Remy Ma is having a moment, and it's been a long time coming. The Bronx-bred Terror Squad First Lady spent six years of her prime in jail for shooting her friend in the stomach. She scored an unexpected hit last year in her "All the Way Up" collaboration with Fat Joe, but their new joint album Plata o Plomo failed to make a significant impact outside the Bronx.
"shETHER," her savage, 7-minute, no-holds-barred Nicki Minaj has reverberated nationwide since she posted it to her SoundCloud this Saturday. Remy has vaulted herself to the front of the national rap psyche, and if she emerges from this fracas with Minaj victorious, she may well stay there.
Remy and Minaj's rocky relationship goes back a decade. Click through the image gallery for the complete history.
2007: Origins of beef
Remy became an early fan of Nicki Minaj's work by watching her appearances on the The Come Up DVD series. Minaj's 2007 mixtape Playtime Is Over featured a song titled "Dirty Money," a freestyle over Terror Squad's "Yeah Yeah Yeah" in which she took shots at an unnamed female foe:
"Tell that bitch with the crown to run it like Chris Brown
She won 3 rounds, I'mma need a hundred thou
Like china town, bitches better bow down
Oh, you ain't know? bet ya'll bitches know now
Fuck I gotta do to let 'em know that I'm the one?"
In a 2010 interview from jail, Remy recalled confronting Minaj about the song at the Playtime Is Over release party: "When I seen her at her party, I was like, 'Yeah, what was that line about?' To this day, I think it was a stab at me. I’m gonna [diss her] back for that one. It’s cool, like, that’s what you do in rap. But why do I have to go at her? She’s not stopping me from being me."
2014-2016: Détente
Remy seemed eager to repair her relationship with Minaj when she was released from prison in 2014. "Unfortunately I had went away and was incarcerated so we never had the chance to work together," she remarked in an interview. "I’m happy for someone from that to make it as far as she has… It’s a wonderful thing for me to see her where she is now. She’s lit right now and you gotta respect that.
In another interview following her release from prison, Remy expressed a desire to work with Minaj. "I think it would be dope if we can get an ill chick record with everybody doing what they doing," she said. "Me, maybe Iggy Azalea, Nicki… like just do a nice little collabo."
Two years later, she congratulated Nicki for winning “Best Female Hip Hop Artist” at the BET Awards.
Congrats to @NICKIMINAJ for your BET female rapper of the year 2016 award😘
Omg. Thank u Remy. That means so much. Congrats to u as well, for an exciting year. 💟💟💟 https://t.co/yTbTXqmBkT
2016-present: A fusillade of subliminals culminating in "shETHER"
Less than a month after congratulating Minaj on her BET Awards triumph, Remy began firing off a fusillade of subliminals:
September 2016: The BET Hip Hop Awards
Remy Ma: "Take away they stylist they don't know what style is / I been fly since junior high, bitch / You the biggest bird on Sesame Street / And I'mma keep scrambling your egg, keep running your beak."
"Take away they stylist they don't know what style is!" Remy put Nicki the bird from Sesame Street in a casket! pic.twitter.com/3uFnyhcpb3
November 2016: "Money Showers"
Remy Ma: "Man, these funny style bitches, I be laughing at them / Hoes be grabbing his dick, I be grabbing his gun."
"Bitch claiming she the queen, what? Not hardly / Who the fuck gave you your crown, bitch, Steve Harvey?"
December 2016: Funk Flex Freestyle
Remy Ma: "All this talk about my and your son / I'm hot and your whole world revolve around me, bitch I am the sun / Wanted to be an icon, ended up like Akon."
December 2016: "Wait a Minute"
Remy Ma: "Get rid of those fake breasts and put a vest on this bitch chest / It's lunch time, she food, I'm Troy Ave with that tool."
"That ghostwriter bout to call her / That lifeline getting shorter."
February 2017: "Swalla"
Nicki Minaj: "I gave these bitches two years, now your time's up / Bless her heart, she throwing shots but every line sucks."
February 2017: "Make Love"
Nicki Minaj: "First I'ma scorch her, then I'ma torch her / Then I'ma torture her, then I'mma off her."
"Everybody know you jealous, bitch it's so clear
Tell them bum ass bitches to play their role
She see my sexy ass every time she scroll
I got it in the can, Dole
Your career gon' be with Anna Nicole
Witcha dumbass face
She ain't eatin' but I swear she got some bum ass taste
Text her man like, "Dawg, how that bum ass taste?"
Pay your rent! And stay in your bum ass place
Oooohhh, oh you the qu-e-e-the queen of this here?
One platinum plaque, album flopped, bitch, where? (bitch, where?)"
February 2017: "shETHER"
To attempt to compress Remy Ma's Nicki diss track here would be futile. Head here to read the track's 10 most savage bars.