10 Most Important Beefs In Hip-hop History

One of the biggest adversarial moments in hip-hop to not end in violence, the war between New York tycoons Jay Z and Nas forced both MC's to push themselves creatively as they sought to undermine their rival at every turn.

Sparked in 1996 following a scheduling issue which caused Nas to miss out on the chance to record a verse for Jay's record 'Reasonable Doubt', the turmoil would start in earnest after an unsolicited vocal sample from Nas' 'The World Is Yours' appeared on the rapper also known as Hova's classic 'Dead Presidents II. Perturbed by this decision, Nas began to fire thinly veiled shots at Jay on his records and the two would go back and forth for years in a more covert fashion.

After the throne of New York's rap kingpin was unfortunately abdicated by Biggie following his death, the two were regularly cited as the city's foremost MC's by divisive fans before their scrap would greatly intensify in 2001. Debuted at Hot 97's Summer Jam, Jay concisely struck out at his contemporary within The Blueprint's 'Takeover' by declaring that those who wish to challenge him should 'ask Nas, he don't want it with Hov.'

An accusation levelled at the Queens MC at the same time as he made a fleeting allusion towards a romantic entanglement with his then wife Carmen Bryan and claimed that he hadn't made anything of substance since Illmatic, 'Nasty Nas' would soon unleash his fury on 'Ether'; a blatant defamation of Jay Z's character which contained a series of startling accusations about Jay Z's credibility, sexuality and much more.

Feeling the need to retort to his nemesis with everything he had, the Rocafella Records figurehead debuted the scathing 'Supa Ugly' on Angie Martinez's Hot 97 show. Containing more latent remarks in regards to his affair with Carmen Bryan, cooler heads began to prevail after Jay's mother Gloria Carter called into the show and wished her son to apologise for his disrespectful remarks towards the mother of Nas' child.

With the hot 97 incident regularly seen as the climax of the feud, barbs would persist in the years that followed but this rivalry would finally be put to bed in 2005 when Nas appeared at a Jay Z concert to perform 'The World Is Yours' and 'Dead Presidents.' Ending his deal with Columbia in 2006, Nas would soon sign with the Jay Z-led Def Jam and resulted in their first official collaborative track 'Black Republican from the former's 'Hip-Hop Is Dead.'