In a week of feuding between the musicians, Minaj has leaned on the same reductive tropes she had to endure herself

After a week of verbal warfare between rappers Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion, a clear winner has finally emerged from the wreckage.

Despite Minaj weaponizing her huge fanbase to slap down her former Hot Girl Summer collaborator, Megan’s Hiss topped this week’s Billboard Hot 100, becoming her first solo No 1. Meanwhile, Minaj’s response track Big Foot – a song disappointingly trading on racist and misogynistic tropes – debuted at No 23.

It is a rare stumble for Minaj, the self-proclaimed queen of rap, not least because she had to fight many of the same battles as Megan on her way to the top.

On Hiss, Megan Thee Stallion – known for bawdy, sex-positive hits such as Big Ole Freak, WAP and Savage – addresses previous speculation about her body, sexual history, and the criticism she has endured from fans and peers since publicly naming the artist Tory Lanez as the man who shot her in 2020.

Despite the broad range of Megan’s critique, Minaj, who is not named in the song, took umbrage at the line: “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law.” The line has been widely assumed to be about Minaj’s husband, Kenneth Petty, who is on the sex offenders list after he was convicted of attempted rape in 1995. (Megan’s Law is a 1996 federal law created in response to the murder of Megan Kanka, which requires information about convicted sexual offenders to be available to the public and monitored by law enforcement authorities.)

Nicki Minaj at the MTV European Music Awards in 2018. Photograph: Geisler-Fotopress GmbH/Alamy

Amid a days-long barrage of insults, Minaj led a targeted campaign, with the assistance of her immense Barbz fanbase, to humiliate Megan, culminating in Big Foot. Beyond the middling musical retort, Minaj’s devoted supporters helped via social media and doxxed influencers and stars who expressed sympathy for Megan. They also leaked the address of her mother’s grave in Texas.

Unfortunately, the roots of this beef predate the release of Megan’s Hiss. Minaj has been making thinly veiled jabs at her former collaborator since 2021 – including the glaring stallion-themed double entendre on Red Ruby da Sleeze: “I don’t fuck with horses since Christopher Reeves.”

Minaj’s insults on Big Foot mock Megan’s frame, question if she really was a victim of gun violence, accuse her of using ghostwriters, take shots at her sexual history and invoke Megan’s recently deceased mother.

The tragedy in the tenor of Minaj’s response is that she’s intimately familiar with the challenges female rappers have to endure to survive in the game. The 41-year-old veteran has addressed numerous allegations against her character and artistry over the years: not only has Minaj fought ghostwriting allegations, she has publicly addressed rumors of sexual activity with her Young Money labelmates Lil Wayne and Drake.

Minaj has alleged abuse by her ex-boyfriends Safaree and Meek Mill, publicly demanded respect from male colleagues when diss songs such as Remy Ma’s Shether made claims about her sexual history, and opened up about the pressures of plastic surgery to meet oppressive beauty standards.

Competition and disagreement is not new – at her height, the former queen of rap, Lil’ Kim, frequently threw the gauntlet down against contemporaries such as Foxy Brown and Eve. But replicating the same allegations that frustrated Minaj’s own rise is a reductive tactic, a myopic propagation of regressive attacks that make her look insecure and threatened.

It would be devastating for Minaj’s indisputably legendary career to be marred by a vicious diss record. Hopefully, time and wisdom will help her return to the artist that many came to love – the one who once proudly declared that “any female rapper that’s doing their thing that’s able to make a name for themselves or able to garner fans or whatever, I’m a fan of you … because I know how hard it is.”