Artists are known to be highly sensitive people, who often put the entirety of their emotions on display in their works. For rappers, this can mean shelling out positively scathing diss tracks to their peers when they feel disrespected, hurt or just plain don’t like whoever is popping in the industry. Hip hop is widely regarded as the most competitive genre in music, with most fans agreeing that any rapper worth their salt should be battle tested and seasoned at least once in their career. Titans such as Jay-Z and Nas or 2Pac and Biggie have hashed out major grievances on wax, paving the way for a generation of diss tracks that can sometimes be career-ending. While beef can be the impetus for a major uptick in sales and streams, it can also result in physical violence from time to time, and nobody wants that.
So, let’s examine some of the most scathing diss records of all time, judging them on the voracity of their insults, strategic moves made in their release and lasting impact on their selected opponents. An effective diss track can make or break a career in the rap industry, with some of the following artists putting their legacy on the line by throwing away the rule book and jump into the ring.
“Meet The Grahams” by Kendrick Lamar
This song’s placement in this list may be the result of recency bias, though you’d be hard-pressed to find a more staggering opening lyric to a diss track than “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father.” “Meet The Grahams” is just one of several diss songs Kendrick Lamar fired at Drake this year, as the culmination of a years-long Cold War between the two elite MCs that dates back over a decade. While this spot could interchangeably go to any of Kendrick’s other recent diss tracks, such as “Not Like Us,” “Meet The Grahams” showcases one of the most diabolical release strategies of any song in hip hop history.
After goading Drake to respond with back to back diss records at the top of May 2024, Kendrick prepared “Meet The Grahams” in advance, and dropped it within less than 30 minutes of Drake’s response. This strategy completely flattened any momentum Drake had in the beef, and stepped all over the impact of Drake’s song, while delivering vicious body blows in the form of individual personalized messages to each member of Drake’s family. The song also came packaged with cover art exposing Drakes Ozempic prescription and other personal information, proving that Kendrick had a mole in Drake’s camp. This song is the literal definition of taking beef to your opponents front door, only compounded by the fact that “Not Like Us” dropped the very next day.
The Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef was heralded as a historic moment in hip hop to many fans, right up until the moment when “Meet The Grahams” dropped. Once fans started hearing Kendrick dropping bars like “Your son’s a sick man with sick thoughts, I think n****s like him should die. Him and Weinstein should get f***ed up in a cell for the rest of their lives” the whole feud began to feel like none of our business.
“What We Do” by Royce Da 5’9″
This track is a lesser known diss record to most mainstream hip hop fans, but its impact cannot be overstated. While most rap fans know Royce Da 5’9″ as a frequent collaborator and childhood friend of Eminem, many fans have no idea that the pair once engaged in a brutal years-long feud. On “What We Do,” Royce borrows a beat from a song of the same name by Freeway, Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel, to take aim at Eminem, Dr. Dre, and all of D12. The song features such hilarious lyrical takedowns as “I been chillin on dog for years… now you hard? I got scars bigger than ya individual careers” and “N**** step unto the turf, everybody think y’all whack. What you gon’ write a diss record to the earth?”
This is likely one of the catchiest and most upbeat diss tracks of all time, with Royce fully dismantling each member of D12 in a flurry of hilarious surgical jabs. On “What We Do,” Royce Da 5’9″ manages to do the impossible, by name-checking Eminem’s daughter Hailie, and living to tell the tale. Other rappers have had their careers entirely ruined for less, and yet Eminem never properly responded with a full diss track, likely due to his longstanding personal relationship with the Detroit MC. In fact, years later Royce and Em reconciled, with the former even signing to Shady Records and appearing on numerous Eminem releases in the past several years.
“Ether” by Nas
Not to gatekeep music, but you simply cannot call yourself a hip hop fan if you’re not familiar with the Earth-shattering diss track “Ether” released by Nas in 2001. The track, which was dropped on Jay-Z’s birthday, served as a response to Jay’s scathing “Takeover” record, which had already escalated the feud to heights rarely seen between two artists of this size. At the time of the Jay-Z and Nas beef, the two New York MCs were the biggest names in all of hip hop, each carrying the respect and adoration of just about every other rapper in the game.
Therefore, when Nas released “Ether,” the streets were positively shocked to see just how hard it knocked Jay-Z down. Jay’s career never entered a state of disrepair, as he continued steadily releasing music after the feud had ended, but his street cred was never quite the same. Today, the term Ether is used as a verb to describe completely destroying somebody, more than two decades after the release of the utterly destructive song.
Unlike many modern diss songs, “Ether” offers very little in the way of revealing hidden dirt, and is instead packed to the gills with personal ad-hominem attacks, including bars like “First Biggie’s your man then you got the nerve to say that you better than Big. D***-sucking lips, why don’t you let the late, great veteran live,” and “You a fan, a phony, a fake, a p****, a Stan, I’ll still whip your a**, you thirty-six in a karate class?” Though Jay-Z and Nas have long since made up, moved on, and even worked together on numerous occasions, “Ether” contains some of the most heavily-quoted bars and cadences in rap history.
