The feud between the two artists has been going on for awhile now, but what’s really at the root of the matter?

While some would argue that comedian Katt Williams opened the portal for folks to air out their issues with one another publicly, the same can be said for rapper Megan Thee Stallion who kicked “The Year of the Rap Beef” thanks to her feud with Nicki Minaj.

In case you needed a reminder, Nicki has been dropping what fans online perceived as subtle shade at the “Savage” rapper ever since her 2021 song “Seeing Green” came out where she allegedly hinted at Megan being an alcoholic. Fast forward to May 2023, Nicki allegedly dropped another shady line towards Meg in “Red Ruby Da Sleez,” where she mentioned she didn’t “fuck with horses since Christopher Reeves.”

Months later in December, Nicki dropped yet another line, rapping: “stay in your Tory Lanez, bitch, I’m not Iggy.” This was a clear reference to the highly publicized and polarizing 2020 shooting of Megan at the hands of Tory and subsequent 2023 trial. (Iggy Azalea was one rapper who wrote a letter in support for Tory.)

Jump to the beginning of 2024, Megan dropped her single “Hiss” at the end of January where she dragged all her haters by their edges, warned against people using her name for clout and clicks and finally responded to Nicki.

“These hoes don’t be mad at me, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law,” she rapped, referring to a federal law that requires law enforcement to make information about registered sex offenders available to the public. As we’ve previously told you, Nicki’s husband Kenneth Petty had to register as a sex offender due to his 1995 attempted rape conviction.

Less than three days later, Nicki clapped back with her diss track titled “Big Foot,” which made references to the 2020 shooting and accused Megan of lying about that incident and about her late mother.

While Megan has arguably addressed Nicki again in a couple of tracks of her latest self-titled album—what seems to be the puzzling factor for the Houston rapper is how she and Nicki began beefing in the first place.

Speaking in a new interview with Billboard, Megan admitted to not even knowing what the issue is between her and the New York rapper and made it clear that she wouldn’t know how to move forward with rebuilding their relationship.

“I still to this day don’t know what the problem is. I don’t even know what could be reconciled because I, to this day, don’t know what the problem is,” she said.

With that in mind, it really begs the question of how these two became foes after their highly successful collab in 2019. Could the answer lie in the unruly nature of their respective “stans,” a.k.a the Hotties and the Barbz who are hellbent on proving their beloved rapper is better than the other at any cost? It’s one thing to be unapologetically vocal in support of your favorite artists, but its a whole other thing to stoke the flames of purported issues between the two and create false narratives online that only keep the two talented stars divided. It’s also a whole other thing when negative online discourse leads to real life issues that cross the line completely.

The same “stans” could also be to blame for the on-again, off-again beef between Nicki and Cardi B, which started back in 2017 allegedly after the release of Cardi’s hit “Bodak Yellow.” The song became the first by a solo female rap artist to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart since Lauryn Hill’s 1998 hit, “Doo Wop (That Thing).” That feat, according to the Barbz, was one Nicki had been aiming for for awhile and with a fairly new woman rapper just entering the game and already “surpassing her,”—that was more than enough ammo for Nicki to dislike her. Allegedly. Fast forward to the whole “Motorsport” fiasco and Harper’s Bazaar Icons Party scuffle and then you’ve got a beef that’s been well aged for the last seven years.

Yet and still, both Megan and Cardi has spoken publicly about just trying to keep the peace and just make music. Nicki, on certain occasions has also seemed to be on that same wavelength. But will peace ever really be brokered between the three women if they virtually have armies of supporters ready to cause havoc on their behalf at any given moment?

While the myriad of rap beefs—Megan vs. Nicki, Eminem vs. Beninzo, Cardi B. vs. Bia and perhaps the most entertaining of all Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake—have been fun to witness—what’s the point of dissing if there’s no basis for it in the first place? Hip-hop is more creative than that and it’s time fans let artists focus on that instead manufactured mess.