Hey, everyone, Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you're doing well. We are going to do a gigantic, ambitious, fat, massive list today. What we are going to do today is an Ultimate Fantano Diss Track Tier List of All Time.

Before I get started, let me say, I know that I'm not addressing every diss song ever. That's just not realistic. But what we are going to do here is touch on 51 of the most important and relevant diss tracks of all time, hitting upon most of the major beefs across the life of hip hop music.

Again, I know it's not every diss, and in order to talk about a lot of these tracks, I'm going to have to gloss over a lot of fine details, a lot of history, a lot of personal vendettas, and judge the songs on their own merit in terms of song quality, how scathing the lyrics are, the overall impact of the tracks during the time they were released, what these songs meant in the context of the beefs they existed within.

Finally, finally, finally, everything I'm about to say here, just to remind you, is just one single guy in his basement's opinion. I'm not the be all, end all on any of this, and I'm certainly not trying to throw any disrespect anyone's way over these tracks. I'm not involved. Again, this is just my perception of all the songs I'm about to discuss. And that's it.

MC Shan - The Bridge Is Over

All right, we have to kick this off with a hip hop outfit that I personally am a big fan of, Boogie Down Productions and KRS One at large, who were a part of one of the biggest and earliest and most relevant rap beefs ever, the bridge wars of the 1980s and nineties, which were pretty much over where exactly hip hop originated from back in the day in New York. Was it the Bronx? Was it Queensbridge? That's essentially what the back and forth was about.

However, like many hip hop beefs that came after this, a lot of what is being discussed on this track is coming as a result of not quite understanding the original message that this song is reacting to.

And that would be MC Shan's "The Bridge", which is a really great, in my opinion, old school hitting hip hop song that discusses the origins of hip hop music in general, and of course, the Queensbridge area is referenced in the track.

However, there is nothing in the song explicitly that says that it simply originated there, nowhere else, that it was the birthplace of hip hop point blank period. Which is why this track, "The Bridge Is Over", as well as South Bronx that also lands on the Criminal Minded album, both tracks just seem kind of a little pointless in a way, because they're addressing an argument, they're addressing an issue that's not even really an issue to begin with.

I mean, I think KRS One's delivery on the track is great, and I think overall, the tone of both of these songs is fine, but overall, the focus and the message is not really on point here. And a lot of what's being said on these tracks is pretty much deflated by MC Shan's response on the next track that we are going to talk about here.

While generally I hold Boogie Down Productions in pretty high regard when it comes to these tracks and the beef that came out of them, I'm not so much a fan, which is why I'm pretty much feeling a C tier on these tracks, specifically, "The Bridge is Over".

MC Shan - Kill That Nosie

All right, next, as I just said, we have MC Shan over here off of Down By Law, and that's the track "Kill That Noise".

Now, the Bridge Wars didn't end with this track, unfortunately, but the song is still a smart attempt at trying to diffuse the misunderstanding that the original, "The Bridge" track created in the first place. With Shan being pretty explicit in pointing out that's not what I was literally saying on the song, and throwing out other shots at KRS One for getting up in arms about that track to even begin with. Production and energy on this track, just like the original, the bridge is absolutely killer. And even though obviously the whole point of the song is to sort of point out the folly of KRS One's misunderstood understanding, I could see how some of the lyrics could be misconstrued as an attempt to escalate the entire thing, as Shan is pretty aggressive, especially for the eighties, lyrically, on this track in response to KRS One. Still, I think it's a great track.

And I think it, you know, essentially kind of stands as a point of a bigger embarrassment than anything boogie down recorded in relation to the bridge wars, which is why I'm going to put it in the A tier.

So I'm going to put it over here in the A tier. Great track all around.

Dr. Dre - F**k wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')

Okay, moving on to another artist, another time, really another era. We are going to talk about quickly, Dr. Dre with "F**k wit Dre Day", which is essentially a song that he dropped on the chronic, which was pretty much in response to the demise of NWA, and mostly took some very specific shots at Easy E, especially in the music video attached to the track. The song is catchy, it's hard hitting, it's anthemic. Snoop Dogg is on it as well, sounding charismatic as hell.

While it is not the most biting diss track of all time, what it is, is catchy. And Dr. Dre certainly used his ear for hooks as well as his knack for production to make a track that wasn't necessarily lyrically scathing, but there were a lot of things about it that made it resonate with people, because, again, it was so catchy, it was so fun, it was so bouncy, it was so accessible.

So, I'm going to put it over here in the A tier, great track.

Eazy-E - Real Muthaphuckkin G's

And of course, we could not finish discussing this particular beef between ex-NWA members without mentioning Eazy E or "Real Muthaphuckkin G's", where he puts in his own two cents on the whole situation. Who's wrong? Who's right, who's fake, who's a poser? Painting his ex-collaborators as clowns as fakes is essentially Easy E's mission on this track.

While there is definitely credibility to a lot of the content of what he's saying in regards to his ex group members, sadly, Easy E was not quite the lyricist or the rapper that Ice Cube was. Clearly. He also didn't really have the production powerhouse talent behind him that Doctor Dre did. And as a result, even if he is making some points on this track, sonically, vocally, it's not quite landing. It is falling a little flat on its face, and the overall presentation is, sadly, kind of awkward. But, I mean, that's kind of why, in the greater diss track conversation, this song isn't really brought up all that much.

I'm kind of feeling a D tier placement on this one, unfortunately.

Ice Cube - No Vaseline

And of course, to top at least this section off over here, we have to, have to, have to discuss Ice Cube's "No Vaseline", which sure may not be as slick and as catchy as "F**k wit Dre Day", but this song, lyrically speaking, and vocally speaking, is absolutely devastating. It is blistering. It is an absolute nuclear-style takedown of Dre, of Easy E, really.

NWA as a group, and their manager, Jerry Heller, is pulled apart on this track, and Ice Cube is so damn relentless and nasty and vicious throughout the entire song. It's a seriously deadly song. There was really no diss track on this level before this point in hip hop history. In my opinion, the nastiness Cube exhibits on this track set a gold standard for nastiness in diss tracks from this point forward.

Obviously, at the time Ice Cube went solo, NWA was probably on its way out the door, but there was no possible way the group was going to stay together and continue functioning.

