Azealia Banks Calls Kendrick Lamar a 'Nepo Baby' and More of Her Outrageous Online Rants Over the Years

In true Azealia Banks fashion, the artist has added her two cents into the ongoing Drake/Kendrick Lamar beef.

As we told you earlier this week, Kendrick Lamar finally fired back at Drake’s diss “Push Ups” by dropping a six-minute track named “euphoria” which, by half of the internet’s standard’s, completely eviscerated the Canadian rapper.

But if you ask Banks? She vehemently disagrees.

Posting a screenshot of Billboard’s article about Lamar’s response where they described it as “worth the wait,” Banks responded in since expired Instagram story posts: “No, it was not. Kendrick is still 4’9” and wears the same jean size as me. No one on earth cares about the feelings of small, fake gangsta nepo babies. @billboard y’all really are paid for. Even the tone and timbre of Kendrick’s voice is an ultimate defeat. Lol stop lying.”

She added: “And that beat Kendrick is rapping on is dumb trash and the mix is muddy as hell. Quit the bullshit. Drake won. That’s it.”

Due to this, we felt it fitting to look back on some of Azealia’s most crazy clapbacks and rants. Sit back and enjoy the ride, it’s a wild one.

In a series of deeply outrageous tweets on X/Twitter on Oct. 13, Banks reacted to a recent interview in which Fox shared that she felt like a “pawn” during her relationship with West. Accusing her of being “comfort girl” and a “famewhore,” Banks blasted the model for not taking advantage of the relationship when she had the chance and using it to better position herself in life.

“GIRL.. You literally were contracted for this Job thru a celebrity Madam in miami. you knewwwwww u was there to be a comfort girl. Calling urself a ‘pawn’ is giving urself waaaay too much credit,” Banks began.

Banks then went on to somewhat praise West and call out the “white girls” he often gets entangled with for feeling entitled and having bruised egos. In ending, Banks finished her tirade by calling Fox “a piece of bird shit” for essentially acting like she was above dating West and her comments.

Since 2016, it seems like every few year Banks has had something to say about the Queen Bey. Things were first kicked off in 2016 after the release of Bey’s “Lemonade,” where Banks revealed her disdain for the projects and Bey, saying on Twitter:

“She’s purposefully strayed away from political discourse her entire career to make sure she didn’t alienate white ppl. And now that black women’s suffering is a national conversation, she wants to hop on it and make our suffering ‘trendy’…she needs to stay under Jay-Z’s foot where she belongs, and stay out of the creative woman’s way.”

She apologized a year later saying in a since-deleted Instagram post: “@Beyonce, I apologize for throwing tantrums in the past. They totally came from a place of feeling left out.. you’ve inspired so much of the way I think about/value you myself as a performer and I ADORE you. Your presence in the art world and on earth is supernatural and am so so so inspired by you.”

However, that following year in 2018, she was back at it again dragging Bey via her Instagram stories by accusing her of stealing backup dancers, biting off her sense of style, stealing choreography from other artists and essentially called her iconic Coachella performance mid.

“Beyonce needs to get over herself and just hire me,” she said before later adding: “It always looks like Giselle is doing her best Beyonce impression. I really hope she gets real with herself soon and humbles herself enough to accept the visions and full projects women who admire her put together for HER.”

Fast forward to June 2022 and more recently, Feb. 2024, where Banks was entering the chat again, only this time in reference to Bey’s now-released “Cowboy Carter,” country-esque album:

“You’re setting yourself up to be ridiculed again…Them critics are not just going to accept an ugly blond wig and, bullying from Jay-Z!!” Banks said in a since-expired Instagram story post. “It’s giving big-time musical grift. Yes, black girls can make country music…but you’re just really not hitting the button. K. Michelle this is your turn to really execute. It’s no shade but K. Michelle truly understands the assignment. Beyoncé please stop the madness.”

In late 2023, Banks called West a “fat smelly loser” after he went on a rant about Nicki Minaj after she failed to clear her verse on their collab joint “New Boby.” When Ye proceeded to allude that it was because of his support that Minaj’s career went so well, Banks sounded off in a 15-tweet rant:

“Okay. Now I’m really pissed the fuck off. Regardless of how I feel about PF2, did fat smelly loser Kanye west really just try step all over Nicki’s release? Did I hear correctly when he tried to take credit for supporting her career ????? she said. “Did he forget that Lil wayne and young money supported her, believed in her and shared their money time and resources with her to launch a female rapper to international icon status? Has Kanye ever successfully launched any artist he hasn’t sabotaged out of jealousy?”

Peep the rest of her words here.

Though it appeared that the beef between Nicki Minaj and Azealia Banks was squashed in 2020, the flames were relit in 2022 when Banks alluded that the “FTCU” rapper was responsible for stalling her then forthcoming reality tv show.

