The 31 Most Important Music Beefs of 2015

“A wise man told me don't argue with fools, ‘cause people from a distance can't tell who is who.” – Jay Z

“Let’s get ready to ruuuuuumbllllle.” – Michael Buffer

“Are you not entertained?” – the guy from Gladiator

Beef has existed since the dawn of time. Since Adam and Eve battled over an apple, humans have been prone to partaking in the time-honored tradition of beefing. But over the centuries, our beefs have become more evolved. With Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, Snapchat, and other shit-talk-friendly apps, musicians can beef in real-time, across any distance. No longer must we wait for months on end to hear diss tracks released on albums to learn of ongoing beefs. Beefs unfold right before our very eyes. 2015 was a wonderful time in the world of beef, so let’s take a look back at who was beefing, why they were beefing, and who won the beefs this year in music.

In July, Meek Mill tweeted the following:

Oh man, the toothy grin emoji! That’s the official emoji of the National Organization of Licensed Beef Starters. But aside from showing up at a soccer game to roll some lint off his pants or whatever, Drake was eerily silent in the week after that.

Then he came out shooting with a show of force, debuting three new songs within a few days. One of them, “Hotline Bling,” ended up being arguably the hottest song of the year. But at the time it was overshadowed by his two diss tracks on Meek Mill, “Charged Up” and “Back to Back,” the former including the line, "No woman ever had me starstruck / Or was ever able to tell me to get my bars up," a reference to Meek’s girlfriend and fellow engager in beef (although she notably stayed the fuck clear of this one), Nicki Minaj. It was no “Ether” or nothing, but everyone was impressed with lil Drake’s hutzpa! It was like that scene in Goodfellas when Spider tells Joe Pesci to go fuck himself and they’re all like “Ayyy, Spider, good for you, son, don’t take no shit offa nobody.” But even though everyone eagerly waited for Meek to respond by blowing Drake away and start digging the hole, it never came.

Three days later, Meek Mill responded with “Wanna Know.” The track was universally deemed so stale and tootless that even fast food chains like White Castle and Whataburger got in on the Meek-bashing.

[extremely Drake voice:] Oh man. Dawg, that’s bad. When the world’s largest purveyors of low-grade beef are clowning you over the quality of your beef, that’s real bad, my dude.

Drake, who at that point, must’ve felt like a little kid who beat his dad at basketball for the first time, took a victory lap, projecting some of his favorite memes about the whole thing behind him as a background while on stage at OVO Fest. It was official. Meek Mill had become a walking meme and Drake had become legit.

Beef Grade: A

Winner: Drake. The dude delivered the TKO punch to Meek Mill’s career simply by letting the internet tire him out and then pushing him over when he got winded.

Drake might’ve been able to treat Meek Mill like a punching bag, but even Champagne Papi was smart enough not to step in the ring with King Kendrick. Kendrick kept throwing Drake subtle shade over the years, dating back to his “Control” verse in 2013 and continuing into his possible Drake impression in his Late Show performance, seemingly trying to prompt Drake into throwing fisticuffs. But Drake wasn’t taking the bait and kept astutely ducking him. In fact, we’ve staged a real-life representation of Drake’s strategy:

Beef Grade: B

Winner: Drake. Sometimes the best way to avoid an ass kicking is to stay out of the fight altogether.

Is there anything more entertaining than two millionaires arguing on the internet over which one of them should be praised and awarded more? We submit that there is not! Back in July, when MTV announced their VMA award nominees, Nicki Minaj was sad to see that the artistic value of her five-minute-long Beats Pill/MateFit commercial, “Anaconda,” went unrecognized. Furious that she was not nominated to receive a metal statue of a miniature spaceman, she took to Twitter to throw some good old fashioned shade over the snub.

Taylor Swift, thinking everything is about her, thought this was about her. She jumped in with the tried and true “a man did it” argument which, honestly, is a good strategy most of the time. But this time it only made things worse.

All the celebs piled on!

@BrunoMars any way we do dis you gon' come up short

— Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) July 22, 2015

Ultimately, Swift apologized via Twitter and Minaj accepted. So much like most of the careers of artists who have been nominated for VMAs in the past, this beef eventually dissolved. Anyway, the two’s combined earnings this year total in the hundreds of millions while people protested against fast food workers having their minimum wage raised to $15 an hour. America’s priorities are in tip-top shape!