After a song this devastating got dropped, Cube pretty much snuffed out any chance that NWA could continue without him with a track like this, which is why it is going in the S tier.

2Pac - Hit 'Em Up

Unquestionably next in the list, we have to go to a devastating, relentless, vicious, classic West Coast diss track, and that is Tupac with "Hit 'Em Up", featuring everyone in the Outlaw Immortals. Everybody famously knows this track is a big Notorious B.I.G. diss, which is said to have been onset by the release of the nNotorious B.I.G. song, "Who Shot You?"

Now here's the thing, though. Like I was saying earlier with, like, the Bridge Wars, it has been said for quite a while that Who Shot You?" while it was released at a time and in a context where people had to wonder, was Biggie referencing the recent failed shooting attempt against Tupac?

Did he have something to do with it, or was he just mocking it? Again, claims have been made that the release of that song and it lining up with that attack against Tupac, it was just a coincidence. Obviously Tupac didn't take it that way as he had quite a while to simmer on it and eventually dropped this track, which, again, is a very aggressive and unequivocal diss against Biggie Smalls, even featuring a parody Biggie in the music video.

The track tears him down from just about every angle, from his weight to his rap ability. The fact that he's come out with tracks that instrumentally or stylistically we're borrowing flows and borrowing instrumental ideas from West Coast hip hop songs. And Tupac's delivery and performance on the track is absolutely insane. You can tell he is on a warpath and irrationally pissed off at this guy. I mean, if you listen to this track, it's really no surprise that this song is really what kind of escalated the tensions between the East Coast and the West Coast at the time.

Because the track is so damn explicit in terms of who it's focused on. It's so violent, it's so aggressive. Could it not? So in terms of its content and in terms of its impact, it's undeniably a timeless diss. But, looking at the greater context of all of it, you have to kind of worry and wonder, could this whole situation have been avoided if in the year's time between this and "Who Shot You?" there could there have been some discussion, some kind of greater understanding forged between Pac and Big?

That bit of information is also kind of interesting to think about in the context of more recent beefs that we've seen over the past ten years that over the Internet tend to move a lot faster response tracks within days. Whereas again, with "Hit 'Em Up", Pac had quite a bit of time to stew on what he was doing and saying, here, post "Who Shot You?"

It's a seething, it's a scathing track. And I cannot deny that I'm putting it in S tier for that reason, and that reason alone.

The Notorious B.I.G. - Long Kiss Goodnight & Kick in the Door

Okay. Obviously, if we're going to talk about Biggie and Tupac, we also have to, for at least a little bit, discuss tracks like "Long Kiss Goodnight", as well as "Kick in the Door" to an extent, too.

Now, these songs land on Biggie's Life After Death, and "Long Kiss Goodnight" is especially clearly a response to the beef that Biggie and Tupac were having at the time. Now, the very sad irony about the release of these tracks is that obviously, Life After Death was released very shortly after the fatal shooting of Biggie Smalls. So at this point on this album, you're getting diss tracks to a man and from a man who at this point have both passed away as a result of this feud.

And look, I love Biggie. Generally, I'm more of a Biggie fan than I am a Tupac fan. But considering how subtle the tone is in terms of the focus with the bars on both of these tracks, I don't think these are two of Biggie's better songs. And on top of it, it's pretty clear that Biggie's heart was not as into attacking Tupac as Tupac was into attacking Biggie on "Hit 'Em Up". I think that much is kind of clear when you compare these songs.

It's actually more Puff Daddy in the background of the song screaming his brains out. That sounds more ready for war than Biggie does on the actual song. And again, while these songs are good and "Hit 'Em Up" is obviously a great and classic hip hop track, would and I trade these songs to be able to keep both these guys alive and active in the hip hop game from this point forward? Abso-freaking-lutely.

Which is why I'm pretty much feeling a B on these two tracks.

Mobb Deep - Drop A Gem On 'Em

So let's move on to the Mobb Deep song, "Drop A Gem On 'Em", which is off of Hell on Earth. As it should be mentioned, that Mobb Deep, and specifically Prodigy of Mobb Deep, were mocked pretty openly and blatantly toward the very end of "Hit 'Em Up" t0o. It wasn't just simply Biggie being torn apart on the song. And, you know, look, I'll give Mobb Deep this. Their response to the track was much more blatant, much more overt, much clear in terms of like, 'Okay, we were dissed. This is our response. Here we go.' But in terms of instrumental choice, delivery, content of the message, it's just not nearly as memorable or as scathing as "Hit 'Em Up".

Not to mention once this whole situation escalated as violently as it did at the time, and Tupac lost his life as a result of it instantly, the public's view of this track kind of shifted. For that and a few other reasons, this song, unfortunately, is really just like kind of a footnote in the midst of the whole Biggie and Tupac beef, not a super standout or memorable moment, even if the rapping on it and the flows, for the most part, are very solid.

I'm feeling a C on this one.

Common - The Bitch In Yoo

Okay, next we're moving on to another beef that also involves Ice Cube, miraculously, who didn't take too kindly in a few bars to the classic common song "I Used to Love Her", which, if you're familiar, is a track all about Common's love of hip hop and what he sort of sees as the progression of it over the years.

I mean, the song is good, I think he speaks a lot of truth on the track, but I could see how Ice Cube would personally take issue with some of the stuff Common has to say on the song around hip hop, going more West Coast and going more party-centric and appealing more to themes of gangster culture.

Now, again, when you actually pay attention clearly to the full context and content of I used to love her, Common isn't saying that's inherently a bad thing, however. Still, Ice Cube had some commentary on it, and Common responded once he caught wind of that with an entire song titled "The Bitch In Yoo", which there are parts I don't necessarily agree with. I mean, he does sort of say that Ice Cube hasn't had anything hot since his debut album dropped, which is provably not true.

But I think he does effectively do a good job of painting a picture of Cube being in his feelings and not necessarily taking the entire track and everything into context when responding quickly and emotionally in the way that he did in terms of delivery. It's not Common's most solid and consistent performance, but it's still very well written. It's still witty lyrically, it's biting. Maybe not on the level of a "No Vaseline", but you do have to admit it was ballsy on Common's part to actually write a diss track against the guy who wrote that song and expect to live another day.

And in fact, he did, because Common didn't actually get any kind of big response from Ice Cube on this track. They actually ended up settling the beef after this, which is a great thing.