“I was supposed to start filming a reality show last month,” she explained at the time. “But apparently Nicki gave the network an ultimatum because she knows I’ll have better ratings.”

She continued: “And now they all hate her and think she’s ghetto, terrible to work with, overweight and boring.”

Jump t0 2024, when Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion got into their beef, Banks weighed in and read Minaj for filth. As previously reported by The Root:

To begin, Banks said, “Originally I was just going to stay out of this because it’s another day, another female rap beef. Who really cares? But I think there’s some interesting parts to this that everyone’s missing. This isn’t about Meg collaborating with Cardi. This is about Jay-Z. … Jay-Z has this way of presenting himself in the culture as a Daddy Warbucks type of figure.”

She goes on to make the wild claim that “six or seven times out of ten,” women who choose rap as a career probably don’t have a father figure. This is why Banks thinks that Minaj (and other female MCs) look at Hov for guidance and mentorship.

She later added, “Jay-Z has kinda positioned himself in this way where almost every type of female urban artist feels she needs his approval of sorts. I could just low-key feel she’s felt slighted by Jay. Just by his association with Meek Mill. But at the same time, Minaj wants to wiggle her way in bad. That’s what this beef is about. She wants to be a Roc Nation girl so f***ing bad.” Banks later explained that Hov hasn’t “co-signed” a female MC in a while, and the fact that Megan is with Roc-Nation pissed Minaj off.

While Banks and Candace Owens are both fans of Trump, they came at odds with each other in May 2023 over Owens’ post over gender neutral bathing suits that were being sold at Target. After Owens urged her followers not to shop at Target, Banks clapped back in epic fashion, likening the political pundit as a “low IQ embarrassment”:

Prior to that, she came after Owens after she said that President Joe Biden making Juneteenth a federal holiday was “sooooo lame” in a since-deleted Instagram post:

Now, while Banks has been vocal about her love for Cardi’s song “Bodak Yellow,” things got slightly messy when she called the New York rapper an “industry plant”:

“She was an industry plant lmao. But sis took advantage of the opportunity and rode that bitch the fuck out, assembled the right team, seized the moment and made herself a cultural mainstay. U have to respect it.”

Of course these sentiments were in stark contrast to her initial feelings back in 2018 when she called Cardi a “poor man’s Nicki Minaj” and alluded to the fact that the song was ghost written.

For context and as previously reported by The Root, Chappelle’s 2021 special, “The Closer” caused quite the uproar for its content, which has been deemed transphobic and resulted in a plethora of consequences. In a completely separate incident the same year, regarding Boosie and Lil Nas X, the “Wipe Me Down” rapper sent out a vitriol-laced tweet filled with homophobic slurs and the suggestion of suicide about the Montero rapper that has since been removed from Twitter. Boosie sent out the tweet in response to a video where Nas X jokes about doing a song with him.

In response to both scenarios, Banks took to her Instagram story to give her two cents on the two entertainers and their actions:

“Dave Chappelle and Lil Boosie are entirely too grown and entirely too Black to be this concerned about other people’s sex lives,” she began. “It’s highkey embarrassing. Dave Chappelle is also about four years late to the transphobia outrage attention grab. And Lil Boosie gets no extra street cred for antagonizing a young Black kid for who he chooses to love.

Lil Nas X is not the catalyst for the generational debris left behind from centuries of psychological terrorism and the sexual exploitation and Black men AND women on Southern plantations via forced slave breeding/buckbreaking/bed-wenching. Lil Nas X didn’t invent the current model for systemic oppression through food apartheid, anti-literacy laws and the for profit prison industrial complex. Lil Nas X is not singlehandedly responsible for your decision to consider those trappings ‘real nigga shit’ as you continue to wear your trauma and oppression as a badge of honor.”

She continued:

“You are so fucking bamboozled, it’s ridiculous. The fact that you have the confidence to publicly suggest that he kill himself for living a life free of all the things that have completely obliterated your ability to see yourself as anything other than a ward of the state is absolutely heartbreaking. You are on your way to becoming a felon dear, which means: you cannot own a passport, you will never get to experience the beauty of traveling the world, you will not be able to vote...There’s a lot of money invested in clandestinely and insidiously putting you and other Black men in situations to trap you. It’s the hip-hop to prison pipeline. This is how they make their money and keep you out of power. Please, I beg you: realize that you are walking right into their trap. And Lil Nas X is not your enemy. We the culture do not want this [to] end in violence and incarceration. Please.

Banks concluded by saying: “No really, the violent rhetoric surrounding Lil Nas X is very, very concerning. And it’s not cool. It doesn’t show progress. It doesn’t make you look tough or smart and completely contradicts Hip-hop’s cry for unity, solidarity and social justice reform. It’s been on my mind a lot. It’s starting to bleed past general homophobia and it’s making everything not fun anymore.”