Beef Grade: C

Winner: Bruno Mars.

In case the public’s insatiable bloodlust for having female celebrities pitted against each other was not satiated by Nicki and Taylor’s beef, Nicki also had some words for Miley Cyrus at the VMAs. After receiving her little astronaut man statue, Nicki threw back to Miley by saying what would become the phrase of the evening, “Back to this bitch who had a lot to say about me the other day in the press. Miley, what’s good?” This was a reference to… some dumb shit Miley said in the Times. What’s important is we all got a new meme-able catchphrase to hold us over until the “Why you always lyinnn” guy came along and blew our minds.

Beef Grade: B

Winner: MTV, for having a notable TV moment. Music writers, who thinkpieced their way into oblivion the next day over the cultural significance of this. And the hundreds of people with Etsy shops selling handmade “Miley, what’s good?” iPhone cases.

Taylor Swift just couldn’t escape the beef this year, huh? You’d think a person who puts on a cheery exterior while simultaneously making music videos about assembling a gang to go beat the everloving shit out of a rival gang over some petty bullcrap would have healthy adult relationships!

Since the only people who care about this feud are Hollywood entertainment hosts whose job it is to report about the minutia of celebrities’ lives through unrealistically white smiles, let us explain this in their native language: Swift and Perry used to be besties! Total BFFs! They used to LOL @ each other on Twitter all day but then like ugh they totes became frenemies after Tay Tay stole Katy’s backup dancers. Just kiss and make up you guyz we luv u both, k?

Beef Grade: C

Winner: E! News. This shit is like Viagra for them.

Would you like to have this unholy beef explained to you, or would you like to just look at this headline and photo without context and draw your own wild conclusions about Katy Perry fighting a bunch of nuns? That’s what we thought. Cue the photo…

Beef Grade: D

Winner: You, for whatever Katy Perry vs. ninja nuns scenario you’ve got going on in your head right now.

Fans of the metalcore band Bring Me the the Horizon, who surely have refined and extensive cultural palates, noticed that the cover of Coldplay’s new album, A Head Full of Dreams, which is just a bunch of circles, kind of resembles Bring Me the Horizon’s 2013 album Sempiternal, which is also just a bunch of circles. BMTH frontman Oli Sykes addressed it in an interview, saying Chris Martin should’ve googled that shit first. He’s probably just angry at himself though. If only he’d had the foresight to trademark a circle, he’d be raking in that sweet Coldplay lawsuit money as we speak. Not to mention Target, Lucent, Obama, Pepsi, and all the other brands who have ripped off their famous "circle" design.

Beef Grade: C

Winner: The triangle. The triangle’s probably so relieved right now that it’s not on the cover of either of these dingus’ albums.

Hodgy Beats, seemingly unprompted, called fellow Odd Future member Tyler, the Creator a “fraud” at the Odd Future Camp Flog Gnaw festival. Not long after, Hodgy posted an Instagram video saying, "Tyler told me to stop being a bitch, so I said alright." Well… OK then. Good. Don’t let it happen again, you two.

Beef Grade: D

Winner: Everyone. Hooray, friendship.

The Warped Tour had, uh, some problems this year. Aside from allowing a man who was accused of engaging in inappropriate social media relationships with underage women and another band being removed over an alleged sexual assault, they also had the band Attila, whose lyrics are as homophobic as they are dumb. Last year, Senses Fail frontman Buddy Nielsen tweeted that the band dropping the word “faggot” 900-something times throughout their set is maybe not the best thing to do in front of an audience of tweens. The two were on the tour together again this summer and Attila frontman Chris Fronzak seemed to have gotten even more ignorant over the past 12 months.

@FRONZ1LLA was just outside your bus, talking to your crew, said that you wouldn't come out

— Senses Fail (@SensesFail) July 19, 2015

I literally don't get it. The last 2 years of Warped were so fucking cool and all the bands on it now are the biggest fucking crybabies…

— THE SLiME MASTER (@FRONZ1LLA) July 19, 2015

Yeah, buncha dang crybabies over there on the Warped Tour. Why can’t everyone just be cool about letting rampant homophobia go totally unchecked?