I am feeling an A tier placement on this track.

Canibus - Second Round K.O.

Okay, moving on to our next beef. Different beef entirely. This is the track's "Second Round K.O." from lyricist and battle rapper extraordinaire Canibus, who was slated to appear on an LL Cool J song released and recorded in the nineties titled "4, 3, 2, 1". And really, the origins of this beef were all happening behind the scenes before the track was even released, because LL took issue with a bar that Canibus put in his verse originally.

LL found it offensive that he was mentioning the tattoo on his arm in a way that seemed kind of cheeky and, you know, a little...a little proddy. He sort of pushed him to change the lyrics. LL Cool J also, like, kind of ended up changing the lyrics to his verse to throw a shot back at him. The whole creative fusion of the track falls apart from there.

And then Canibus eventually just comes out with this diss record as a result of this creative partnership on this song with Cool J and him just not coming together. And what's so funny about this track is that the origins of it are so weird. The context of it is so weird. And yet there's, like, there was so much attention on this song and so much production value behind it. Like, in the track and in the music video, Mike Tyson is everywhere.

Wyclef Jean is in the mix, too. Like, dude really got a lot of people on his team to just tear apart LL Cool J. And some of the bars and some of the attacks are genuinely funny, but kind of looking back on it, you still have to wonder, like, what? Why did this happen?

This is just so odd that this song came as a result of all this. Just things creatively between these two, not gelling and their egos clashing. I mean, I don't think it's one of the greatest diss records of all time, but there are some biting bars on it. Instrumentally, it's solid delivery-wise too.

I'm feeling a B placement on this one, if I'm being honest.

Lauryn Hill - Lost Ones

Okay, let's move on to the track "Lost Ones", which is the first full song off of the legendary record, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which it's not said explicitly, but if you read into the tea leaves and the narrative around this song, it's pretty clear to see that this track is probably in reference to her ex collaborator in the Fugees, Wyclef Jean. And Lauren pretty much goes into a lot of the personal and creative misfires that she had with him or somebody who could potentially fit a similar bill.

This song is pretty essential for setting up the narrative and the need for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill because it's on this record that Lauren pretty much illustrates why she would even be going solo in the first place, because of the lies and the deceptions and the betrayal trails that she describes in this song, the content of which is very scathing.

The only thing Lauren isn't doing on this track, and maybe this is, to the song's credit, is just super spelling out explicitly who it's aimed at and who exactly she's going after. But still beyond that, the writing, the instrumental, the performance overall is great. It's a killer track nonetheless.

I am feeling an A tier placement on this one, for sure.

Ja Rule - Loose Change

Okay, moving on to another beef, another era of beef. We're talking about Ja Rule with "Loose Change". Where he is going at 50 cent, he is going at Eminem, or, as he says on the song, 'Feminem'.

I'm not gonna make any ifs, ands, or buts about it, this song is terrible. It's actually pretty awful. I don't even really care about how all of this originated. Ja Rule's performance on this track is annoying. He's clearly emotional. He's clearly very upset. For whatever reason, he's just, like, obsessed with just portraying Eminem as gay on the song. That's pretty much all he cares about. There's not really much in terms of bars. The instrumental is terrible. tTere's even a really tacky and psychotic bar toward the very end where he goes at Eminem's daughter, which drives Eminem off the brink in his response.

Very understandably, I'm feeling an E tier placement on this track. It's pretty awful. It's not very good.

Eminem - Hailies Revenge (Doe Rae Me) ft. D12 & Obie Trice

Okay, so in response to this, Eminem dropped "Doe Rae Me" or "Hailies Revenge", where he effectively tears Ja Rule apart. Everything from his superiority as a rapper to how insane it was for him to go at his kid in the first place, to the fact that he rips off Tupac and he's derivative and he's boring.

He just kind of goes at Ja Rule three times harder than than Ja Rule did Eminem on his track, despite the fact that Ja Rule, for whatever reason, sounded just even more upset.

Plus, after the double combo Eminem and 50 Cent essentially give to Ja Rule on their response tracks post all of this, his career pretty much did not recover. Feeling an A tier placement on this one.

Eminem - Nail In The Coffin & The Sauce

Moving on from here, we are essentially in Eminem mode because we have also "Nail in the Coffin" and "The Sauce", which is a throwback to a similar era where he's dropping a Benzino diss, where he essentially portrays the guy as broke, as irrelevant, as a joke, as a clown.

And his career also doesn't really bounce back after the release of this diss.

I'm feeling an A tier placement on this attack as well. We will place it right next to the other Eminem diss.

Eminem - Quitter

And while we are at it, let's get another Eminem diss out of the way, that is the Eminem and D12 track, "Quitter" which is pretty much the cherry on top of a multi-track diss beef that Eminem had with House of Pain's Everlast or at the time he was a Whitey Ford doing this kind of blues rap rock thing.

It all kicked off with a possible misunderstanding of a bar that Everlast dropped that Eminem took as a diss against him as well as his daughter. Eminem responded with another track that's not going to be listed here, but one titled I remember where Eminem is pretty much mocking his newfound acoustic singer-songwriter style. And that track is genuinely pretty funny as far as, you know, just breaking Everlast's balls.

He had his own diss against Eminem that I'm not necessarily ranking because it was awful and awkward and it was pretty much trash. But this song "Quitter" is excellent in my opinion, and Eminem pretty much shits all over Mr. Whitey Ford and illustrates why exactly his music is so boring and pointless and not necessary. And just like Ja Rule and Benzino that I just mentioned, his career and his whole white dude doing some bluesy sad song shtick never really quite recovered past this point, and his career was also thrown into the dust bin of history thanks in part to Eminem.

It's kind of crazy how Eminem has just proven - and there's another example of this that's going to be later in the article - Eminem has been able to end quite a few careers with diss tracks, or, not like, end people's lives or, keep them from releasing music at all, per se, but, these people really hit a low peak of relevancy after he started attacking them on his tracks. There was just not a Recovery to make. A bit of an Eminem reference there.

A tier for this one.

Nas - Stillmatic

Ok let's move on to another diss and another beef entirely. That would be the Nas and Jay Z beef that lasted quite a while, which pretty much kicked off materially with this "Stillmatic" freestyle.

