10 Most Memorable Beefs In Rap Music History

If a beef gets so bad that someone's own mother gets involved in order to put an end to it, like two schoolboys bickering on the playground, it's probably a good time to call it a day.

Nas and Jay-Z deserve a place in anyone's top five rappers of all time, and a case could be made for either of them claiming the title of the true King of New York. As well as one other notable individual who if you haven't guessed by now, takes the top spot on this list, but more on that later.

The beef between these two titans has relatively tame beginnings and seems to be more of a combination of little incidents that snowballed out of control. Nas reportedly failed to show up to a recording session for a Jay-Z track, and the two traded sneak disses back and forth until Jay-Z abandoned subtlety for a more direct approach. On the song, Takeover, Nas is called a has-been and his street cred is called in to question, with Jay-Z also saying he has "one hot album every ten year average."

Nas was definitely not going to take this lying down however and dropped Ether, the one diss track to rule them all. Ether served as an absolutely searing verbal beatdown, in which Nasty Nas truly lives up to his moniker. Bar after bar of continued assault on Jay-Z's character and music, which also proved that Nas still had the lyrical talent that propelled him to the forefront of the rap scene in the first place.

In 2005, the two buried the hatchet and Jay-Z brought Nas on stage to perform together, in a display of peace, and they have been on good terms ever since.