People know the infamous beef between 50 Cent and Ja Rule all too well. 50 dropped some of the meanest diss songs you’ll ever hear with records like “Back Down“. Things would get violent, then Ja and 50 would bark at each other for the next 20+ years. But one aspect about beef people don’t always think of is that sometimes, others will get involved in it just by being adjacent to the conflict.
That’s what happened with Eminem and Dr. Dre during Ja Rule’s war on 50 Cent. Because they supported 50 on Aftermath and helped produce his work, they were just as liable to get smoke. Consequently, Ja Rule would send disses towards Slim Shady throughout the entire beef.
However, things started to get really personal when he released “Loose Change” in 2003. Ja questions Em’s sexuality due to the times he’d dress as a woman in music videos for comedic effect. It’s a pretty standard affair back in the early 2000s and nothing really lands. Then, the Queens MC mentions Eminem’s family explicitly, suggesting that his daughter would turn out horribly when she grows up.
“Em, you claim your mother’s a crackhead, and Kim is a known slut/So what’s Hailie gon’ be when she grows up?” Ja spit.
Ja Rule Gets Personal With Eminem on ‘Loose Change’
Naturally, Eminem didn’t take Ja Rule’s diss lightly. He eventually responded with “Doe Rae Me (Hailey’s Revenge)“, where he and D12 laid into Ja, making matters personal. He claimed Ja was a terrible Tupac knockoff, while the group dug into his character as a rapper.
Then, in 2004, Eminem released “Like Toy Soldiers“, which saw him admit that Ja’s dig bothered him much more than he let on. Mentioning other parts of his family is one thing. But bringing his young daughter into the fray struck Em as particularly low from Ja Rule.
“That Ja s**t, I tried to squash it, it was too late to stop it/There’s a certain line you just don’t cross and he crossed it/I heard him say Hailie’s name on a song and I just lost it/It was crazy, the s**t went way beyond some Jay-Z and Nas s**t,” Eminem rapped.
That beef still lingered for Eminem a decade later when he made fun of Ja Rule on his big diss to Machine Gun Kelly “Killshot“. “You ain’t never made a list next to no Biggie, no Jay/ Next to Taylor Swift and that Iggy h*e, you about to really blow/ Kelly, they’ll be putting your name/ Next to Ja, next to Benzino—die, motherf**ker!/ Like the last motherf**ker sayin’ Hailie in vain,” Eminem snarled.
Ja Rule seemed largely over it by that point, arguing that all Eminem did was put more clout on his name. “The more Em Mentions my name the more I realize how f**king LEGENDARY I am,” Ja wrote on Instagram. “I was killing the game so hard that all the biggest rappers in the industry (at the time) joined forces to dethrone the God…”
Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage
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