What's worse than beef with a longtime rival? Beef with someone who's much closer to you-- say, on the same label. As record labels are founded and organized, above all, to make money, any illusions of camaraderie or a "family" are erased as soon as it becomes clear that not every signee sees eye-to-eye, which (let's face it) happens quite a bit. Our most recent example came yesterday, when Maybach Music Group juggernauts Meek Mill and Wale got into it (again) over some comments the latter made in a Breakfast Club interview. Since Wale signed to the Rick Ross-owned label in 2011, his more conscious music has been a strange fit among the trap-tosterone anthems of his labelmates, and although the stylistic discrepancy has never been called out by Meek, it's almost as if he was destined to be the black sheep at MMG.
Whether due to differing opinions, conflicts of interest, money problems or music-related gripes, there are plenty more examples of this sort of label in-fighting littered throughout hip hop history. For the purposes of this article, we're limiting things to beefs between rappers who are both signees, so no direct rapper vs. label conflicts here (although Waka Flocka was again on that tip today). Here are ten rappers who found it necessary to start shit with their labelmates.
DMX & The LOX
In Ruff Ryders Entertainment's heyday, DMX and Yonkers trio The LOX were unquestionably the label's marquee artists. With the power of Swizz Beatz behind them, both became very successful and sold a ton of albums, but X, ever the loose cannon, felt the need to let people know who the label's true star was. On the tail end of an unbelievable hot streak during which he released four consecutive number one albums, Dark Man X issued a biting, popularity-driven diss on The Great Depression's "Trina Moe":
"Aight, let's ask the streets, how many sold?
What? Three niggas, three months to go gold?"
It was a shot at the trio's first joint album, We Are The Streets, which still sold decently (especially by today's standards), but paled in comparison to X's own sales numbers. Jadakiss, Styles P and Sheek Louch fired back on multiple occasions, including the "My Lifestyle" remix and "Who Did You Expect?" It's unclear how this all got resolved (it might still exist to some degree), but from then on, it seemed like DMX and The LOX steered clear of each other.
Beanie Sigel & Jay Z
Along with his great albums The Truth and The Reason, Beanie Sigel will always be remembered as the guy who got massively screwed over by Dame Dash and Jay Z's schism in 2005. Incarcerated at the time, Sigel saw his album B. Coming thrown back and forth between the disputed parties of Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam and Dash's newly-formed Dame Dash Music Group, only to eventually be released on Def Jam with practically nonexistent promotion. In 2012, Sigel exlplained while he still hadn't gotten over that:
"They dropped the album about five months before I was released. I adamantly requested for the album not to be released, for it to be released on my release date so I can capitalize off of that album monetarily. But they just threw it to the wolves."
This led to a relatively one-sided beef with Jay, who was Def Jam president at the time. Beans dropped a lengthy diss track, but the two eventually made up in time for Jay's "B-Sides" concert in Brooklyn earlier this year.
The Game & G-Unit
Game recently described the events that set this Aftermath beef off on the first track of Documentary 2.5, but suffice it to say that the 50 Cent-led group kicked him out without his knowledge, which led to the legendary "300 Bars" diss and a dispute that's now lasted a decade. As is typical of Fif's disputes, this one's been defined by its pettiness, examples of which include casting Game as a Mr. Potato Head doll in a music video, a G-Unit boycott campaign called "G-Unot," and of course, the male stripper allegations.
Consequence vs. Kid Cudi & Pusha T
As one of the G.O.O.D. Music artists whose careers seemed to be put on hold in favor of younger, more popular new signees, Consequence was understandably frustrated at his label, but curiously, he chose to attack those other signees, not label head Kanye West. The drama with Kid Cudi started after he allegedly brushed Cons off at a party hosted by Q-Tip, leading to this rant from Cons. Cudi claimed he was just very drunk and didn't notice his fellow G.O.O.D. signee.
Then a few years later, Cons accused Pusha T of stealing some of his lines, airing out his frustration on a diss track called "The Plagurist Society": “You keep fuckin’ around but still don’t hit / And that’s why the motherfucking Clipse got clipped." Thankfully, those two patched things up this year to work on SWISH.
Slim The Mobster & 50 Cent
Here's another Aftermath conflict involving 50. Slim was one of Dr. Dre's many protégés who helped out writing the scrapped Detox album, but as his own career began to flounder, he took aim at Fif, claiming that the G-Unit rapper stole his style and image. After a lengthy Twitter rant in 2012, Fif responded in the most crushing way possible:
SLIM U R dropped,you will get the call ths week.DRE's a boss nobody wants 2 tell him. It's OVER ☺ SMSaudio
This did actually come to be true, just a few weeks later.
LL Cool J & Jay Z
When Jay became the president of Def Jam in 2004, he faced the difficult position of being an artist and label executive-- which some saw as a conflict of interests. Def artist LL Cool J should have known at this time that his records wouldn't sell nearly as well as his label boss', but at the time, he blamed his paltry sales on Hova's ego. “I think Jay-Z does a very good job … of promoting Jay-Z," Cool J told the NY Daily News at the time, no doubt in response to The Black Album outselling his DEFinition project by some three million copies. Regardless of who was label head at the time, though, it's pretty clear who would have sold more copies.
Rick Ross & Jeezy
These two Def Jam powerhouses publicly made up with last year's "War Ready," but before that, they were embroiled in a lengthy feud that famously got out of hand at the 2012 BET Awards. Oddly enough, Jeezy claims that he never really had a problem with Ross, telling Sway “It was just two grown individuals that getting money, that clearly are bosses, never sat down and had a real conversation." Thankfully, the two Southern titans made up and never got as heated as Jeezy's beef with Gucci Mane.
Gucci Mane & Waka Flocka Flame
Back in September 2013, Gucci Mane went on a lean-fueled Twitter rampage the likes of which has never really been equaled by anyone else, calling out "jeezy. Tip. Gotti. Waka.Nicki minaj drake d a Wooh.frenchy 2 chainz coachk kkaior eminem oj rock Quavo takeoff cardo dam g” just in one tweet. Unlike the seemingly fabricated nature of the other beefs, Gucci's conflict with Waka seemed to actually have real-life causes, namely disputes about 1017 and Waka's mother, who used to be Gucci's manager and CEO of his former label, Mizay. Gucci soon apologized and blamed everything on the drank, and although he's been in prison for most of the aftermath, tracks with Waka have still leaked out fairly consistently.
Rich Homie Quan & YFN Lucci
Both of these ATLiens are signed to small indie label Think It's A Game, and earlier this year, things got heated between them. Apparently, Quan was dissatisfied with the delays the label was putting on his debut album, and attacked his fellow signees in an Instagram video. Lucci responded with a photo of him and his friends toting guns, bearing the caption "BE COOL HOMIE CAUSE MY PARTNAS THEY TAKE FROM THE RICH!!!" Things seem to have been resolved now, as both dudes appeared in a video together earlier this week.
Tyga & Drake
Tyga's shots at Young Money, Drake and Nicki Minaj popped up in a very public place: an interview in VIBE. Stating, ""I don’t like Drake as a person. He’s just fake to me," T-Raww went on to make the complaints part of his larger plea to leave the label. Drake responded in typical fashion, first by liking three recent selfies from Tyga's ex, Blac Chyna, on IG, then taking aim at him on "6PM In New York." The line "It's so childish calling my name on the world stage / You need to act your age and not your girl's age" was the proverbial nail in this coffin.