10 Most Important Beefs In Hip-hop History

One of the most infamous confrontations to have taken place over dollars and cents rather than sheer vitriolic hatred, former NWA collaborators Eazy E and Dr Dre warred over the earnings from their classic material with the group's producer believing that E and Jerry Heller had been hording the lion's share of the proceeds.

Former childhood friends torn apart by the perils of financial mismanagement, the beef began when Dr Dre informed Eazy that he must part ways with their longtime manager and Ruthless Records co-founder Heller or he'd be leaving the group's ranks in the same vein as Ice Cube months earlier. Waiting in the wings to add fuel to the fire was Suge Knight, the soon-to-be owner of Death Row Records and a man with a nefarious past to say the least.

Not shy about flaunting his ties to LA street gang The Bloods, Dre had initially met the physically intimidating figure when he was working as a bodyguard for Ruthless. Desperate to get out of his deal with the label that had made him famous, Knight allegedly attempted to aid Dre in the 'negotiations' by heading to the studio and threatening Heller and Eazy with a gang of thugs and lead pipes before cajoling the two into signing a document which released him from his contract.

In spite of Heller's best efforts to keep their response lawful by filing a racketeering suit against Knight, Eazy seemingly wished to take quell the problem permanently by plotting to have Suge murdered. As the notoriety of Death Row began to grow with the high profile acquisitions of 2pac and Snoop Dogg, both record labels soon plunged into a full blown war and all parties began to throw shots at one another.

Spawning classic verbal assaults such as 'F**k wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin)' and 'Real Muthaphukkin G's, the beef would come to an abrupt end when Eazy E was diagnosed with AIDS and subsequently died in March 1995. Dre has paid tribute to his former friend on many tracks since his untimely demise.