TW: mentions of sexual assault
Look, I thought we had left diss tracks back in 2018 with RiceGum and Jake Paul, but apparently not. If you were to tell me a few weeks ago that two of the biggest female rappers of the century were gonna air out their dirty laundry on hastily made tracks, I wouldn’t have believed you. Who would?
Basically, if you’ve been living under a rock (or away from the internet… goals) for the past week or so, here’s the deal:
Megan Thee Stallion entered her ‘Reputation era’ on January 26, releasing her new single HISS, which basically disses all her haters and critics.
Now, in HISS, Megan never once name-drops Nicki Minaj. No, no, Nicki was not called out in the song. You know what line she took offence to?
“These hoes don’t be mad at Megan; these hoes mad at Megan’s Law.”
‘Why would Nicki take offence to that?’, you may ask. Well, in case you didn’t know, “Megan’s Law” is a US federal law requiring authorities to make information (like name, address, pictures, etc.) about registered sex offenders public. It’s a good law… unless you’re Nicki’s husband or brother.
In 2020, Nicki’s brother Jelani Maraj was sentenced to 25 years to life for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl.
Adding insult to injury, Kenny Petty, Nicki’s husband, is a registered sex offender too, convicted for the sexual assault of Jennifer Hough in 1995. And, in 2020, he was charged with failing to register as a sex offender in California, earning himself a hefty fine and three years’ probation – which ultimately led to his 120 days of house arrest after threatening rapper Offset. There’s a lot of lore here.
But to dumb it down…. Nicki Minaj surrounds herself with the worst kinds of men – and then defends them.
Taking great offence to that one line in HISS, Nicki proceeded to go absolutely off. Her tweets in the next few days included quotes like, “Moral police suck my fat pussy!!!!!”, “Y’all wanna bring up family members???!! And lying on your dead mother?!?!!”, “REPENT WICKED WOMAN REPENT”, and “The world knows she’s ass & can’t rap.”. The woman went wild. Honestly, 10/10 would recommend stalking her account for a laugh or two.
Then came Big Foot. Three days after the release of HISS, Nicki dropped a new song – or rather, a new diss track. The entire premise of Big Foot is to insult Megan, referencing everything from the 2020 Tory Lanez shooting to Megan’s late mother. I’m telling you, the amount of pop culture knowledge you need to be able to unravel this feud is INTENSE.
The lyrics of Big Foot are brutal.
“How you fuck your mother man when she die?”
“This lil’ beggin’ whore talkin’ ’bout Megan’s Law; For a free beat, you could hit Megan raw.”
“Um, why did you lie about your lipo? Fuckin’ your best friend man is crazy, you the type, though.”
“She just mad that no n*gga ever loved her.”
“Why the fuck is you humpin’ on a minor?” (Big call from someone who has a brother in jail for pedophilia).
But yeah. Nicki went hard.
What’s Ben Shapiro got to do with all this though?
Well, the conservative podcaster who once said “rap isn’t music” also released a single recently – a rap single.
Shapiro teamed up with objectively horrendous (and racist, yay) Canadian rapper Tom MacDonald to release Facts on the same day as HISS. The “MAGA rap” song attacks the political left, makes fun of rap (I don’t understand the logic here?), and expresses a plethora of controversial beliefs.
In an unlikely turn of events, Nicki expressed support for this trash track, congratulating Shapiro and calling the song “not bad”. Later, she also tweeted, “Wait til they “wake up” & listen to what Ben Shapiro is saying in #Facts.”
Ben replied, saying, “The Queen of Rap keepin’ it trill.” He also joined in on the Megan bashing, saying Nicki was “correct about your flow.”
This is an alliance no one could’ve seen coming. Ben Shapiro is famously anti-Minaj, and has criticised her and her music on numerous occasions – including in Facts, where he literally name-drops her.
Nicki’s fans are not keen on this team-up, replying to her tweets with stuff like, “girl it’s literally black history month… what are you doing”, and “The same man who disrespected you and your music for years? The same man who also hates illegal immigrants? You can’t be serious nicki”.
But as much as we hate it, it’s not going away – and neither is this whole drama. In fact, there’s been multiple updates since all of this went down.
The father of Megan Kanka (the murdered girl that Megan’s Law was named after) said HISS is “as disrespectful as it gets”. Despite the song actually shedding more light on the law, Mr Kanka is not a fan of his daughter’s legacy being brought into an expletive riddled feud. The Kanka family told TMZ that they’re even looking into legal options to see if the song went too far.
That’s not all.
The police have had to get involved after Nicki’s fans leaked the site of Megan’s late mother’s grave and encouraged people to go desecrate it. So far, it seems no one has been bold enough to go through with it, but the cemetery brought in the local police over safety fears.
And, as of yesterday, HISS hit #1 in Billboard’s Hot 100.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see what Nicki does to retaliate. Hope Shapiro doesn’t join in.
Happy hissing!
