Whoa. Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd, and Beefwatch 2025 is back.

New York rapper, extraordinaire, pro-era, big wig, Mr. Joey Bada$$, veteran of the game at this point, if you're a hip hop head and you don't know who Joey Bada$$ is, what are you doing? What are you doing with your life? What is wrong with you? Dude easily made some of the best and most impressive rap out of New York during the 2010s.

And while he has been playing things a bit more low-key creatively as of late, reveling in his past successes, like with his recent 2000 project, he has been trying to mount a bit of a comeback as of late. And throughout there, a new track four months ago titled "The Ruler's Back", which for the most part seemed like a cool reminder, 'I'm Here' type freestyle, new music soon, most likely. Here's some bars to get you going.

But in the midst of this track, there was a bit of a light shot across the bow, I would say, taking issue with just how much nonstop praise the West Coast has been getting as of late. Obviously, the context for that is just how much attention has been getting thrown Kendrick Lamar's way due to him taking the W in his beef with Drake. Didn't seem super personal or serious, maybe just like an East Coast rapper trying to assert some New York dominance with a bit of a chip on his shoulder due to the way that the rap landscape has shifted over the past two decades.

Coming away from this track, I thought the likelihood of Kendrick responding was pretty low. Right now, I think that's still pretty much the case. But with that being said, Joey has been getting at least some response with this track from one Ray Vaughn, who is a Long Beach rapper and Top Dawg Entertainment signee, while Kendrick hasn't been responding to Joey in a couple of bars in that freestyle, and the rest of TDE in a public fashion haven't been responding, Ray Vaughn has.

For months now, he's been tapping him with the song "Crash Out Heritage", "Impossible Patty". But even with Ray turning up the he, it seemed like there really wasn't going to be much to this beef long term. Might even turn into a Cold War thing in some fashion. But no, Joey seems to have found the time of day throughout a few subliminals in a recent Red Bull Cypher performance that also included Big Sean and Ab-Soul, which, pause – that's like an extra bit of context there that's odd. Ray Vaughn is signed to TDE. Ab-Soul is also on this freestyle. He, too, is signed to TDE.

I mean, Ab-Soul's contribution to this freestyle actually brings up this tension. He literally says, "Joey, you put me in a sticky predicament. I had to show solidarity to my syndicate / Now, you know anybody can get it in such a way that it will make any physician conflicted." He references Capital Steez, the fact that he messes with Ray and Daylyt, that he still has strong ties to TDE. So whatever this beef is going on here, clearly, Ab-Soul does not want a part of it. And Joey seemingly still is gung-ho on just going fully into it.

Now, as I said, Joe mentioning Ray once again has teased out a third track from Ray, this one titled "Hoe Era". And look, I'm going to be honest, on all of these tracks so far that Ray has been going at Joey, he's coming at the guy's throat.

Even if Ray is far from the biggest artist on TDE or the biggest artist that will ever be on TDE, he has been lyrically attacking Joey so mercilessly that I'm not surprised Joey has found the energy and the focus to really respond.

This new track over here titled "The Finals", I'll say in terms of flow and production is pretty standard Joey Bada$$. It's got that classic horn-backed boom bap sound, which is not a bad thing, and I feel like is exactly what you want from Joey anyway. What I really want to go over here is just how brutal Joey is lyrically on this track, and I think he really puts Ray in a chokehold on this track, even if Ray has been quite nasty in his shots at Joey.

And Sir Joseph Bada$$ here really shows he is not one to be messed with lyrically, really from the opening line saying, "What kinda Top Dog is you, you more shitsu / You was cloned in the lab, dog. You're artificial / You known for your label, not because you're art official." Also, deeper into these bars, I love the persistence with which he keeps throwing out these references to dogs, canines, so on and so forth, constantly tying it into the TDE thing.

"I let him rot while I charge him for top dollar."

Joey, what are you doing? Also, "You're the next dude getting dropped off the top roster, and I'm going to be the Reason." Like the rapper Reason getting dropped off? No. Oh, my God. This is brutal.

He goes on to claim Kendrick Lamar probably has little to no connection to him, and that TDE hasn't really done as much for him as Joey is doing for him right now by responding, which is not completely inaccurate. The Ray Liotta reference is smart, but he follows it up with, I think, one of the best lines of the track, "You need an optician just to see Ray Bans." Optician, Ray-Bans, glasses. Ray's bands or Ray's money is so small that you need glasses to see it.

This is nasty. This is absolutely brutal. He has completely gone off here, in my opinion, and is clearly sending out a lot of these shots pretty wide to see if he can get any responses from anybody who is maybe more relevant or more influential at TDE, which I don't know, man. I still think Joey might be barking up the wrong tree, to borrow a phrase here from him. But this is still a really impressive lyrical display.

And I think Ray Vaughn has inadvertently put things in a bit of an awkward situation, because now this Joey Bada$$ response has blown up bigger and more virally than any of Ray's songs so far. It's got more engagement and more discussion. So now it puts a lot of people in a position where it's like, 'Oh, man, he smashed Ray. Is anybody else going to jump in and save this man?'

And the obvious question is, is anyone from TDE going to do it due to his connections to the label? I don't know. I think if there is a likely outcome from the situation here, Ray Vaughn is probably going to drop another track. I mean, Joey dropping a full song, whether it's better than all the Ray disses up until this point or not, is exactly what he wanted. So he's most likely going to keep feeding into it, and maybe he's going to step up and potentially outdo Joey, though the lyrical quality on this track, I think, makes that unlikely. We'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.

Another quick update. I should also mention in the midst of putting this together, Reason off of being slighted in Joey's lyrics on the most recent track, "The Finals", because ongoing thing, tracks coming out, Reason has dropped a couple of tracks, which we may end up digging into at some point.

But it seems like he's taking an angle where he's disappointed with Joey throwing his name out there like that. But for sure, more thoughts to come. This situation is evolving, more tracks dropping, feelings and opinions being had. There you go.

I don't know. I mean, if this beef continues, I would like it to be a competition of lyrisism, of artistry. I feel like if potentially, Joey and Kendrick were to get into it in some fashion, it would certainly be that. It'd be more of an impressive display of a rapper's abilities rather than being very hideous and personal like it was with Kendrick Lamar and Drake.

But still, with that being said, Joey seems mad. Joey seems like he's really going this as hard and aggressively as he can. It doesn't feel like just a friendly fade. So part of me does wonder if this were to fully ramp up, would it go to a dark place? I think the potential for that is also there, too. But yeah, there you go.

Joey Bada$$, The Finals, Anthony Fantano, diss track forever.