Now, before this point, tensions between Nas and Jay Z and Mobb Deep were beginning to boil over, and it really became concrete the moment that Nas dropped this very quick diss track, which is said to essentially be in response to a Memphis Bleek song. Who was a Roc-A-Fella artist and a Jay Z protege at the time.

Nas uses this as an opportunity to not just respond to him in this very smart couple of bars where he tears through not only him, but Freeway and other members of Jay Z's crew at the time. It's not super deep, it's not super scathing. It's a quick couple of jabs and a good lyric showing over an Eric B and Rakim instrumental. And while it's not mind-blowing, it did really kind of like, you know, bubble up over into one of the biggest beefs in hip hop history.

Feeling a B placement on this. It's just kind of funny to think of this track in the greater context of beef within rap generally, because there are some parallels between a track like this and a song like "Like That" for example, it's like you get a few bars, you get a few shots thrown out there on a freestyle, on a feature, something like that, and all of a sudden, shit's just popping off.

Jay Z - The Blueprint

And shit most definitely did pop off with the song "The Takeover" on Jay Z's The Blueprint, where Jay Z is going at Nas, he's going at Mobb Deep and essentially rap-wise, establishing himself as the king of New York with a killer instrumental, with scathing bars, loads of charisma, and a lot of hard truths, too, because at the end of the day, a lot of what Jay Z was saying on this track was true.

The song ideas and the flows he was bringing to the table, commercially speaking, Mobb Deep and Nas around this time just couldn't really compete. He was representing this new era of hip hop, whether they wanted him to or not.

A lot of the bars he aims at Nas and Mobb Deep on this track are for sure embarrassing and cutting, which is why it's going into the A tier.

Nas - Ether

Following this, though, as we all know, Nas, of course, had something to say as he eventually did drop his album, Stillmatic and the opening full track on the record is "Ether", his response to Jay Z's "The Takeover".

It is continually cited as one of the greatest diss tracks of all time for a reason, because he's really tearing Jay Z apart over biting flows, over his obvious influences, who he's obviously disrespecting. He's going at a legend here, a guy who laid the groundwork for him to succeed seed in the game like he is today. He illustrates how preposterous that is, effectively, as well as Jay Z's associations with Damon Dash.

The track is so vicious, even most Jay Z fans at the time had to kind of admit that Nas really tore the guy apart, which is why this one has got to, got to, got to go in the S tier, for sure.

Jay Z - Super Ugly

One more track to finish off this Jay Z and Nas beef is the little freestyle follow up that Jay Z dropped in response to "Ether", "Super Ugly", which I will say in the greater canon and discussion of the Nas and Jay Z beef doesn't get as much credit as I think it deserves. I think Jay Z does level a very solid response against Nas on this one.

He points out some flaws in his character. He illustrates how emotionally hurt he is. He makes fun of how obsessed he comes across with painting Jay Z as gay. And he even mocks the chorus of one of the songs on Nas's new record in a way that kind of feels like he's not sweating the whole thing too much.

Look, I think it's a really great response. I think it's a very good response from Jay. I mean, I'm not really debating the fact that it's Nas who essentially came out the people's champion in the midst of this whole beef. But I'll say this, I don't think Jay Z lost this beef by a super wide margin. It was mega, mega, mega close.

This one goes in A tier.

50 Cent - Piggy Bank

Moving on to another beef, another era. Let's talk about 50 Cent "Piggy Bank", which is kind of like this multi-diss track where he's mentioning multiple people, he's taking swipes and shots at everybody., Lil Kim, Shine, Fat Joe, Jadakiss, among others.

Look, it's not a very focused track. And, I mean, considering this guy kind of, like, came onto the scene with songs like "How to Rob", you can't really be surprised that he would come across this confrontational for no damn reason against so many people. I feel like, lyrically and instrumentally and chorus-wise, the track is just kind of annoying. It's not clever, it's not funny, it's not interesting.

And you also have to kind of wonder, what exactly is the point here? Like, what is the vendetta in all of this? I guess I think it's pretty boring. I think it's pretty mediocre. I mean, 50, as I will discuss in a second, does have a very good diss against Ja Rule in the midst of their whole beef and everything.

But 50 cent repeatedly had these moments in his career where he's just starting beef for no reason with tons of people out of nowhere. And unfortunately, it's this kind of controversy that he thrived on for a period of time. And once kind of the wave that brought crested, it was pretty apparent that a lot of the stuff that he was dropping was kind of mediocre and not all that interesting, just like this song here.

Decidedly D tier for this one.

50 Cent - Back Down

But like I said from 50 Cent, we also got this track over here, which is his Ja Rule diss off of his big breakout debut album, Get Rich or Die Trying. Of course, I am talking about the track "Back Down". I think he does a really good job of tearing Ja Rule a new one on this track.

I mean, nothing new or groundbreaking in terms of, like, you know, criticisms of the guy or anything like that, but it's a reasonably catchy song, and 50 sounds super locked in in terms of, you know, what he has to say about the guy.

I think it's a decent and solid diss track all around that obviously, Ja Rule didn't really have the capacity to respond to in a way that kind of turned the tide in his favor. So I'll put it in the B tier.

Jadakiss - Checkmate

It must be said, though, eventually, 50's days of just, like, kind of throwing shots out at everybody did catch up with him. And that came in the form of this Jadakiss track over here, "Checkmate", which is one of those random mixtape disses that you would get at the time in the 2000s.

It's an incredible track. I mean, Jadakiss lyrically really took the guy down a few pegs, and you could tell it's one of those disses where the dude is really analyzing his opponent and observing him and gathering the details, gathering the information. The Connecticut bar is obviously one of the most scathing and memorable off of the track.

It's just absolutely a killer diss track all around, and one that I think doesn't get as much attention as it should. I'm putting it over here in the S tier.

Cam'ron - Curtis & You Gotta Love It

Okay, next, I want to move on to a couple of disses at the same time from Cam'ron , aka Killa Cam. A bit of a one-two, a bit of a double assessment here. One where he's going at 50 Cent on a track titled "Curtis", and another one where he is going at Jay Z on a track titled "You Gotta Love It."

