I suppose it will take Taylor Swift to make it official: 2024 is the yr of the diss monitor. January ended with an all-out blood bathtub (and, largely, a horror present) between Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion after years of delicate photographs between the 2. Then Ice Spice and Latto entered the ring, and now, basically every rapper, singer, or producer who’s collaborated with Drake is teaming as much as take him down (Kendrick Lamar, Future, Metro Boomin, Rick Ross, and The Weeknd being essentially the most notable Avengers). In the midst of all of this, followers are satisfied that Swift has tapped into the development, reportedly digging up an virtually decade-old grievance by sending photographs at Kim Kardashian in a monitor that she named “thanK you aIMee.”
It’s value noting, after all, that Swift has been identified to put in writing songs from the attitude of varied fictional characters (significantly from the Folklore period onwards), however—if the Taylor Nation chatter proper now’s something to go by—that is very a lot a query of Taylor addressing Kim straight, à la 2010’s “Higher Than Revenge.” Among the many monitor’s spicier lyrics: strains about her mom, “a saintly girl,” wishing Aimee “had been useless” for “beat[ing]” her daughter’s “spirit black and blue.” Then, just like the film villain who can’t assist herself from strolling us by way of her twisted scheme, Taylor tells us, in a bridge of exposition, that she’s erased any clues of who she would possibly truly be singing about! Solely the 2 of them will ever know, except, one way or the other, somebody can piece it collectively… Masterful gambit, ma’am!
No matter Taylor’s intentions, Swifties have been fast to flood the web with theories a couple of drama so historic that my Gen-Z workmate, Riann, was initially confused as to why Taylor would take problem with Kim. “I didn’t know that they had beef,” she wrote on Slack. “Have I been residing underneath a rock?” No, Riann, it’s the meat that was fossilized, and I’m not satisfied it wanted to be dragged up once more by the use of The Tortured Poets Division discourse. Diss tracks should be good, sure, however in addition they should be delivered inside a calendar decade. If Swift actually desires to play on this pool, she must be again within the studio as we converse, recording a response to Drake mocking Kendrick Lamar rapping “for Swifties” on his personal diss monitor “Push Ups,” launched simply hours after TTPD. (Drake, in a type of diss monitor mise en abyme, is after all referencing Lamar’s verse on Swift’s reported Katy Perry takedown “Dangerous Blood”.)
Usually, whereas diss tracks could also be again with a vengeance in 2024, most of them have left lots to be desired. We’ve fallen so removed from Nicki’s “Roman’s Revenge,” a basic that may nonetheless gentle up any membership ground, or Pusha T’s “The Story of Adidon,” a monitor so highly effective it was capable of make its goal a extra lively father. Now, it’s extra typically a query of puerile baiting about nostril jobs and spray tans. It speaks volumes that the most effective diss monitor this yr has acquired to be “Suppose U the Shit (Fart)” by Ice Spice, a track so addictively, deliberately silly that it borders on genius. Perhaps, because the style has turn into so juvenile, North West will reply to Taylor’s alleged call-out in her upcoming debut album, Elementary Faculty Dropout. Within the meantime, I’m satisfied J. Cole was proper to faucet out when he did.