In what was perhaps one of Banks lowest moments of trolling, back in 2016, she came for child actor and Disney star Skai Jackson when she was merely 14-years old, telling her to “stay in a child’s place” for coming to the defense of then-One Direction singer Zayn Malik whom Banks had insulted previously.

As previously reported by The Root:

When 14-year-old Disney star Skai Jackson tweeted during the rant that Banks should “simmer down,” Banks turned her attention to the teen, insulting Skai’s appearance and mother.

“And you need to grow some hips and start ur menses. stay in a child’s place,” Banks tweeted to Skai. “lol ur mom’s been pimping you out to disney since you were a lil girl. lets see what you end up like at 21. bye !”

Skai, however, held her own against Banks, essentially completely slaughtering her with successive clapbacks that collected some edges. “When a no hip having 14 year old has more class than you. Worry about your career. Get one,” Skai responded. She wasn’t done: “You got dissed by a one directioner how miserable can your life be?? Now have several seats Azealia Stanks!”

Banks’ Twitter account was suspended the next day, but only momentarily.

Back in 2015, when Banks admitted to trying and (presumably failing) to get into Banks’ music, this prompted the “212" artist to call the “Didn’t Cha Know” singer jealous and old, writing in a series of tweets: “When artists grow old and begin to recognize their own mortality they throw shade at younger spirits. We see it happen all the time. Whether or not you like me...you are watching and that’s what’s most important.”

A year later, when an online user suggested they ought to be friends due to them both being “misunderstood queens”—Banks suggested that that’s the reason why they won’t and don’t get along.

“That’s why she’s hating on my in the first place. She wants to be the only one in hip-hop kicking knowledge,” she wrote in a since-deleted tweet.

This, in turn, surprisingly prompted Badu to apologize:

“@AZEALIABANKS sis. 1 thing I know 4sho about YOU is that you r an advocate 4 your folks. For that I humbly apologize,” Badu said.

In yet another surprising turn, Banks did an about face as well and squashed their beef in a series of tweets.

“Ok I accept, and unblocked. I grew up on your music and you got my mother thru lots of heartbreak and pain,” she began. “@fatbellybella was very taken aback and hurt when u threw me shade. I’m glad it’s over now. My mother will be happy about this. @fatbellybella and i apologize for all the stupid things I said in response. I honestly look up to you and think your incredible.

Azealia vs. Rihanna was prompted by an unlikely (but likely if you really think about it) subject: Donald Trump and an unreleased song.

In Jan. 2016, after Trump announced his executive order to ban immigrants from certain countries from entering into the U.S., Rih wrote at the time: “Disgusted! The news is devastating! America is being ruined right before our eyes! What an immoral pig you have to be to implement such BS!!”

This prompted Banks to go on a lengthy tirade where she said that the Barboadian “bad gal” wasn’t “a citizen, and can’t vote” among many other things. This in turn prompted an Instagram back and forth between the two where they not-so-subtly responded in a series of selfies and deliberate captions. Some would argue Rih came out on top in the end, though.

Jump to later that year in March and April: Banks came for Rih again during a tour stop and after a joint collab between Banks and Rih was cut from the final production of “ANTI,” the rapper took to social media to release a clip of the song anyway.

Azealia vs Remy Ma kicked off back in 2017 after Remy did an interview with Hot 97 shortly after she came out of jail, talking about the state of female rap. When Ma alluded to there just being “tumbleweeds” in the industry as it related to female rappers, that prompted Banks to respond:

. “Remy, the hottest things you’ve release since you’ve been out of jail are Nicki Minaj love letters and she’s STILL mile more important than you. Your obsession with Nicki Minaj is VERY UNHEALTHY. YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT TO FEMALE RAP IM NOT SURE WHO LIED TO YOU AND TOLD YOU. You are a confused nicki Minaj Stan at best these days. You do not count in the real female rap conversation anymore.”

After Remy clapped back, Banks responded again:

“Remy. You absolutely must step your shit up. The music you have been releasing is some serious old head rap shit and it’s 100% unfair that you stand up on your reality tv booster seat and make any statements about female rap as if you have done a single thing to move the cultural needle since you’ve been home. It is not 2000… battle rapping is dead. Gun clapping is not chic .. you are struggling to keep up with the rest of female rap and it’s time you seriously leave the Nicki Minaj subs and disses at home. No more auntie antics in 2018… for arts’ sake.”

One of the more recent beefs, Banks came for rapper Doechii earlier this year when she asked her social media followers what she should name her fanbase. Unprovoked, Banks said: “Definitely should call them the ‘wannabe’s.”

Doechii responded via Instagram: “@azealiabanksforever the first time you came for me I let it slide outta respect for my elders. It’s not my fault you sellin bussy soap and I’m sellin platinum records. Leave me alone PLEASE.”