genre hiphop

A new era of rap beef is upon us. One where diss tracks get dropped left and right, forcing curious fans to scramble around trying to catch up.

Enter Joey Bada$$.

Since the Brooklyn rapper kicked things off on New Year’s Day with “The Ruler’s Back,” there have been 22 tracks released (and counting), with a flurry of them coming after Joey’s recent “Red Bull Spiral Freestyle” verse, where he addressed the drama that he started. “Since ‘Ruler’s Back,’ they been tryna measure up,” he rapped. “Look, my name ain’t Rick, but I talk slick, don’t press ya luck/ And I ain’t taking no words back, I’m with all that (All that) But this ain’t gotta turn to nothin’ else, let’s keep it all rap.”

He then referenced Kendrick’s infamous “Control” verse from 2013 when he named names and invited his peers to a friendly competition. “First off, I could never hate the West Coast,” Joey rapped. “But since n—as comin’ for Joe, f—k it then, let’s go/ N—as must’ve forgot what Dot said on ‘Control’/ There’s still a buncha sensitive rappers in they pajama clothes, I guess/ This ain’t no East versus West, I just think that I’m the best, as a matter fact, I know.” 

And you know what? He’s right.

So far, Ray Vaughn, Daylyt, Reason, and AZ Chike have stepped up for the West Coast with a couple decent tracks here and there, but nothing really to write home about. I was into AZ Chike’s decision to step into the ring with his song “What Would You Do?,” but that effort was squashed when Joey called him “Ass Cheek” and brought along battle rap vet Loaded Lux to add insult to injury on their reply entitled “My Town.”

Speaking of Lux, a handful of New York rappers have stepped up to the plate in Pro Era member CJ Fly, Brooklyn rapper Kai Ca$h and Jadakiss’ son Really Jaewon. And while I dug Kai’s “Knicks in 6” record, the offerings from the East Coast heir have been mainly forgettable already — but they’ve managed to show the type of solidarity the West showed during the Kendrick and Drake battle, which I have to commend them for. Somebody else from NYC needs to drop a crazy diss record over a Cash Cobain beat or something, though. Let’s get everybody involved.

Anyway, there have been fans clamoring for the Griselda guys to get involved, but they haven’t taken the bait yet. Rome Streetz tweeted out a popular meme clip of Stephen A. Smith to express how he feels about people trying to drag him into this thing — and Benny the Butcher seems perfectly fine being a spectator like the rest of us, tweeting out earlier that he felt like Joey was “handling himself exceptionally well.”

And you know what? He’s right.

The Brooklyn rapper hasn’t dropped a full-length project since 2022 and has been focusing on a bubbling acting career in recent years. So, when he randomly dropped his Conductor Williams-produced track with a shot at the West Coast’s recent dominance, fans were taken aback. He then followed that up with a three-song EP in Pardon Me in February, which included the already released “Sorry Not Sorry” and the aforementioned “The Ruler’s Back,” and he told Red Bull that he’s planning on releasing a lot of new music this year in an interview.

If that’s the case, then he’s doing a good job with his album rollout — even if the stakes of this battle are pretty low compared to others in rap’s history. His songs “The Finals,” “My Town” and “Crash Test Dummy” are the strongest out of the bunch to me as of press time. Filing a TDEast trademark and buying the domain so that his new battle releases can live there was also a nice touch.

Call it East Coast bias, or maybe blame it on the Knicks being in the Eastern Conference Finals — but Joey is winning this thing so far, and I’m not sure it’s been close.