Ice Cube has claimed the best diss song of all time belongs to him.
During an appearance on the Earn Your Leisure podcast, the West Coast rap legend was asked to name his top five diss tracks, kicking things off by saying “No Vaseline” is “the top battle song ever” and “it’s not even close.”
Cube went on to round out his top five with vicious tracks by 2Pac, Nas, Boogie Down Productions and Kool Moe Dee.
“I mean, I would go with, you know, ‘Hit ‘Em Up’ is a good one,” he said. “‘Ether’ is dope. I would go with ‘The Bridge Is Over,’ and I don’t know, I think I gotta go with ‘Let’s Go.’”
Ice Cube previously claimed “No Vaseline,” his 1991 diss song aimed at his former group N.W.A, “knocked ’em down like bowling pins.”
“I think [Dr.] Dre had just finished The Chronic and he was about to put out Doggystyle with Snoop [Dogg],” he told The Breakfast Club in 2014. “We had a chance to really talk. And we never really talked about the song, you know? We still haven’t talked about the song. I mean, damn, they was disrespectful, too.
“If you really think about AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted, I never even mention N.W.A on that record at all. It was all about what I was doing with [Public Enemy] and the Bomb Squad and Chuck D and them. So, for them to diss me on they EP, 100 Miles and Runnin’, I kinda threw a little jab with ‘Jackin for Beats’ at the end.
“And then they came with another couple of little disses. I said, ‘Okay, man, I’m tired of this. I’ma end this real quick. We gon’ set it all the way off.’ So that’s when I wrote ‘No Vaseline,’ recorded it. I put it on that ‘Cinderfella’ track, that Dana Dane track… we flipped it and it became a smash.”
He added: “And I didn’t know that at the time they was already fragmented, breaking up anyway. So, that just — I guess knocked ‘em down like bowling pins.”
Released in October 1991, “No Vaseline” appeared on Ice Cube’s second solo album Death Certificate. Dr. Dre left N.W.A shortly after its release, leading to the dissolution of the group.
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