Beef Grade: C

Winner: No one. Attila is still one of the most popular Warped Tour bands and they continue to drop the F-bomb on the reg.

Speaking of Warped Tour, the festival’s founder and foot-in-mouth extraordinaire Kevin Lyman, perhaps needing a distraction from the fact that his tour got outed as a summertime hotbed for predatory behavior, said a few unkind things about the direction of Mayhem Festival, the metal festival he also co-founded. Criticizing the egos of metal’s headlining acts, he said the genre had gotten “gray, bald, and fat.” Kerry King, of the Mayhem headlining act Slayer, was asked about this in an interview and called Lyman “a douche.”

Beef Grade: C

Winner: Metal. This little spat riled up and united the metal community against Lyman and they came out stronger and more determined to support Slayer and other metal artists. …But on the other hand, being a founder of the festival, maybe that’s what Lyman wanted all along. Damn, let’s reverse the call. Winner: Lyman, that evil fucking genius.

You could probably write a book about the near-fatal beef between Young Thug and Lil Wayne this year so we will break it down to the very basics.

Lil Wayne was pissed that Cash Money co-founder Birdman was diverting the label’s efforts away from the release of his Tha Carter V album and onto Young Thug, and sued the label for $51 million last year. Feeling the cold hand of irrelevancy creeping up on him, Wayne lashed out in January, dropping Sorry 4 The Wait 2, a mixtape full of shit-talk on Birdman and Cash Money, shortly after tweeting his frustration that the label was refusing to release his album. “I want off this label and nothing to do with these people but unfortunately it ain't that easy,” he tweeted.

Then, in what looked like a big ol’ loogie in Wayne’s face, Young Thug announced his Carter 6 mixtape, featuring a naked photo of himself on the cover and Wayne was like, hey man, could you not do that please? For some reason, Young Thug thought it’d be a good idea to do his first show in support of the mixtape in Wayne’s hometown of Hollygrove, Louisiana. The audience responded how you might imagine (they didn’t care for it!).

Then Young Thug announced he’d be naming his next project Tha Carter V.

Then Birdman and Young Thug maybe ordered in a hit on Lil Wayne by shooting up his bus?

Anyway, that’s the gist of it. In there somewhere Lil Wayne released an album via TIDAL and Young Thug got arrested for threatening to shoot a mall officer in the face after he was told he couldn’t ride his hoverboard thing around the mall.

Beef Grade: A

Winner: Lil Wayne, for using the power of the internet to not have his career marginalized.

The duo's prolific collaboration Rich Gang broke up for reasons no one is really sure of and any beef was mostly denied. Then Young Thug called Rich Homie Quan “Bitch Homie Quan” on stage. That’s about the extent of this one.

Beef Grade: E

Winner: The fifth grader who came up with this insult for him.

Atlanta producer Metro Boomin had a few things to get off his chest about mixtapes this year. In a series of tweets, he lamented the current quantity-over-quality state of hip-hop, and rappers “dropping tapes every month.” He continued: “putting out 5 tapes in a year won't make you heat up like Future.” Young Thug, who released a new mixtape every three hours over the last year, interpreted this to be about him. He tweeted at Metro Boomin, with whom he has worked, with the equivalent of “@ me tho”:

But then Young Thug and Metro Boomin were spotted on Periscope being friendly while Facetiming (if only Big and Pac had had our modern beef-squashing technology). So it looks like that one ended before it started. Or it was just a joke the whole time.

Beef Grade: D

Winner: Future.

Ah yes, Mark Kozelek a.k.a. Sun Kil Moon, who we all deemed A Bad Man last year for writing a song informing The War on Drugs guy to suck his cock, emerged from the Problem Attic this year to start some more beef. Kozelek, knowing where his bread is buttered, picked a fight with a female music writer, Laura Snapes, who had interviewed him via email. He improvised a song about her on stage afterwards, singing that she “totally wants to fuck me” and to “get in line, bitch.” Classy! But of course, given that all music writers share a collective thought process and are united in their shared experience of having chosen the worst possible career path, they all piled onto Kozelek, combining their outrage powers like Voltron and blasting Kozelek across the interwebs. Snapes herself penned a piece for The Guardian about Kozelek’s shittiness, thus fulfilling Kozelek’s plan to provoke people in positions to give him press until they gave him press, even if it was negative. Sort of like the end of Seven when Kevin Spacey gets Brad Pitt to kill him, completing his morbid performance art. Oh, shit, spoiler alert, sorry.

