Rick Ross has spoken about the Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion “beef”, saying there’s no such thing as going “too far” when in a rap battle.
The rap mogul recently appeared on media personality and sports entertainer Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast, where he spoke about rap feuds – particularly the ongoing tension between Minaj and Thee Stallion.
One of the hosts, YouTuber Mike Majlak, asked him if he thought there’s a limit to how brutal you can be in a rap battle, to which Ross replied: “I really don’t think you can go too far.”
“This is a sport – it’s hip-hop,” he continued. “It’s about having fun. Well, I call it fun. Megan got off her record, she got off her joint. You know Nicki being the queen she is in the rap game, she responded, got off a record, and that’s what you supposed to do.”
Ross was asked whether he condoned Minaj bringing up Thee Stallion’s deceased mother Holly Thomas, on her latest single ‘Big Foot’, rapping: “How you fuck your mother man when she die? / How you go on Gayle King and can’t cry?… ‘Cause she lyin’ on yo dead momma, lyin’ on yo’ dead momma.”
“Is she disrespecting her dead mother? I haven’t heard it,” the Maybach Music founder replied. “I’ve done things too when I’m doing my thing. When I’m at odds and I’m making my music, I’ve done things and said things so, sometimes it’s ‘fuck ‘em.’”
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Elsewhere in the chat, Ross and the podcast hosts talk about the legendary feud between Nas and Jay-Z in the ’90s. Majlak claimed Jay-Z won the battle from “a business standpoint.”
“Who won it from a business standpoint?” Ross questioned, before explaining he loves hip-hop “because it always goes back to how much money a n**** got.”
He said: “If you did all that rapping and all that capping [lying] and then a n**** ain’t got nothing to show for it, they don’t fuck with you.”
However, Ross said he believes both men “handled their business”: “They both shot back – to me, that’s what [rap beef] about. A lot of time, n****s would tap out and they [Jay-Z and Nas] both kept going.”
He added: “[There has been] battles I’ve seen that I had a different opinion from the masses just because of the way it was done.”
This prompted him to comment further on the Thee Stallion-Minaj conflict. He said: “If you didn’t like the Nicki record [‘Big Foot’], the fact she released the record X amount of hours later, fast – that’s a flex. And that’s coming from a writer that’s written for others in battles, so that’s a flex. I haven’t heard everything but, when you do that, you’re letting them know you’re on your A game.”
It’s unclear when Minaj and Thee Stallion started their conflict. They previously collaborated on the popular 2019 song with Ty Dolla $ign, ‘Hot Girl Summer’.
However, in Megan’s latest single, ‘Hiss’, she rapped: “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law” – referring to the mandatory requirement for US authorities to disclose information about sex offenders to the public.
In 2021, Minaj’s husband Kenneth Petty was given three years’ probation for failing to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to attempted rape at age 16. Minaj’s brother, Jelani Maraj, is currently incarcerated for predatory sexual assault.
In return, Minaj dropped ‘Big Foot’, rapping: “This little beggin’ whore talkin’ ’bout Megan’s law / For a free beat, you can hit Megan raw / If you a ghostwriter, Pardi in Megan jaw / Shots thrown but I still ain’t let Megan score.”
The name of the song is an alleged reference to the 2020 incident where Tory Lanez shot Thee Stallion’s foot. He was found guilty in 2022 and sentenced to ten years in prison.
In other news, Megan Thee Stallion has confirmed she signed a deal with Warner Music. She will have full recording and publishing rights to her music and Warner will handle distribution.
This news comes two months after she revealed her next album will be self-funded and released independently via her label, Hot Girl Productions. She will go on the ‘Hot Girl Summer’ world tour later this year to support the LP.
‘Big Foot’ comes after Minaj released ‘Pink Friday 2’ in December, which NME said “lives up to the hype” and “feels like a consolidation and refinement of everything Minaj can do” in a four-star review.
Minaj will perform at this year’s edition of Wireless Festival in July. This will be her second time headlining the event, following on from her 2022 showing which was plagued with technical and logistical hiccups. 21 Savage, Sean Paul, Doja Cat, J Hus and more are set to play at the popular London festival.