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"Rap's Grade-A Beefs: 10 Memorable Smackdowns\nSince the moment hip-hop emerged as a genre, MCs have been striving to one-up one another with ever-more-outrageous disses. Here, our subjective and highly unscientific guide to the best zingers of all time. Plus, read why rap beefs have all become catfights.\nKool Moe Dee (left), Freestyle battle at New York nightclub Harlem World (1981)\n\n Target: Busy Bee (right)\n\n Beef: Busy Bee used his allotted five minutes to deliver an old-school, call-and-response party rap featuring his trademark line \"ba with the ba the dang the dang diggy diggy.\" Next, Kool Moe Dee grabbed the mic and told Busy Bee, in no uncertain terms, to give that cartoonish line a rest, paving the way for countless beefs to come.\n\n Dis: \"Hold on, Busy Bee, I don't mean to be bold/ But put that 'ba diddy ba' bullshit on hold/ We gonna get right down to the nitty grit/ Gonna tell you little something why you ain't shit.\"\nRoxanne Shant\u00E9 (left) , \"Roxanne's Revenge\" (1984)\n\n Target: UTFO (right)\n\n Beef: When the all-male rap group UTFO\u2014known for a track called \"Roxanne, Roxanne,\" about a fictional girl who'd rejected each member's advances\u2014canceled their appearance at an eagerly anticipated show, one of the promoters, legendary Queensbridge producer Marley Marl, enlisted 14-year-old Lolita Shant\u00E9 Gooden to deliver a response from Roxanne's perspective. It sold 250,000 copies in NYC alone.\n\n Dis: \"You thought you was cute, yeah, you thought you was a prince/ You're walkin' down the block, holdin' your jock/ But everybody knows that you're all on my yacht/ I'm just the devastatin', always rockin', always have the niggas clockin'/ Everybody knows it's me, yeah, the R-O-X-A-N-N-E.\"\nBoogie Down Productions (above), \"The Bridge is Over\" (1987)\n\n Target: The Juice Crew (Marley Marl, DJ Mr. Magic, MC Shan, Roxanne Shant\u00E9, et al.) (below)\n\n Beef: Before the East Coast-West Coast rivalry of the nineties reared its head, Queensbridge's Juice Crew and the South Bronx's Boogie Down Productions engaged in a legendary battle for New York City borough supremacy. As part of the infamous Bridge Wars, BDP's KRS-One roasted Crew members one after another.\n\n Dis: \"I finally figured it out, Magic mouth is used for suckin'/ Roxanne Shant\u00E9 is only good for steady fuckin'/ MC Shan and Marley Marl is really only bluffin'/ Like Doug E. Fresh said, 'I tell you now, you ain't nuthin.'\"\nLL Cool J (left), \"Jack the Ripper\" (1988)\n\n Target: Kool Moe Dee (right)\n\n Beef: After KMD released How Ya Like Me Now, whose cover showed LL Cool J's trademark red Kangol hat getting crushed by a Jeep, LL fired back, setting off a four-year battle.\n\n Dis: \"How you like me now, punk? You living foul/ Here's what my game is, kill is what my aim is/ A washed-up rapper needs a washer, my name is/ Jack the Ripper.\"\nMC Lyte (above left), \"10% Dis\" (1988)\n\n Target: Antoinette (below right)\n\n Beef: As a matter of hip-hop principle, the pioneering female Brooklyn rapper MC Lyte called out the Queens-bred Antoinette for biting the beat from Audio Two's classic track \"Top Billin\" for her single \"I Got An Attitude.\"\n\n Dis: \"After this jam, I really don't give a damn/ Cause I'ma run and tell your whole damn clan/ that you're a/ Beat biter! Dope style taker!/ Tell you to your face you ain't nuttin' but a faker!\"\nIce Cube (above), \"No Vaseline\" (1991)\n\n Target: N.W.A. (below)\n\n Beef: After Cube, who wrote nearly half the lyrics on N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton, went solo in 1989 following a royalty dispute with Ruthless Records (which had been cofounded by fellow N.W.A. member Eazy-E and his white manager Jerry Heller), his former group dubbed him Benedict Arnold. Cube wasn't having it.\n\n Dis: \"White man just rulin'/ The Niggaz Wit Attitudes, who ya foolin'?/ Y'all niggas just phony/ I put that on my mama and my dead homeys/ Yella Boy's on your team, so you're losin'/ Ay yo Dre, stick to producin'/ Callin' me Arnold, but you been a dick / Eazy E saw your ass and went in it quick.\"\nCommon Sense (above), \"The Bitch in Yoo\" (1996)\n\n Target: Westside Connection (below)\n\n Beef: When Chicago-born Common (then known as Common Sense) released \"I Used to Love H.E.R,\" lamenting the decline of conscious rap and the rise of West Coast thuggery, Ice Cube and his Westside Connection crew took offense, hitting back with the vicious dis track \"Westside Slaughterhouse.\" Common responded with cutting insight.\n\n Dis: \"The ump on this rap shit, Cube, I'm calling out/ I break in and smack niggaz that's in the slaughterhouse/ This ain't no East Coast, West Coast, none of the above/ I'm from Chi, I went to Cali, niggaz gave me love/ There's a thin line between the fake and the real.\"\n2Pac (left), \"Hit 'Em Up\" (1996)\n\n Target: Bad Boy Records (right)\n\n Beef: After being shot five times and robbed in a New York recording studio in November 1994, 2Pac accused Bad Boy Records head Puffy Combs and label star Notorious B.I.G. of ordering the attack, setting the East Coast-West Coast feud on its fatal course.\n\n Dis: \"First off, fuck your bitch and the clique you claim/ West side when we ride come equipped with game/ You claim to be a player, but I fucked your wife/ We bust on Bad Boys, niggas fuck for life/ Plus Puffy tryin' ta see me weak hearts I rip/ Biggie Smalls and Junior M.A.F.I.A. some mark-ass bitches.\"\nNas (left), \"Ether\" (2001)\n\n Target: Jay-Z (right)\n\n Beef: After the Notorious B.I.G. was murdered in 1997, the title of King of New York was up for grabs\u2014and when Hova debuted \"Takeover\" (\"Ask Nas, he don't want it with Hov', nooooo!\") at radio station Hot 97's Summer Jam in 2001, Nas took the bait, setting off the greatest rap battle of the modern era.\n\n Dis: \"Put it together, I rock hoes, y'all rock fellas/ And now y'all try to take my spot, fellas?/ Philly's hot rock fellas, put you in a dry spot, fellas/ In a pine box with nine shots from my glock, fellas/ Foxy got you hot 'cause you kept your face in her puss/ What you think, you getting girls now 'cause of your looks?/ Ne-gro please/ You no mustache having, with whiskers like a rat.\"\nDr. Dre (left), guest rapping on Eminem's \"Say What You Say\" (2002)\n\n Target: Jermaine Dupri (right)\n\n Beef: Just a few weeks after stopping by Dr. Dre's studio to ask if he wanted to collaborate on a song, Jermaine Dupri (who rose to fame producing the teen rap duo Kris Kross) gave an interview to XXL magazine claiming to be the best hip-hop producer around and specifically calling out Dr. Dre and Timbaland as his inferiors. Dre immediately put him in his place.\n\n Dis: \"I'ma giant, and I ain't gotta move till I'm provoked/ When I see you, I'ma step on you and not even know it/ Ya midget, Mini-Me, with a bunch of little Mini-Yous/ Running around your backyard swimming pools/ Over 80 million records sold/ And I ain't had to do it with 10- or 11-year-olds.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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