choice to sport it at this particular performance at the PGE Narodowy was intentional. “saw the k*nye thing a little bit ago and I knew she was gonna wear it lmao,” the same Swiftie tweeted, to which another fan replied, “it makes so much sense now.”
Swift’s tumultuous relationship with Ye is one of the most storied music industry feuds of the past decade-plus. It all started when he interrupted her acceptance speech at the 2009 VMAs to declare that Beyoncé deserved the best female video honors more, after which they eventually patched things over — that is, until he bragged that the incident launched Swift’s career on his 2016 track “Famous.”
When Swift slammed Ye for the song, he claimed that he got the “Karma” singer’s blessing on a phone call before its release, which she denied. After that, his then-wife Kim Kardashian posted an edited recording of their conversation to portray Swift as a liar, something the latter spoke about as recently as last year.
“You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” she told TIME in her Person of the Year cover story in December. “That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.”
50 Cent is a savant in the art of war. With the litany of feuds 50’s been engaged in throughout his decorated career, the G-Unit mogul knows how to shrewdly navigate in battle, and he’s just about seen it all in hip-hop.
As part of his The Hollywood Reporter cover story published on Wednesday (July 31), Fiddy dished on the dust settling on the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud, which he doesn’t chalk up as a loss for the 6 God.
“This is hip-hop. I think it’s competitive to a degree, obviously. Even Drake, his position and the attitude and his choices, those are 50 Cent choices,” he began. “‘F–k it, everybody got to get it then.’ When it becomes Drake versus Kendrick, it’s because it’s the only thing you can put up against Drake’s success.”
Trending on Billboard
When an artist has a successful run as long and dominant as Drake’s, 50 believes other rappers are waiting to see him fall from the top so they could have a shot at the throne. The Queens legend thinks it came to the point that people were poking holes in Drake’s artistry that really weren’t there.
“Look, our culture loves to see you go up because it’s confirmation that they can go up,” he added. “But when you stay up — ‘I want this s–t forever, man’ — they go, ‘Well, goddamn. When you going to come down? If you don’t come down, I ain’t going to have my chance to go up.’ And then it’s these clouds that come over you, and that cloud is doubt, a shadow of doubt that doesn’t come from material or your work ethic.”
The “In Da Club” rapper continued: “It’s doubt from the artist community, where they say, ‘I don’t know, his new s–t is cool, but it’s not his first s–t.’ They do that to you and Drake’s just experiencing what you experience as a backlash from success, from the consistency he’s delivered over and over. I don’t see a loss for Drake. The people who bought Drake material are going to buy Drake material when his next song comes out.”
While 50 is confident Drake will bounce back, because of his own antics in battle, his enemies didn’t suffer the same fate. “Now, the s–t that I do, it ruins your whole f—ing career,” he gravely declared.
Kendrick and Drake’s back-and-forth came to a close in early May, and the fan consensus is that the winner was Lamar, with which Billboard agreed.K. Dot’s “Not Like Us” is still simmering and holding strong on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 3 on the Aug. 3 dated tally.
50 and Drake actually linked up earlier in July, and the Power creator teased a collaboration on the TV side from the duo. He shared a photo of the two together on Instagram and wrote, “Brainstorming last night me and @champagnepapi gonna get the [camera emoji] rolling biggest ting on your TV.”