When music superstars clash: Five historic diss tracks before Kendrick Lamar vs Drake

Everyone’s talking about Super Bowl 2025 - and not necessarily for the football. At the iconic event’s halftime show, Grammy-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar pointedly took aim at his contemporary Drake, with the track Not Like Us. The long-running beef between the two rappers escalated recently with a series of diss tracks released in 2024. And if you’re trying to recall other famous feuds in music, here are five historic diss tracks you might want to revisit:

Nail in the Coffin - Eminem (2002)

When a rap superstar goes head to head with a prominent rap magazine, you can be sure it's going to be an epic battle. When The Source gave Eminem's fourth album, The Eminem Show, four mics out of five in 2002, the rapper was incensed, with the fallout being that he exchanged diss tracks with co-owner Benzino, taking aim particularly with Nail in the Coffin (from his mixtape Shady Times Invasion Pt.1), where he slams Benzino's rap career.

Back Down - 50 Cent (2003)

In any history of long-running hip-hop feuds, how can 50 Cent and Ja Rule, be left out? In the track Back Down, from his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin', 50 Cent goes all out to disparage Ja Rule and his label Murder Inc's street cred. And that's only one of the many times this historic feud between the two, who have been scrapping since the late 90s, has flared up!

Give It to Me - Timbaland featuring Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake (2007)

The lead single from Timbaland's second rap album, Shock Value, courted major controversy upon its release. Apparently, multiple 'beefs' were addressed in Give It to Me, which Timbaland co-wrote with Furtado and Timberlake. Fan theories abounded, with Timbaland's lyrics apparently intended to diss producer Scott Storch, Timberlake's part targeting superstar Prince, and Furtado's verse adding fuel to a feud with pop star Fergie.

Bad Blood - Taylor Swift (2014)

Taylor Swift and Katy Perry didn't hesitate to get their claws out in a highly publicized feud some years ago. In a 2013 interview, one of Perry's former dancers claimed he and two others left Swift's Red tour for Perry's Prism tour in 2012. Swift's single Bad Blood was reportedly inspired by this rift with her contemporary. Without naming the person in question, she told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview: "She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me." Katy Perry tweeted later: "Watch out for the Regina George in sheep's clothing..." Fans assumed she was talking about Swift.

How Do You Sleep - John Lennon (1971)

When The Beatles broke up in 1970, millions of fans were understandably heartbroken, trying their utmost to understand the reasons behind the split. Clues were dropped lyrically in Paul McCartney's 1971 hit Too Many People, which supposedly targeted the late, great John Lennon and his partner Yoko Ono. Lennon hit back with How Do You Sleep, which contained the pointed line "the only thing you done was yesterday."