Collaborators: Brooke Tates & Allie Reed
Hip Hop: A genre dominated by intense lyrics, style, and rivalries. Rapper beef is almost as old as the music, but the most recent mainstream back-and-forth between artists is Houston rapper, Megan thee Stallion and New York native, Nicki Minaj.
Since Minaj and Thee Stallion’s collab on their 2019 record “Hot Girl Summer,” it’s been speculated by fans if the rappers were dissing each other in songs and interviews. It is also worth noting in 2020, Megan collaborated with Cardi B, Minaj’s known rival, on the song “WAP,” causing immense backlash from Nicki and her fans.
Their feud was advanced on Jan. 26 2024 when Megan thee Stallion released “Hiss” and said “These h*es don’t be mad at Megan, these h*es mad at Megan’s Law,” referring to the 1994 act requiring all sex offenders to make their address publicly known. This is taken as a shot to Nicki specifically because her husband and brother are both registered sex offenders and served jail time over rape. Nicki Minaj controversially spoke out against her husband’s victim along with a 2021 lawsuit by the victim against Minaj for harassment.
Nicki Minaj has a long history of rap beef especially with other female rappers. Just an hour after “Hiss” dropped, Nicki went live on twitter and instagram for 30 hours, consecutively. She teased a snippet of a quickly drafted response with the lyrics, “This b*tch like 6 foot, I call her big foot, she said she fall off I tell her ‘get up on your good foot’” (this is a reference to the 2020 incident where rapper Tory Lanez shot Megan in the foot) This snippet would then be released Jan 26th 2024 in the song “Big Foot.” where Nicki came for Megan’s relationships, dead mother, and more.
The public’s reaction to the feud is mixed. Online, Nicki Minaj’s fans “The Barbz” have been nothing short of crazy. Some have vandalized Megan’s mother’s grave and went to Stallion’s house. But the people of Liberty High School seem to be more chill. “I’m really only here for the music. I don’t pay attention to the drama that goes on, but I like a lot of different hip-hop and rap,” says Jayden S. “It’s definitely very silly. However, I think there is reason, considering the fact that Nicki’s Husband is a registered offender and then Megan’s law going against her and such,” says our campus social worker, Mr. Battle.
Rap has been around for 50 years as a male-dominated space. For the past 5 years, female rap has blown up and become a category of its own. There’s a popular idiom “All’s fair in love and war.” meaning there are no limits or boundaries in fighting, and loved ones. While beef is interesting, what’s the limit where real life and the online world become too blurred?
