LL Cool J’s Beef with Canibus
The first major public beef since 2Pac and Biggie was LL Cool J’s rivalry with Canibus.
In 1997 LL Cool J brought together Canibus, DMX, Method Man, and Redman to contribute verses on a song entitled “4, 3, 2, 1″. The verse Canibus spit included the lyrics “L is that a mic on your arm? Let me borrow that.” The line made a reference to one of LL’s tattoos; a microphone on his arm. LL felt disrespected by Canibus’ words and responded in his own verse with the lines, “The symbol on my arm is off limits to challengers” and “You don’t wanna borrow that, you wanna idolize”. Before the song was finished, LL Cool J asked Canibus to rewrite or remove the line. Canibus believed that the agreement was for both LL and himself to remove their verses. LL swears that the agreement was for Canibus to remove the verse, and that his verse would stay because it did not reference Canibus in any way. A recorded phone conversation proves that LL did say this clearly to Canibus.
The song was released, and fans quickly began to get the picture of what had happened on the track. Canibus began telling the full story to media and fans and claimed that he was mad that LL Cool J didn’t remove his part of the verse. He then recorded the single “Second Round KO” which was a diss track to LL; the track featured Cool J’s one time friend Mike Tyson cheering on Canibus.
LL responded with a track entitled “The Ripper Strikes Back”. The track disses Canibus, Mike Tyson, Wyclef (Canibus’ Producer), and The Fugees as a group. The next diss track he would release was called “Back Where I Belong”. On the track he accuses Canibus of stealing his rhymes and pretending to be a New Yorker when he was really a Canadian.
Canibus responded to both of LL’s diss tracks with the mix-tape song “Rip the Jacker,” which was recorded over LL’s instrumental for “Im Bad”.
The last diss track released for Canibus by LL was a little known track called”Rasta Impostor”, in which LL disses Wyclef, Canibus, Mike Tyson and Naomi Campbell.
| See More About : | LL Cool J |