When it comes to rap battles and beef, MCs, figuratively, like to go for the jugular with brutal diss lyrics.
For example, in 2018, Pusha T shocked the rap world with his Drake diss track "Story of Adidon," on which he exposed Drizzy for having a secret child with an erotic model and mocked Noah "40" Shebib's multiple sclerosis. “OVO 40, hunched over like he 80, tick, tick, tick/How much time he got? That man is sick, sick, sick/I got the devil flow, nigga, six, six, six/Surgical summer with it, snip, snip, snip,” seethed King Push.
Of course, no one can forget about Tupac Shakur’s 1996 scathing diss track "Hit 'Em Up," featuring The Outlawz. On the song, Tupac delivered brutal lyrics aimed at Diddy, Mobb Deep, Junior M.A.F.I.A., Chino XL and the late Notorious B.I.G. "First off, fuck your bitch and the click you claim/Westside when we ride, come equipped with game/You claim to be a player, but I fucked your wife/We bust on Bad Boy's niggas, fucked for life,” he voraciously rhymed.
Common delivered a lyrical bitch slap to Ice Cube on his 1997 diss track "The Bitch in Yoo." The song was in response to Westside Connection's brutal diss track "Westside Slaughterhouse," where Cube felt the Chicago rhymer was disrespecting the West Coast on "I Used to Love Her." That wasn’t the case, but Common had to respond.
"A bitch nigga wit an attitude named Cube/Step to the Com wit' a feud/Now what the fuck I look like dissing a whole coast/You ain't made shit dope since AmeriKKKa's Most," Common rapped on his scathing rebuttal.
In the end, when it comes to rap feuds, all bets are off. So XXL highlights the most brutal diss lines in rap history. Check them out below.—Trent Fitzgerald