There’s no tradition in hip-hop more exciting than the feud. Since the earliest days of street-corner rhyme battles, MCs have been taking each other head-on, fighting to be the best on the block, the hottest in the neighborhood, or the king of the whole game. Rap beefs can originate anywhere, from a subtle slight to a full-on threat. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re tragic, and sometimes they’re just plain weird. Here, from old-school word wars to semi-automatic shootouts, we count down the ten biggest feuds in rap history. Click into the gallery below to begin. [Photos: Getty Images]
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1. Biggie vs. Tupac
Rap's most infamous, outsized beef is also its most tragic, with neither combatant making it out alive. Onetime friends turned bitter foes, the two titans in the East Coast-West Coast wars of the mid-'90s sparred about who shot who and who slept with whose wife until gunplay silenced them forever. Perhaps unfairly, Diddy and Suge Knight emerged unscathed.
High point: Tupac's great, scathing Biggie dis track "Hit 'Em Up," which feature possibly the most direct opening line in beef history: "First off, fuck your bitch and the clique you claim."
Winner? Nobody
