Battling is as fundamental to hip-hop as a microphone but when does it go too far? With everyone chiming in on the Lil Kim vs Nicki Minaj debacle we wanted to take a look back at some of the biggest battles and beefs between hip-hop’s femcees.
MC Lyte Vs Antoinette
Back in 1988 Brooklyn’s MC Lyte took a swing at then newcomer Antoinette because her single “I Got An Attitude” allegedly “bit the beat” to Audio Two’s “Top Billin.” Later on Lil Kim would “sample” the lyrics to “10% Diss” for her verse on Mobb Deep’s “Quiet Storm.”
10% Diss
Hot damn, hot damn, hot damn, hot damn
Hot damn! Hot damn hoe, here we go again
Suckers steal a beat, when you know they can’t win
You stole the beat, are you havin fun?
Now me and the Aud’s gonna show you how it’s done
Antoinette answered with “Lights Out, Party Over”
I dis and don’t miss, cause i ain’t a friend of that
Scallywag, that tom, dick & harry-hag
Don’t get upset, homegirl, just get mad
You’re a lightweight, so it’s easy to demo teeth
A ’10% dis’? here’s a 100% beef
But Lyte silenced this beef once and for all with “Shut The Eff Up! (Hoe)”
“In ’10% [Dis]‘ I popped your head in a microwave/ I’m into blenders now, so you better behave.”
WINNER: MC LYTE
Lil Kim vs Foxy Brown
Before the battle of the Barbies Kimberly Jones was going head up with Brooklyn’s other high profile MC, Foxy Brown.
What made this battle particularly bad is that they were supposed to do an album together at one point and even shared the cover of The Source magazine in February 1997.
Like most beefs, details are fuzzy on how things fell apart between the two of them but several records went back and forth ending up in Lil Kim going to jail. (yikes!)
Supposedly Lil Cease took a shot at Fox on a song called “Play Around” saying that her style was similar to Kim’s. Kim then followed up on the The Notorious K.I.M spitting “You ain’t a star, and her record company know that.” Foxy responded on Capon-N-Noreaga’s “Bang Bang” calling Kim’s album “lame.”
This led to the exchange at Hot 97 where Lil Kim and her entourage bumped into Capone and his crew. An argument ensued and 20 shots were fired from five different weapons. Lil Kim spent a year in jail for perjury after testifying that she didn’t recognize two of the men involved.
At the time Foxy Brown said she wanted to “call a truce” with Lil Kim but in 2010 she dropped a track called “Off The Muscle” talking about Lil Kim’s appearance on the ABC series Dancing with the Stars last May.
She raps, “Catch me at Marcy at the mall/ But muthafuckas will never see me dancing with the stars/ Never, will I embarrass my borough/ I’m too thorough/ Dark skin bitches, we here now/ I swear now/ Ya’ll bitches wanna be me so bad/ Ya’ll studied my whole swag.”
WINNER: While Lil Kim is currently more popular due to her extra curricular activity, they are both neck and neck in terms of music output of late.
Roxanne Shante vs. EVERYBODY, “Big Mama”
In a move that is the closest precursor to the Lil Kim/Nicki Minaj beef, in 1991 rap vet Roxanne Shante inexplicably went after all of the female rappers of the day (Queen Latifah, Mc Lyte, Yo Yo, Salt-N-Pepa, etc) in one scathing diss called “Big Mama”
“Cause Shanté ain’t about no games/Matter of fact, yo, I’ma start callin off names
First up there’s Latifah/You roll up, and I’ma smoke that ass like reefer…I’ma rip you and your girl Monie/ You’re illegitimate, tryin to get a little bit And I’m about sick of that ‘Monie-in-the-middle’-shit.”
Our memory is a little fuzzy but we only think Latifah bothered to respond in the first verse of “ I Can’t Understand.”
Queen Latifah “I Can’t Understand”
WINNER: Queen Latifah. Last we checked Shante was apologizing for lying about having a doctorate and Latifah was making movies.
Khia vs Trina
To call this battle ugly is an understatement. The time line of this beef is more disjointed than than Kat Stacks weave. Whether it’s on stage or on record these two simply don’t like each other. Most recently Trina spazzed out on a DJ for playing one of Khia’s records at one of her shows and Khia said that Trina had “ninja turtle” in response to nude pics of her that leaked on the ‘net. Who is winning?
Well last we heard Khia’s publicist had put a gag order on her from speaking ill of others so for now we’d say Trina has a leg up.
Jackie-O vs Foxy Brown
Thankfully we can say this is the only beef that resulted in violence of any kind. Ironically, the diss records came AFTER the fight, not before.
Foxy says words were exchanged and that she did tell her she should “show respect” but that she wasn’t touched.
In response Jacki-O recorded the track “TKO” describing the incident bar by bar.
We’ll see if Foxy has time from reigniting her Lil Kim beef to answer this.
WINNER: We’ll give this round to Jacki-O just because it was so damned entertaining and “TKO” wasn’t that bad a record.
Where will the Lil Kim/ Nicki Minaj battle end up? We may never know. So far the younger Barbie has not responded and may be smart enough to wait until her debut actually drops to put out any answer records. Will she end up being the young LL Cool J going up against the Kool Moe Dee or the young Canibus who wanders off into obscurity after a whoopin from the vet?