Now, Cam'ron, he may not be the most lyrical artist out there, and I say that while appreciating his artistry and his charisma and his place within New York hip hop. I do love a lot of his early mixtapes, and obviously, the first Dipset album is great. So while both of these tracks may not be as scathing or as devastating as an "Ether" or as a "No Vaseline", Cam'ron does prove himself to be really funny. Just gut-bustingly hilarious in the case of both of these disses. He's just like, the master of being able to take this schoolyard teasing you kind of energy and actually make it work on a hip hop song in a way that is just clownish, but that works in his favor.

He's clearly not taking the whole thing too seriously, and he's just really kind of joking irreverently at the expense of both of these guys in a way that is very funny and lands and portrays him in just a very positive and very strong light.

Again, not devastating tracks or anything, but they are very effective and very hilarious and very entertaining takedowns. I would place both very solidly in the B row of this diss tier list.

The Game - 300 Bars N Runnin

Next, of course, with 50 Cent insults and his braggadocia just flying. As boldly as it was, he was getting dissed by a lot of artists. He was getting attacked on all fronts, uh, by a lot of people.

One of the biggest of which we have to mention is, of course, The Game, who was having an amazing and a massive role run on the West Coast at the time, especially with the release of his breakout debut album. The Game dropped this track, "300 Bars N Runnin" which in concept, you have to appreciate the effort that he put into it, because it's just this massive ten-minute diss track where he is just relentlessly going in on 50 Cent and everybody and anything that has anything to do with him.

With that being said, it does get very tiresome and after a while, the vocal delivery and the constant instrumental switches, the constant beat switches. Because there's a lot across the track do kind of wear on you. And unfortunately, it kind of makes the beef not really land. The Game has this tendency that when he is doing a beef song - and we'll kind of talk about this again in a bit - he kind of expands it a bit too far in terms of focus and intensity, to the point where it really challenges your will to even invest in what he's saying and what exactly he's trying to get at on these tracks.

So, unfortunately, while I do admire the effort and it's ambitious to write a diss track against somebody this large, and if anybody was deserving of it at the time, it's 50 Cent, considering how aggressively he was dissing so many people around the time for seemingly no reason.

But still, you know, I kind of feel like this one didn't quite land, even if I think the game put quite a bit into it, which is why I'm feeling a C tier placement on it.

Gucci Mane - Stay Strapped

Okay, next on the list over here, we have to talk about another beef in another region and another era. We are talking about Young Jeezy's beef that went across a few tracks with Gucci Mane.

At one time, these two were copacetic, but then they quickly became not that. And you could argue that Jeezy not only went all out, but went a bit too far on this song, attacking Gucci Mane. Because when people talk about this track - and people do talk about it in the history of diss tracks, because it's a pretty essential moment - the discussion never really centers around the rapping or the lyrical content or the instrumental.

Not only because, like, a lot of that stuff isn't particularly great, but it's all pretty much overshadowed by this spoken word rant portion at the very end of the song, where Jeezy literally puts a hit out on Gucci Mane's head with a dollar amount attached to it, which is not only unhinged, but it does literally lead to an attempt on Gucci Mane's life.

Sonically and lyrically, it's by no means the worst diss track ever. But, I mean, there's a lot of reasons that I can't really endorse this track. I'm feeling a D tier placement on the song.

Gucci Mane - Truth

Now, of course, in the midst of this beef, we have to talk about the Gucci Mane truth, which isn't the only response Gucci leveled at Jeezy, but this is the one that must be discussed, because this is the track he released after the attempt on his life.

And, you know, honestly, lyrically and performance wise, it's pretty incredible. It's one of the biggest fus in diss track history, because, you know, Gucci Mane is essentially saying, 'I'm still here. I survived this. This isn't even a diss track. It's the truth.'

So he says it's just the truth, which, I mean, it is a diss track. But still, you know, he does have a point there. I mean, it's not the most scathing diss song in rap history. It's nowhere on the level of lyricism as any of the tracks in the S tier. But in terms of the content and context of it, there's no responding to this track. You can't respond to this. There's no response.

Gucci Mane on this track, indisputably has the last laugh and continues to do so as he is continuing to enjoy life today. Feeling an A tier placement on this one, we're filling up the A. Okay.

Eminem - Tobey feat. Big Sean & BabyTron

Following that, let's do a quick placement on Eminem's other recent additional diss toward Benzino on the Lyrical Lemonade thing, which does have some biting bars on it. But in terms of performance and instrumental, it's a little annoying.

I'm not really crazy about it. It's just kind of okay, but also unnecessary. Like, why are we even tearing apart Benzino at this point? The stakes are so low. It's so small pickings.

We're throwing it in the C tier.

Benzino - Elvis Rap

Benzino's diss toward Eminem "Rap Elvis" is even worse and even more annoying. Let's throw this in the D tier.

The spitting and lyricism is okay, but overall, again, pointless annoying, who cares?

Freddie Gibbs - Real

We also have Freddie Gibbs over here off of the record Piñata, which, if you guys remember, features the song "Real", which is a diss also against Young Jeezy. Because not just Gucci Mane, but also Freddie Gibbs had dealings with him.

They had a falling out. And years later, after them pretty much separating off creatively and business-wise. Freddie eventually comes back, pretty much talking about how fake and disingenuous he is as a person on this track "Real", which personally, I think is one of the better and more solid tracks on the Piñata record.

I also want to put it in the A row, but I'm kind of running out of room here. I'm going to throw it over here and make it a little tiny between the MC Shan and the Dr. Dre.

Lil B - T-Shirts Buddens

Okay, next we have Lil B, The Based God, who is known for at least a few key diss tracks across the length of his career, one of which is this "T-Shirts Buddens" song, which is this hilarious and irreverent and silly and very cheeky attack against Joe Budden.

This track honestly marked a new age era for diss songs, where it's not super well put together, it's not super well performed, but it's still very funny. It's still very clownish. It's still very silly in a way. It's existing in the same vein of those Cam'ron tracks that I mentioned earlier. It's not the best pen you're ever going to hear, but the character and charisma and the silliness of it and the silliness of the tone of it get across a lot of the attacks effectively.

You can tell he's not taking the whole situation and himself all that seriously. And he's just joking on his target, which I think is an effective way of going about a diss track, which is why I'm feeling a nice, solid B tier placement on this one.