Beef Grade: C

Winner: Everyone. Kozelek got what he wanted: Attention for his album, which was plugged right at the bottom of Snapes’ article. And Snapes got what all music writers want: A congratulatory pat on the back from her peers.

After the whole music writer beef died down, Kozelek, needing a new way to stay relevant, threw a dart at the Beef Board and got into some public bickering with the Ottawa Blues Festival in September following a cancelled set. He penned a song mocking them—it’s almost as if he writes these deliberately, knowing blogs will give them attention!—and called the festival’s staff “inbred hicks.” Even inbred hicks were like, dude, leave us out of this.

Beef Grade: D

Winner: The Ottawa Blues Festival and blues festivals in general, which suddenly became cool.

During the Ferguson protests, Talib Kweli made an appearance on CNN to talk about how the media was twisting the story around the events. As he was trying to explain how the media was imposing a narrative, in a wonderful display of irony, anchor Don Lemon tried to talk over Kweli about what the narrative is. It got heated enough to where Kweli almost walked out of the interview.

A few months later, in a much less noble media beef, Kweli penned a 1,500-word review of Pitchfork’s review of his album. In it, he demonstrated that the reviewer failed to contextualize certain elements of the album, blamed his personal biases, and pointed out inaccuracies, which, you know, we totally understand. Those are valid criticisms. But at the same time, it’s like, my dude. Pitchfork writers get paid 80 bucks to review albums. Who gives a shit? Ultimately, he gave the review a 3.6 and could honestly probably pick up a side gig as a critic.

Beef Grade: C

Winner: The written word. God bless the power of the pen.

You may know Dee Snider as the “we’re not gonna take it” guy from that one song. Forgetting the title, but you know the one. Anyway, he didn’t really care for what the recent member-swapping has done to KISS’ otherwise pristine legacy and voiced his thoughts where all people go to air their grievances about the state of music: Chris Jericho's wrestling podcast. KISS frontman Gene Simmons must’ve been been wearing his officially licensed KISS hearing aid that day because he heard word of this emerging beef and threw fuel onto the fire by calling Snider and Twisted Sister “a bunch of buffoons.” Snider responded with a message to the tune of “No, YOU’RE the buffoons.”

Beef Grade: C

Winner: The word “buffoon.” Seriously, how often do you hear that word? It got more action in this little back and forth than the bassist of Twisted Sister has gotten in the last decade for telling people he’s the bassist of Twisted Sister.

In his “Heir to the Throne” freestyle released in July, Vic Mensa apparently took a shot at Travis $cott in this verse:

"Black out on one of these artists sneak dissing and spot you like you wearing the red shirt at Target.
Couple rap niggas you thought we was crew (Straight Up)
Real life niggas is corny what can I do (Straight Up)”

Seems more like a swipe at Target employees if you ask us. Meanwhile, Alex from Target is about to drop the most fire diss track on all of them.

Beef Grade: D

Winner: Alex from Target

People were excited last year when the shock rock band and potential Noisey editors, GWAR, announced that they were replacing their fallen scumdog Oderus Urungus with their first ever female member, Vulvatron, played by Kim Dylla. It seemed like a match made in blood-spurting nipple heaven, but was to be short-lived though, as the band let her go a few months later via a Facebook post. "Kim did a great job, but we wanted to go a different direction with the Vulvatron character,” the post said. “You will absolutely see more of Vulvatron in the future, just not portrayed by Kim. There is no ill will, no acrimony, and no drama. We respect Kim's talent without question, it just isn't what we needed in the character.”

Dylla found writing a Facebook post to be a pretty shitty way to let someone know they’re losing their job, and fired back with her own post. This led to some ugly back and forth about the innerworkings of GWAR and who owns the rights to their characters and who drinks too much, giving fans a sobering reminder of the fact that the people behind these bare-assed, blood-jizzing characters are businesspeople.

