In this series I’m going to look at and analyze hip hop rivalries that have happened in the past.
The first one I am going to look at is the Ice Cube vs. N.W.A beef.
Ice Cube vs. N.W.A
How did it start?
After the success of N.W.A’s second album, “Straight Outta Compton”, Ice Cube approached their manager (Jerry Heller) about the royalties that he was owed for writing a large portion of the album. A dispute ensued as Ice Cube was adamant that he was owed a lot more money than he was being offered and subsequently left the group on bad terms.
The Beef
The first time the beef became notable was on Ice Cube’s debut album “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted” in 1990, as Ice Cube said “Think about it… fuckin sell out” on a skit titled “A Message to The Oreo Cookie”, which was possibly directed at N.W.A member Eazy-E. On N.W.A’s “100 Miles and Runnin'” EP later that year, N.W.A referred to Ice Cube saying “We started out with too much cargo, so I’m glad we got rid of Benedict Arnold”, referring to Cube as Benedict Arnold who was a traitor of the American Revolution. On the song “Real Niggaz”, they dissed Ice Cube by saying “How the fuck you think a rapper lasts, with your ass sayin shit, that was said in the past, be original, your shit is sloppy, get off the dick, you motherfucking carbon-copy”. There was also a small reference to N.W.A on one of the songs on Ice Cube’s “Kill At Will” EP on the song “Jackin For Beats” which implied that N.W.A were nothing without him.
On the groups 1991 album, “Niggaz 4 Life”, they had a skit titled “A Message To B.A.” which featured fictional phone callers dissing Ice Cube. This ended up fueling Cube to come back with a diss song on his next album. The diss song released was the legendary song “No Vaseline” from the album “Death Certificate” where Cube viciously attacked the members of N.W.A and their manager, Jerry Heller. The song contained a skit similar to “A Message To B.A” with phone callers dissing N.W.A and then broke into the main song. Cube alluded to one of N.W.A’s previous disses saying “I started off with too much cargo, dropped four niggas now I’m makin’ all the dough”. The artist that Cube focused slightly more attention on was Eazy-E claiming that he and Heller were screwing the other members out of money and had a homosexual relationship. This song was virtually the climax of the beef.
Aftermath
Not long after “No Vaseline” was released, N.W.A split up after another money dispute with Dr. Dre being the first to leave. He and Eazy-E went on to record diss songs aimed at each other. But Dre, Cube and Eazy squashed the beef as soon as it was revealed that Eazy-E was suffering with the AIDS virus and was close to death. Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and MC Ren went on to record songs together again and a possible N.W.A reunion abum was planned but never surfaced.
Diss Songs Released:
N.W.A – “Real Niggaz” (YouTube link)
Ice Cube – “No Vaseline” (zshare link)
Who won the beef?
It is generally considered that Ice Cube won the beef with his former group mates. The song “No Vaseline” is believed to be one of the greatest diss songs of all time and it was this song that made Dr. Dre confront Heller and Eazy about the money he was owed which led to the group being disbanded.
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