Remy Ma - Shether

Another diss, another beef, another target. We also have to talk about Remy Ma with "Shether", which is her diss against Nicki Minaj, where she calls her out on a lot of things. Her fake butt, her alleged ghostwriters.

There's a lot of lyrical content on this track that really rips Nicki Minaj a new one. I can't deny that in terms of lyricism and in terms of effort, Remy Ma was definitely going for it on this track.

With that being said, there's not much of an impact quotient on this song at all. When this track dropped, it pretty much just slid off of Nicki completely. The new era of female hip hop and lyricism that was being ushered in as a result of Nicki Minaj. The writing was on the wall. There was nothing really this track could do to stop it. And after a while, I feel like the song does really kind of drag on.

Hearing Remy Ma trying to essentially coattail ride off of the success of Nas's original "Ether" by kind of trying to murder Nicki Minaj over the same instrumental doesn't quite work, in my opinion. I'm feeling a C tier placement on this particular dis.

Lil Kim - Black Friday

And let's not forget that Nicki Minaj had a few beefs going around this time in her career, also with a Lil Kim, who tried to also take Nikki down on this "Black Friday" track.

Personally, while I do think the song has a strong start, and Kim is effectively bringing a very old school style of rapping and lyricism. Again, at the point this song dropped, there was very little it could do to take Nicki Minaj down a peg because she's just on a different operating system. She's representing a new wave, a new era, a new generation.

And if the Remy Ma song sounded tired, this lil Kim one unfortunately sounds almost doubly so. I'm feeling a D tier placement on this one.

Nicki Minaj - Stupid Hoe

Now with all these people going at Nicki Minaj at the time, she did at least entertain Kim with the track "Stupid Hoe", which, as far as diss tracks go, this one's proven to be kind of polarizing over the years. There are some people who see this as one of Nicky's best songs. There are some people who kind of see the instrumental and the repetitions of as obnoxious and annoying and dumb and stupid.

Me, personally, as the years have kind of passed on with this track, I think it's very funny. I think it's kind of wild. I think it's creative. I think it's eccentric. I think it's proof that Nicki isn't taking the aggression from Kim all that seriously. She's just kind of responding to it with a bit of a 'he he ha ha', and being kind of silly and showing that she doesn't need to body her on the mic to prove anything. Which, in my opinion, is probably the best way that she could have responded to the entire thing.

I mean, look, there are better diss tracks out there, but as far as Nicki disses go, this is handily the best one. And I would put this one also in the B tier. Just throw it right here between the Biggie and the Canibus.

Nicki Minaj - Big Foot

But if we're talking Nicki disses, we also have to talk about her Megan Thee Stallion diss "Bigfoot". Which, yeah, is Nikki just getting really butthurt over that "Megan's Law" bar that Megan threw out there on a recent track.

Yeah, this song is horrible. It's annoying as a diss track, and there's just this crappy ASMR whisper spoken word part toward the end where she launches a bunch of threats that she didn't even follow up on.

This is one of the worst diss tracks of all time, in my opinion. And I feel like Nikki fans would do themselves a favor to just forget it even exists. This is going in the F tier. This freaking sucks.

The Game - The Black Slim Shady

And speaking of diss tracks that kind of stink, we also have The Game also putting in way too much effort into this Eminem diss he did not too long ago, "The Black Slim Shady", where, I mean, given the title, you pretty much know everything he's going to say on it. And he does, in fact, say it.

And he just, like, once again, just like with the whole 50 Cent and the G Unit thing, he's, like, just putting in too much conceptual effort into a series of insults that even if you are kind of being in character and kind of building a narrative around it, it's still not going to land. I really had no idea what he was thinking, and clearly the context of the beef here at the time was just so weird and one-sided, and it was, like, kind of clear that he was just doing it for album sales.

I'm feeling D tier on this one. It's ambitious, but it's still not great.

Melle Mel - Kickback

And speaking of stinky disses against Eminem, we also have "Kickback" where Melle Mel kind of goes off on Eminem as a result of a spare bar or two that we're not too flattering against him.

This track is absolutely, positively weak, embarrassing, and frankly, below someone of Melle Mel's legendary status. Even he himself regretted releasing this song after it came out in the reception was what it was.

This track can also go into the F tier.

Lil B - F*ck KD

Continuing on, we also have to do a quick shout out to Lil B's "F*ck KD", which is obviously one of the weirder and more unique beefs in this tier list so far. But it's Lil B. You have to kind of, you know, respect it. Cause he did pretty much out of the blue after being disrespected by him, go full throttle against basketball player Kevin Durant.

And while the track isn't necessarily super listenable, you have to respect the fact that it literally put a "curse" on Kevin Durant that it really kind of took a minute for him to shake. I believe at one point, Lil B even had to sort of absolve him of the curse and officially end the curse for his sake, which was really nice of him, honestly, in terms of content and performance.

Again, I don't think it's amazing, but I feel like this is a very unique and a very weird diss track that sits at a very important place in diss track history because of just the very, just interesting origins of it.

Machine Gun Kelly - Rap Devil 

Also a very weird and interesting rap beef MGK versus Eminem. MGK had his track "Rap Devil", which I think is a pretty solid track from MGK and shows that he can certainly rap when he wants to.

But with that being said Eminem's age and the fact that he's not as popular as he used to be and so on and so forth, it's not really anything that hasn't already been said about the guy a million times. And on top of it, going at his daughter, given patterns of history in the past, is not going to end well for you.

And, in fact, it really does not, which is what we're going to discuss as soon as I take this track and I put it over in the C tier, because it's okay. It's passable.

When I first heard it before "Killshot" came out, you were kind of sitting there for a moment thinking, like, 'Okay, you know, that's not too bad. Maybe he'll really get away with this', especially considering what a low point Eminem is at right now in his career creatively.

Eminem - Kill Shot

But no, as we are about to discuss, Eminem really does take MGK to school and releases "Killshot", which in comparison with these other Eminem disses that I've discussed so far, I don't even think it's the best.

In fact, it may be one of the weaker ones. Obviously not as bad as the Benzene one over there in the C tier. Certainly Eminem's delivery and the relentlessness of his flow is not as great as it is on the Ja Rule track, he's much more kind of, like, calculated than he is there. And on the Whitey Ford song, too.

With that being said, it's still funny that post this point, MGK still had to change genres and went from being a rapper to a pop-punker, essentially. So, once again, again, Eminem pretty much ends an artist's career or creative trajectory.