Beef Grade: C

Winner: No one. This whole thing was sad for both sides.

In a beef made in monochromatic band name heaven, the White Stripes and the Black Keys got into it with each other this year. Jack White seems to have a longstanding issue with the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney stemming from White believing the Black Keys to have ripped off his wholly unique idea to make sounds come out of a guitar. Then in September, Carney tweeted that White had just tried to fight him in a NYC bar and, in possibly the best insult you’ll read on this page, called him “Bill Corgan's dumb ass zero t-shirt in human form."

Shortly after, White released a statement: "Nobody tried to fight you, Patrick. Nobody touched you or 'bullied' you. You were asked a question you couldn't answer so you walked away. So quit whining to the Internet and speak face to face like a human being. End of story."

The story started going viral but before everyone could even put the finishing touches on the third drafts of their hilarious indie rock jokes, the two seemed to settle everything, with Carney tweeting, "Talked to Jack for an hour he's cool. All good." White, via Third Man Records' Twitter account, confirmed, putting an end to the beef and everyone’s fun: "From one musician to another, you have my respect Patrick Carney." Lame.

Beef Grade: B

Winner: That photo of sad Jack White in the Cubs shirt. At least we’ll always have that.

In September, America’s smuggest millionaire man-child Martin Shkreli made the news when his pharmaceutical company raised the price of a medicine used to treat HIV and cancer patients by something like eleventy billion percent. Seemed pretty unrelated to music until it was revealed that he is a pretty big post-hardcore fan and the silent investor behind Collect Records, the independent label headed by Geoff Rickly of Thursday/United Nations. Lil Marty continued to be such a petulant little shit throughout the whole ordeal, throwing insults and dickish comments at anyone who tweeted at him.

Beef Grade: B

Winner: People who run independent record labels that aren’t supported financially by shady ex-hedge fund dickbags. They really got to enjoy the scent of their own farts that week. (The price of that drug is still super expensive, by the way!)

Whirr is a band that enjoys being dicks. That’s sort of their “thing.” It’s worked out for them so far, in that most people have typically been so distracted by the dickish nature of their tweets that no one’s seemed to notice how bland their shoegaze rock is. But in October, for seemingly no reason, they started hurling shit on the internet at G.L.O.S.S., a punk band led by a transgender woman. This wasn’t even so much a beef as it was a bunch of dudes thinking “tranny” jokes are funny in 2015 and having their asses handed to them by not only a band that is several levels out of their musical league, but an internet mob that suddenly realized shoegaze stopped being cool 15 years ago. After getting written off by one of their record labels, Whirr apologized for the tweets, throwing a “friend” who controls their Twitter account under the bus, the same excuse Donald Trump tried a few days later after tweeting some insults about Iowa. Whirr has not posted on Facebook or Twitter since.

Beef Grade: E

Winner: Not Whirr.

Damon Albarn, the dude from Blur/Gorillaz, did some work on Adele’s new album that he felt likely wouldn’t make the final cut. He said Adele is “very insecure. And she doesn’t need to be, she’s still so young,” which it sounded like maybe it could’ve been a backhanded compliment, but then he described the parts he’d heard as “very middle of the road” so probably not.

Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that studio session. Where Albarn is like Christopher Walken in the Blue Oyster Cult cowbell skit, trying to force Adele to have more “woo hoos!” on “Hello.” Good thing Adele did not have the fever.

Beef Grade: D

Winner: Adele, who sold like, a billion copies of her album, despite apparently being insecure and middle of the road.

Deadmau5 and Skrillex continued their little game of cat and mouse (ha ha get it because Deadmau5 is a grown man who wears a big mouse head for a living) on Twitter this year, saying… you know what, actually, who cares.

Beef Grade: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Winner: EDM, for hanging in there.

Beef Grade: D

Winner: Beliebers.

