Off the Charts: Nas

Feud for thought

By Newt Briggs

If hip hop has taken anything from professional wrestling--that oft-maligned convocation of spandex and ethnic stereotypes--it's that there's nothing like a good, old-fashioned feud to boost profit share. Since 1992, the American rhymescape has been bombed out like the Gaza Strip with rappers trading potshots from the blacked-out windows of lyrical SUVs. From time to time, this a-feudin' and a-fussin' has sloshed over into actual street violence, but more often than not it amounts to little more than childish name-calling and homophobia.

Perhaps the most visible of these squabbles over the past few years--and one of the few not involving Eminem--has been the war of words between Jay-Z and Nas. According to Nas, the feud dates to 1996 when he allegedly refused to appear on Jay-Z's debut Reasonable Doubt. Jay responded in kind on "Takeover," declaring that Nas "had a spark" when he began but had only released one good album in a decade. His analysis largely jibed with that of mainstream critics, but Nas still fired back with "Ether," describing "Gay-Z" as "the Judas" with the "dick-suckin' lips."

It wasn't until 2002, however, that the quarrel degraded into full-on juvenilia. On "Super Ugly," Jay-Z took issue with Nas' teeth ("Niggaz'll tie you up on the Coliseum roof/ And open beer bottles off ya boy's chipped tooth") and made reference to having sex with Nas' baby's mama ("I came in ya Bentley backseat...left condoms in the baby seat"). Apparently preoccupied by his dental work, Nas could only muster a half-hearted attack on the "evil empire" of commercial hip hop. Overall, it's been an intriguing donnybrook--not necessarily one for the ages, but certainly one that has kept the tabloids buzzing. Feud rating: 5.

KRS-One vs. MC Shan. Before New York MCs could unite behind a universal hatred of Philly's Fresh Prince, they got their Adidas tracksuits all in a twist about which of the five burroughs spawned hip hop. The whole thing started with MC Shan's "The Bridge," which shamelessly pimped Queens as the epicenter of rap as we know it. KRS-One, not yet evolved into the "Teacher," responded with "The Bridge Is Over," claiming that MC Shan and Marley Marl were "a-rhymin' like they gay" (and, thus, the Bronx was hip hop's prime mover). The debate was never fully settled, although it was ironic that New York's most potent MCs turned out to be three well-off Jewish boys from Brooklyn. Feud rating: 3.

East Coast vs. West Coast. The feud that made feudin' fashionable, the East Coast-West Coast dustup was initiated by Dr. Dre's The Chronic, which threatened to permanently tilt the balance of hip-hop credibility from New York to L.A. Although the feud involved rappers such as P-Diddy, Warren G and Mase, the central figures were New York's Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, who claimed to have previously made sweet love to Biggie's wife, Faith Evans. The rappers traded barbs, and both were later killed while riding in cars (Tupac in Las Vegas). Their murders spawned an increasingly wretched series of true crime novels and a host of conspiracy theories--including speculation that Tupac, like the protagonist of Machiavelli's The Prince, had faked his own death. Feud rating: 10.

Foxy Brown vs. Lil' Kim. Rarely do females clash in the misogynistic world of hip hop, but buxom rap diva Foxy Brown scrapped with fellow buxom rap diva Lil' Kim after claiming that Kim copped her dolled-up-tramp-on-the-make image. Similar to Kool Moe Dee's long-running you-stole-my-style spat with LL Cool J, the feud didn't seem destined to go any further than the occasional ho-slap, but the pair's entourages escalated the tension in 2001 when they exchanged gunfire outside a New York radio station. In April of this year, Lil' Kim was indicted by a grand jury on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury stemming from the incident. Welcome to Thunderdome, bitchez. Feud rating: 7

Eminem vs. Ja Rule. What would a rivalry roundup be without mention of Motor City's mouth du jour, who has traded words with everyone from Busta Rhymes and Everlast to Michael Jackson and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog? Eminem's brouhaha with Ja Rule is particularly noteworthy since Ja went beyond the typical gay-bashing vitriol and dragged Em's family into the mix: "You claim your mother's a crackhead/ And Kim's a known slut/ So what's Hailie gonna be when she grows up?" Slim Shady and Hailie shot back on "Hailie's Revenge," when the little'un asked, "Daddy, is Ja Rule taller than me?" Daddy's response: "No, honey, you guys are the same size." Feud rating: 1. (Clearly, children should only be used as emotional munitions when they are part of a bitter divorce.)