As a vegetarian, beef is something I try to consume as little of as possible. And yet, when the Queen of Rap, Nicki Minaj, finds her title contested, beef can be difficult to avoid.
That’s exactly what’s going on right now between Nicki and rapper Remy Ma, who had claims to fame well before Nicki rose to superstardom. Their feud is a decade old now, but has been dormant for much of that time while Remy served six years in prison.
Disclaimer: I’m on Nicki’s side, if you couldn’t tell. And yet I have to admit that it’s on her for starting the beef in 2007 when she took shots at Remy on her breakout mixtape Playtime Is Over. Remy said that she confronted Nicki about it and that she neither confirmed nor denied who the lyrics were about.
Remy’s stay in prison seemed to kill the feud, and she even congratulated Nicki on her BET award win in 2016, but then, in a remix of Nicki’s 2014 track, “Truffle Butter,” Remy made it pretty clear that she wasn’t ready to quit.
Since then, Remy has thrown more than enough shade around with a few remixes and guest verses, but has denied targeting Nicki.
The next direct acknowledgment of the beef was from Nicki in her verses on Jason Derulo’s “Swalla” and Gucci Mane’s “Make Love.” Being an all-around mediocre track, her lines on “Swalla” aren’t especially strong, just a warning.
But then there’s “Make Love,” which features one of Nicki’s best verses ever and a far more direct attack on Remy. Released last week, the song has already exploded in popularity (by which I mean that I’ve been listening to it on repeat since Friday).
And where does that leave us? Well, Remy wasn’t done. She dropped “shETHER” on Saturday afternoon and as much as I wanted to hate it, it is so good.
To the people who are comparing it to Drake’s “Back To Back,” please. “Back To Back” is to “shETHER” what veggie burgers are to real burgers. After “shETHER,” Drake’s diss of Meek sounds a lot like a letter Oscar Wilde might have written to Lord Alfred Douglas.
My point is that “shETHER” was very lyrically powerful and really ripped into Nicki. When it comes down to it, I’ll choose Nicki any day of the week, but I respect Remy’s mastery of the art. After listening to “shETHER,” I had to, because it really floored me.
The concern really is that Remy didn’t leave herself enough room to expand. It’s hard to imagine a track that more violently attacks Nicki and, as a Nicki fan, I don’t want to imagine such a track. But the same worry applies to Nicki after “Make Love,” because it sets a high standard to beat.
Nicki made a semi-response with her Instagram posting of the sales figures of Remy Ma and collaborator Fat Joe’s (together they made the hit, “All The Way Up”) latest album, Plata O Plomo. The post was captioned, “Yikes.”
And don’t worry, I’m sure we can expect new developments soon. After a track like “shETHER,” Nicki isn’t going to disappear. I think it’s safe to say we can expect more shots to be fired in the next few days.