Nickelodeon person Ariana Grande walked into a donut shop in California, licked a donut on the shelf when no one was looking, and said “I hate America” on THE FOURTH OF JULY OF ALL DAYS. Pretty ironic donut behavior coming from someone whose name sounds like a coffee order at Starbucks (this joke is completely original and has never been made before, thank you). Realizing she was about to be deemed a no-good commie for the rest of her career, she later apologized, saying, “I am EXTREMELY proud to be an American and I’ve always made it clear that I love my country. What I said in a private moment with my friend [she means the dude she was tongue-fuckin’ with in the surveillance video], who was buying the donuts, was taken out of context and I am sorry for not using more discretion with my choice of words,” but adding “the fact that the United States has one of the highest child obesity rate in the world frustrates me.”

Now, look. Let’s not fault her for licking the donut. Who among us has not licked something meant to be unlicked in a moment of weakness? As it says in the Bible: Let he who is without donut-lick lick the first donut. But let’s not pretend that it was some heroic stand for a greater dietary movement or a stand against childhood obesity. You’re not throwing bricks through the windows of McDonald’s headquarters or chaining yourself to a slaughterhouse here. You licked a fucking honey glazed.

Beef Grade: Glazed

Winner: America. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Did you know the guy from Slipknot has written a book? It’s true. Three of them, in fact. While promoting his most recent one, The Man in the Ironic Mask or whatever, he took a shot at Kanye West, saying, “Kanye, you are not—not—the greatest living rock star of all time… You remind me of the guy who brags about pussy. They never get as much as they brag about.”

The Slipknot man felt the swift, angry wrath of Kanye fans who all googled “who is slipknot” in unison, and then took their rage out on him. Kanye West, you’d be amazed to learn, did not respond.

Beef Grade: D

Winner: Angry people on the internet. About time we honored these unbathed heroes.

Kanye West being announced as the headliner of UK festival Glastonbury was enough for the people of England to LOSE THEIR FUCKING MINDS. They wanted a real artist, they thought he was an prick, they wanted Beck instead. Over 130,000 people signed a petition to have Ye removed from the lineup. They must not believe in democracy or catering to the vague demands of an unruly mob of raving lunatics in cheery old England though, because Kanye still performed a 30-song, career-spanning setlist, effectively cramming it up their arseholes.

Beef Grade: B

Winner: Kanye.

Speaking of the 90s, Vince Staples mentioned in an interview that, much like other 22-year-olds, he doesn’t give much of a flying fuck about the 90s, on account of him having been young enough to shit his pants through most of the decade (although let’s be honest, it happens to the best of us adults). This led to 90s hip-hop purists coming out of the woodwork to teach this youngin some respect. Notable 90s rapper N.O.R.E. jumped in to be like, “Dude, I’m standing right here.” The onslaught continued. Staples took it left and right on Twitter from angry people who remember the good ol’ days when we had to settle for whatever song came on the radio instead of the infinite stream of music the internet affords us.

Beef Grade: B

Winner: Young people. This was like an unofficial changing of the guards on hip-hop and music in general. No longer would every artist need to bow down to the entire genealogy of a genre before picking up a microphone. You could just be influenced by what you grew up with, even if you didn’t own any Nirvana or Tupac records.

Rihanna’s accountant cost her $9 million in 2009 and just about bankrupted her. She sued him and the two allegedly settled out of court. This year, as a parting “fuck you,” she dropped “Bitch Better Have My Money” and it seems like that part in the video where she’s lying naked and bloody on top of a chest full of money after killing a greedy accountant is mayyyybe about that?

Beef Grade: C

Winner: Rihanna.

Whattup, 90s kids! Don’t think we forgot about you in the Beefathon. In an interview with Rolling Stone this year, Rage Against the Machine bassist Tim Commerford apologized for Limp Bizkit, a band who has covered RATM’s “Killing in the Name” over 100 times. "I do apologize for Limp Bizkit," Commerford said. "I really do. I feel really bad that we inspired such bullshit.” That cool of you, man. It’s about time someone did. Now get Zach to apologize for every asshole with dreds named Josh in our freshman poly-sci class.

Beef Grade: C

Winner: Limp Bizkit, who got kicked when they were down (which is always) but reminded the world that they are, in fact, still around.

Dan Ozzi is an editor at Noisey and had beef with Zach Braff this year after he wrote this. Follow him on Twitter - @danozzi