Top 20 Beef Songs

15. We Are The Streets: The L.O.X. dissing Puffy (2000)

It seems like ages ago, (and I guess 15 years in rap time qualifies as an age), but Jadakiss, Styles and Sheek began their careers as another cog in the Bad Boy wheel during the label's heyday at the end of the 20th century. Although they still put out some "aggressive content" (the title track off their only album under Puff, Money, Power and Respect is a street classic) they were also forced into making out of character songs and videos that fit the '80s sampling, Z100 friendly Bad Boy sound post Biggie. Everyone is pretty friendly with Diddy now in the rap industry (he even worked extensively with underground darling Jay Electronica) so it's easy to forget that for a few years there, Puffy and Mase were symbolic of the decline of hip hop, and its' glorified materialism and lack of creativity. The L.O.X. got caught up in this to an extent, but you could sort of tell that their hearts weren't into the "shiny suit" stuff.


Of course, as long as the money was right, I'm sure Jada and them would have gritted their teeth and gone along with all the buffoonery. But, this is Diddy were talking about, who it appears to not have met an artist yet that he hasn't tried to rape financially. The boys from Yonkers would eventually be granted a release to sign with DMX's Ruff Ryders camp (the antithesis to the Bad Boy bling) but not before a long, dragged out battle for their freedom, complete with "Let the LOX go" t-shirts, threats over the radio to "throw a refrigerator" at Puff if he didn't get their paper work right, and of course this song off of their first (and only) album with RR.

This track was pretty brutal, even as beef songs go. With rhymes about kidnapping Sean's mother, pistol whipping his son, as well as threats of violence against his then girlfriend, J-Lo, this is the L.O.X. at their ignorant best. In the years since, all has been forgiven and they've even worked together on a few songs and in concert, but at least we'll always have a couple of beef songs to remember the good old days. Take that, take that, take that.

Everyone did their thing on this so I'll highlight the best line from each group member:

Sheek:

"I see you from the Hamptons to the place you like to eat, I'll put something in those yams you keep thinking is sweet"

Jada:

"I don't care how many checks you wrote, I just want to see how you gonna dance when your neck get broke"

Styles:

"If you let the P call it, I don't feel your ass, I wish duke was still alive and they killed your ass"