What's funny about it is that, at least in my view, he was able to do it with like, a B tier diss song. Didn't even take an A or an S tier diss track to pull MGK apart. Eminem really only had to hit him with B level in order for him to completely dominate the guy and again make it so embarrassing for him to continue rapping that he had to stop and start making rock tracks.

So again, and let me make this clear before I get into, like, the last ten tracks of this diss track tier list. While Eminem may not be, like, the most celebrated diss artist, as far as, like, diss tracks generally go, Eminem has more numbers on the board than any other artist in terms of, once he touches you with a diss track, your career just doesn't really recover.

Now, you could argue Benzino, Ja Rule, Everlast, MGK. He's not exactly going at the titans of the industry or anything like that. Guys who, over time probably would have put themselves to bed. Still, though, the fact does remain, once Eminem gets at you there's going to be a change there.

Pusha T - The Story of Adidon

And speaking of changes, speaking of rifts, we have to also discuss, of course, Pusha T's "The Story of Adidon".

Yes, tons of ink, many pixels have been posted and spilled over this track like Ice Cube's "No Vaseline". This song really defined and started a new era for diss tracks because, and I don't think this really needs to be belabored at this point.

Obviously, on this song, Drake got massively exposed when Pusha T rapped about a litany of different things, but especially him being a deadbeat dad and hiding his child from the world.

It's sort of funny that this track ended up happening in the first place because it's really as a result of Drake responding to Pusha T that this song even happened. Pusha T rapping about Drake and people in his orbit like Lil Wayne and Birdman prior to the release of this song had been going on for multiple years and multiple tracks on "Exodus 23:1" specifically also on "Infrared", which is the track Drake was responding to that drew the story of Adidon out of Pusha T.

And if Drake and Wayne and Birdman just continued just ignoring Pusha T and acting like he just didn't exist, nothing crazy would have happened and everything would have just continued on as is, but rather than just keeping ignoring him, yhey engaged, or specifically, Drake engaged and landed in one of the biggest bear traps in hip hop history. Because not only did he just get savagely torn apart with some very, uh, unforgiving and cutthroat shots from Pusha T, but again, elements of his personal life, uh, which also include this photo over here, which was very embarrassing for Drake to be posted on the Internet and the way that it was.

Yeah, Drake really had elements of his personal life thrown out there in a way that, at the time, he obviously was not ready for. And these days, as more diss tracks come out here and there, there's almost, as a result of this song, an expectation now that diss tracks not only be lyrically scathing, but on some level be some kind of journalistic expose against the person who you're rapping about. That wasn't always necessarily the case with many a diss track released before this point in time, as you know now, because we've gone over dozens of diss tracks up until this point, and that was not always the central focus of many of them, the vast majority of them, in fact.

But yes, this song is incredible. It's hard hitting. It's a game changer. I personally love it myself, and I'm feeling an S tier placement on that one.

Meek Mill - Wanna Know

We're kind of getting more contemporary with these diss tracks. So, of course, many of them are going to focus around Drake because he is one of the biggest rappers of the modern era.

We must also discuss Meek Mill's diss track against Drake, Wanna Know" which is his attempt at a response against Drake in the midst of Drake really smothering him with multiple responses. If you don't know the full background, which you should, Meek Mill called out Drake for using ghostwriters on Twitter, which kind of just created complete pandemonium on the Internet.

It put Drake in a position where he had to respond, and he decided to effectively on wax with a couple of cuts, the biggest of which we will be discussing in a second. Meek Mill eventually tried to respond with this "Wanna Know" song, and it clearly was badly recorded, badly written, rushed, conceptualized, under a lot of stress. And despite the fact that Meek Mill seemingly had a lot to say about Drake on Twitter, he didn't really have a lot to say about him that landed on wax. It is kind of shocking considering the battle rap background that Meek Mill came from prior to the release of this song, which, frankly, was hot trash and pretty much left Drake complete, completely unscathed.

Even if the cover art is a little silly feeling an E tier placement on this one.

Drake - Back To Back

Which brings us to Drake's "Back To Back", which is the response that he had to Meek Mill, accusing him of using ghostwriters and a host of different things.

Even if the ghostwriters were in play on this song, Drake really tore Meek a fucking new one with a lot of clever and hilarious bars that frankly made him look pretty silly and turned him into a massive joke across the Internet.

One of the most memorable bars on this track is one about how he's asking me about if it's his tour or if it's his girls tour, meaning the tour he was on with Nicki Minaj at the time. It's really slick, catchy, relentless diss track that goes harder than it feels like it does because it's so groovy and it's a song that simultaneously could be played in the club.

It kind of serves as a reminder that this is a direction Drake could have gone in in the midst of his beef with Kendrick, and yet he didn't. And I feel like his tracks and his standing in the beef with Kendrick suffered as a result of it.

Rather than focusing on what is clearly Drake's strength, writing tracks that are catchy, that are hooky, that are slick, that stick with you instantly, that have a viral appeal to them, he instead tried to get personal. He instead tried to get dense. He instead tried to do these multi-phase takedowns, like, in the same way that Kendrick was doing to him.

That's obviously a skill that is in his tool set, not as much Drake's. But instead of giving us a nice "Back To Back" moment that could have potentially outshined Kendrick numbers-wise, Kendrick out-Draked Drake, as we will discuss in a second.

But look, at least during this moment with me, Mill, Drake came out the victor. And it was because he wrote one of the catchiest diss tracks of all time, "Back To Back".

I'm feeling an S tier placement on this track, but we'll put it right next to the story of Adidon. Oh, they're hugging, they're kissing, they're friends.

Drake - Duppy Freestyle

Getting further into Drake's stuff, we also have "Duppy Freestyle" over here, which is Drake's initial response to Pusha T, which does call into question his legitimacy when it comes to pushing drugs and the fakeness of his lifestyle.

But obviously, this did not have a great shelf life in the way that "Story of Adidon" did. I'll throw this one over in the D tier.

Drake - Push Ups

We have "Push Ups" as well from Drake, which is his response to like that, which personally I like, I think is respectable as a track. Drake does a pretty good job, even if the shots against Kendrick and everybody else are a little surface level.