“Hit ‘Em Up” by 2Pac
“Hit ‘Em Up” is the gold standard when it comes to elite diss tracks, with many rappers still heralding this song as the greatest achievement in rap beef history. Opening with the wry delivery of “That’s why I f***ed your b**** you fat mother***er,” you’d be forgiven for thinking it can’t get any more salacious than that. Of course, as the nearly 5 and a half minute long track unfolds, 2Pac and his Outlawz crew unload a lyrical slaughter upon The Notorious B.I.G., Diddy, Mobb Deep, and just about every rapper that would so much as sneeze in the direction of New York. This track is widely regarded as the most popular and scathing record in the entire East coast vs. West coast beef, which unfortunately culminated in many acts of physical violence throughout the 1990s.
By the time the 2Pac and Biggie beef concluded, both world-renown rappers would see their lives cut short, in a pair of the most tragic casualties in the history of the genre. Today, fans the world over still wonder what the musical landscape would look like if the two had never been gunned down at the ages of 25 and 24 years old respectively. Despite the tragedy, “Hit ‘Em Up” is a certified rap masterpiece, complete with a spoken-word outro which showcases the pure vitriol held by 2Pac. In the final moments of the song, Pac threatens acts of violence against his opps, insults Prodigy for having sickle cell disease, and delivers sickening lines like “f*** you, die slow! Motherf***er, my .44 make sho’ all y’all kids don’t grow!”
“Nail in the Coffin” by Eminem
While each of the above diss tracks are legendary in their own right, none have the distinct honor of genuinely ending the career of the chosen opponent quite like Eminem’s “Nail In The Coffin.” This nearly 5 minute song takes aim at former Source Magazine owner Benzino, a once-respected pioneer in the landscape of rap and hip hop journalism. Today, Benzino is best known for being lyrically beaten into oblivion by Eminem, if you’ve ever heard of him at all. While this feud has continued to flare up on occasion, including another lyrical back and forth which played out earlier this year, this track truly lives up to its name by serving as the proverbial nail in Benzino’s coffin.
In the modern era, Eminem has been clowned for having corny lyrics, weak beat selection, and awkward vocal deliveries, but songs like “Nail In The Coffin” showcase exactly why no self-respecting artist would ever step to the Detroit MC’s pen. Throughout the track, Eminem paints a vivid picture of Benzino as a pathetic, struggling artist who fails to earn respect in the streets, all while photocopying and handing out his own fliers like a college-aged up-and-comer.
Em concludes the diss with a staggering knockout combo, rapping “you’re broke as f***, you suck, you’re a f***in’ joke. If you was really sellin’ coke well, then what the f*** you stop for, dummy? If you slew some crack you’d make a lot more money than you do from rap. You’ll never have no security, you’ll never be famous. You’ll never know what it’s like to be rich, life’s a b****, ain’t it?” Today, you can find Benzino literally crying in interviews with outlets such as Drink Champs, begging people to stop associating him with the lyrical beating he received from Eminem over 20 years ago.
“No Vaseline” by Ice Cube
Like the previous entry, Ice Cube is regarded in the industry as a career-ender, knocking out all four of his former N.W.A. group-mates, and their manager, Jerry Heller with the ultra-scathing “No Vaseline.” After departing the group of historic gangsta rap pioneers over payment and publishing disputes, Cube and the gang engaged in a few brief exchanges on wax. Notably, the group refer to Ice Cube as “Benedict Arnold” on multiple tracks throughout their final studio album, prompting Cube to respond with this no-holds barred diss record. Though it’s been over 30 years since “No Vaseline” was released, many hip hop heads consider it to be the most scathing record of all time, including Cube himself.
A recent viral video of Ice Cube performing at the California Roots Festival sees the Compton MC describing what makes “No Vaseline” so special in his own words. After praising other iconic diss tracks such as “Hit ‘Em Up,” “Ether,” and Kendrick’s “Not Like Us,” Cube elucidates “I love those songs, but ‘No Vaseline’ is the best diss song in the history of hip-hop. And I’ll tell you why: One MC — myself — I took out four motherf***ers and the manager. You can’t beat that.” N.W.A. split up shortly after the track released, making it difficult to defy Ice Cube’s logic on the matter.
“The Story Of Adidon” by Pusha T
Pusha T’s “The Story Of Adidon” may not have ended Drake’s career- in fact, it may not even be the most scathing Drake diss on this list. However, this track needs to top this list for one reason above anything else. This record was so mind-numbingly destructive, that Drake was forced to respond not with a diss of his own, not with a music video, or an on-stage taunt at a live show, but with a social media apology, like a disgraced YouTuber saving face for his advertisers.
For those who don’t know, “The Story Of Adidon” single-handedly ruined an Adidas collaboration Drake was planning, likely costing the Toronto MC millions of dollars. The song also exposed to the world that Drake had impregnated an OnlyFans model before hiding her and his son from the world. The song also exposed a photograph of Drake in minstrel black-face makeup, made fun of Drake’s producer Noah ’40’ Shebib for having Multiple Sclerosis, and did it all in the span of 3 minutes and 10 seconds. Even by the standards of the other patently vicious lyrical assaults listed above, Pusha T is a certified maniac.
To this day, Drake has never properly responded to Pusha T’s diss record, despite the fact that Push claims this was just the first volume in a series of tracks he intended to release over the course of the “surgical Summer.” Weeks after the release of “The Story Of Adidon,” Pusha T revealed that Drake’s people had put money on the streets to dig up dirt on the GOOD Music President, and failed to mine any worthwhile gossip. This diss track permanently shifted Drake’s legacy in the culture, and will forever be a key moment in the history of Drake’s life, and his relationship with his son.
