What started as a bold shot from Brooklyn’s own Joey Bada$$ aimed squarely at West Coast heavyweight Kendrick Lamar has now erupted into a full-blown lyrical brawl—East vs. West, the way hip-hop heads remember it.
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It all kicked off quietly on New Year’s Day. Joey dropped “The Ruler’s Back,” and while the shots weren’t exactly blatant, the message was there: he had Kendrick in his crosshairs. That move instantly sparked a fire under a rivalry hip-hop hadn’t felt this heated in years. Kendrick? He stayed silent—but not everyone on his side of the map did.
As of writing, the new wave of East vs. West Coast tension now includes close to 30 diss tracks and over 10 rappers.
But everything really hit a new level during an explosive episode of Red Bull’s Spiral Freestyle. Joey continued to throw shots at the West Coast, particularly at members of the storied Top Dawg Entertainment. Only this time he was in the presence of longtime Kung Fu Kenny collaborator Ab-Soul – and he wasn’t having it.
Calm and calculated, Soulo didn’t rush in with aggression. Instead, he dropped a precision verse that doubled as both a history lesson and a warning:
“Lyt was heavy and Ray definitely stepped / But this is Hip Hop, you know we still on that / It was healthy for the sport, sticking to the roots, keeping it competitive / Just be lucky that Soul ain’t stepping in.”
Translation: this is fun and games—until it’s not.
Ab-Soul Sends Shots to the East Coast
Jump ahead to May 27, and Soul finally did step in. Out of nowhere, he dropped a track produced by Low the Great and Python P, and he made one thing clear: he’s not here to mediate—he’s here to compete.
“Catch you a friendly fade, then keep it that way / TDEast was a motherf—kin stretch, real s—t,”
Here, he laughed off Joey’s claim from “THE FINALS” about building an East Coast version of TDE. But he wasn’t finished. He took a playful jab at his own TDE teammate Ray Vaughn, admitting that he may have over did it with the Diddy references in “Golden Eye”:
“And Vaughn Wick might’ve referenced Puff a lil’ too much / But cuh wanted all the motherf—kin smoke, hence why he was so blunt.”
Then came the elephant in the room—Soulo’s take on Kendrick’s silence and the growing pile of subliminals tossed at him:
“N—gas call theyself tryna beefin’ Dot? Hehe, haha / When gang knows this straight, dancing around stadiums sold out / It’s best y’all back up, ’cause quite frankly, if he actually needed back up / Y’all know he’d just bring Soul out,” he unloaded.
And just when you thought he was done, Soul saved one last punch for streamer Akademiks:
“And I’ma slap Akademiks when I see him.”
What started as a one-on-one invitation has turned into something way bigger. Joey threw the first punch. The West responded. And now with Soulo in the mix, the game feels different.