He has multiple people to respond to on this track, not just Kendrick, but also weekend Metro Boomin, Rick Ross, whose diss track I'm not even going to talk about because it sucks and it's boring. Plus, a lot of what he tries to get at on that song is illustrated better by Kendrick on the songs I'm about to discuss.

But still, even if we're not talking about a lot of depth and lyrical wit and substance on this song, it still catchy. He still effectively fires back at a lot of different people on a single song. And it's really Drake's best showing during this whole back and forth that he had going on with multiple people at the time.

It's getting kind of crowded, but I'm going to throw this in the B tier as well.

J Cole - 7 Minute Drill

Also, we have to, of course discuss J. Cole's dis against Kendrick on "7 Minute Drill", which lyrically is trash, instrumentally is trash.

Even J. Cole was embarrassed by the song when it came out and you can see why because clearly his heart was not in this song. And on top of it, calling To Pimp A Butterfly boring is absolutely not true and silly.

I feel like he tried to play the same angle that Jay did against Nas and like, 'Oh yeah, you don't come out with that many albums, and when you barely have any hits.' But like that's just not really true with Kendrick.

Yeah, it's going in the E tier because it should have never existed.

Drake - The Heart Part 6

Next, Drake's final contribution to the recent beef that he had with Kendrick Lamar, "

The Heart Part 6". Like J. Cole, it was also pretty clear at the very end of this track that his heart was not really in this beef anymore. At this point, Drake's name is being completely dragged through the mud in terms of the people he keeps around him, in terms of being accused of being a PDF file downloader.

It's very boring, it's very drab. He just kind of reiterates a bunch of stuff he said about Kendrick on family matters and it's just a very underwhelming. I'm putting this also in the E tier.

Drake - Family Matters

"Family Matters" was also Drake's other major contribution to the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef.

This is the moment where Drake went wrong on this track. He tries to out-Kendrick Kendrick by copying from his homework, going through multiple phases and trying to do the whole 'I'm going to expose a bunch of personal stuff about you' thing. It starts strong, but it doesn't really end strong musically and flow-wise, even if some of the most scathing accusations on the track land toward the very finish.

Also, very bad idea to divide up his focus across multiple people on this track, even though it's Kendrick he should have been focusing on 110% throughout the entirety of the song. But rather than doing something like this, which is not really his strong suit, Drake should have gone back to basics, "Back To Basics" back to back basics, and actually try to hit Kendrick Lamar with a song that would have outdone him commercially and proven to be catchier.

But we really didn't get that. And unfortunately, we just got this very wishy-washy, inconsistent misfire of a song that, again, tried to do what "euphoria" did but didn't quite end up landing.

I'm feeling a C tier placement on this one. We'll throw it over here toward the start.

Drake - Taylor Made Freestyle

We also have the tailor-made freestyle, which is the one where he tries to AI copy the vocals of Tupac and Snoop Dogg, which conceptually is kind of a God-tier psychological warfare chess move. But in terms of execution it's just very tacky, it's just very annoying, and makes it pretty horrendous and awful to listen to.

Also kind of a bad look in terms of how it aged, because this was all an attempt on Drake's part to, like, you know, go to response out of Kendrick, and boy, did he get it. We'll throw this down in the F tier.

Kendrick Lamar - euphoria

Alright, a couple more left. We have "Euphoria" over here, which is Kendrick's massive six-minute diss against Drake, which I think is really impressive. I think is really well done.

This track really got people to start appreciating lyricism a little bit again because it got so much attention and so many replays because people were going back over it again and again and again and reading into the word plot play, reading into the double and triple entendres, really doing their research on the track. I like the multiple phases of the song. It's really like Kendrick brought back Section.80-era Lamar on this record and totally killed it in the process.

There are some moments where I feel like dragging it out to the length that Kendrick did does make it a little bit of a tedious listen or lessens the impact of it a little bit. But you can't deny the fact that Kendrick had a lot to say about Drake and he was clearly motivated by a lot of personal hatred and passion on the song, for sure.

Feeling an A tier placement on this one.

Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us

Let's move on to "Not Like Us", which is Kendrick's final contribution to his beef with Drake, at least as of right now. This was pretty much his attempt at out-Draking Drake in the midst of this beef. Kendrick is the one who ended up nailing down the catchiest of all the songs that were released in the midst of this beef, and he does it with this crazy, danceable, west coast style instrumental with mustard on the beat.

He just outright calls Drake a PDF file downloader multiple times on a crazy chorus. God damn, it's so infectious. God damn, it's so replayable. God damn, it's so fricking viral. It's insane. There really is an argument for this being the catchiest diss song of all time in the history of diss tracks.

And Kendrick did really, like, showcase some real versatility across this beef with Drake. The only, uh, downside of this beef ending is that, uh, we, we didn't get as many Kendrick tracks as we could out of the whole thing because clearly he had a lot of tracks stashed considering the rate at which he was dropping them.

We're throwing this one over in the S tier.

Kendrick Lamar - Meet The Grahams

And finally, we have "Meet the Grahams" over here as well, which I'm just making very tiny because, you know, the personal effects of the photo.

We're going to throw that in the S tier, too.

I'm just going to quickly say, and I have talked about this at length before, and I feel like I'm going to die if I go any longer doing this because it's really been a marathon. But this track conceptually is one of the most demented and sinister diss songs of all time.

Like, you're really writing a detailed, scathing, nightmarish attack against your opponent in a series of letters addressed to their family and their loved ones and those who are closest to them. That is just on another level of sadism and psychology psychosis that I just feel like no other diss track has been on up until this point.

I mean, for sure, there are very aggressive and threatening diss tracks out there, but the mental games that Kendrick is playing on this track, especially with it sounding as freaky and as scary at the very end as it does to me, is, again, it's just like. It's another level. It's just another level of insanity. So, yeah, Kendrick, in my view, has. Has laid claim to two of the greatest diss tracks of all time pretty handily.

And I know there are probably other diss tracks that could be brought up, could be discussed, but I've been going on for quite a long time. We have discussed a lot of diss songs, and I feel like we can leave this here, at least for now.

That is my diss track tier list. Hooray. Congratulations.

Um, say toast in the comments if you have somehow reached the end of this video. I'm going to go take a nap. You're the best.

Anthony Fantano. Diss Tracks Tier List. Forever.