S. Samuel
Former Bad Boy Records artist Ma$e has finally come clean on his past rap feud with music mogul Jay-Z and revealed what ultimately sparked their war of words in the late 1990's.
According to Ma$e, an interest in one of Young Hov’s female crew members ignited a subliminal back and forth.
“A girl named Arion,” Ma$e revealed when asked what started the feud. “All my beefs are over either some girl that went wrong.” Diehards may remember Arion from a skit off of Ma$e’s 1997 debut Harlem World, where the two-timing rapper confuses the names of his girlfriends in a dizzying phone exchange. Well it seems Arion was more than just a character on the multiplatinum rap LP. According to Ma$e, she was a member of Hov’s crew whom he had a fling with. The problem was, Arion’s boyfriend was also a member of the Roc-A-Fella crew at the time, so Ma$e’s transgressions didn’t sit well with Hov, or his then partner Dame Dash. “I guess Jay inherited it because me and him never really had a problem,” Ma$e explained. “He said something, I said something back and that was about it.” (MTV)
The two hip-hop artists went at each other on their own separate records.
During a record called “Ride or Die,” Hov let off a warning shot (“Shocked when I got the news that this ni–a ready for war/ Well, where that fool at?”), and then Jigga went for the jugular. Although he never named a name, everyone thought that lines like “Always gotta be the weakest ni–a out the crew/ I probably make more money off yo’ album, than you … Check your own videos, you’ll always be number two,” were aimed at hip-hop’s number-one sidekick at the time, Mase. Seeing that around the same time, Mase was on records making fun of rappers who talked about platinum jewelry but didn’t have platinum plaques (“What we hear is platinum that, platinum this/ Platinum whips, nobody got no platinum hits”), people thought Jay, who didn’t start selling superstar units until Hard Knock Life, was going at Betha. (VH1)
Coincidentally, the Harlem, New York rapper previously spoke on Jay’s past publicized feud with ex-comrade Beanie Sigel.
“Beans and Jay, I think it’s ridiculous,” Mase explained to DJ Drama. “I think it’s ridiculous you know, I think it’s ridiculous really. It’s not called for, you know what I’m saying? I don’t know, I come from a different, like when I was doing rap and people had issues, they just go across your head, they from that go up side generation. Not all these records and all that. They just go up. [laughs] When we was going up against the West Coast, it was like real serious issues, it wasn’t just do it because your album is coming out. The gimmicky era, ‘What I need to do to sell some records?’ I don’t believe you sell records off diss records, I think you sell ’em off hit records. It don’t matter what diss record you got, you still need a hit record.” (Shade 45)
For now, the rapper-turned-pastor is attached to Bad Boy artist French Montana‘s upcoming Excuse My French album.
“Ma$e [is on my new project]. Defintely shout-out to Ma$e, he’s on there. [I’m keeping Ma$e working] Yeah, that’s good. I just like working with my peoples, man,” Montana told DJ Drama. “[Would he ever re-sign with Bad Boy?] Of course. Yeah, it’s got to be up to him. Ma$e is Ma$e. He still looks like he’s 19.” (Shade 45)
