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RAP BEEF TIMELINE · 2004–2017

Jay-Z vs. Jim Jones

Dipset’s Def Jam frustration and “Brooklyn High”

ResolvedHeat index 3/5

The Roc-A-Fella breakup leaves Jim Jones and the Diplomats openly critical of Jay-Z’s Def Jam era. Jay’s “Brooklyn High” and Jones’s responses make the tension explicit before Jones’s Roc Nation management deal turns it into history.

Diss trackMusic industryReconciliation

THE RECORD

The moments

  1. Music industry · disputed account

    Dipset’s Roc-A-Fella split hardens into a campaign

    Cam’ron and Jim Jones criticize Jay-Z’s Def Jam leadership across the post-Roc-A-Fella mixtape era.

    Read the receipt ↗
  2. Diss track

    “Brooklyn High” flips Jones’s hit into a response

    Jay-Z records over the “We Fly High” beat, using the moment to contrast financial status and credibility with Jim Jones.

    Listen to “Brooklyn High”Read the receipt ↗
  3. Reconciliation

    Jones joins Roc Nation management

    Jim Jones’s Roc Nation management deal supplies a practical, public endpoint to the old Dipset-versus-Jay tension.

    Read the receipt ↗

THE RECEIPTS

Sources and listening

JAY-Z, Dipset, and Cash Money — released music and public interviews

ARTIST LENSES

People in the surrounding story

Cam'ronRapperA sharp-tongued New York orbit connection.Ma$eRapperWho Beefed? index node.