Looks like we may finally have the origin story for the beef between Roc-A-fella and The Lox that ran through the early aughts. According to Beanie Sigel, it all started with Jay-Z’s verse on R. Kelly’s “Fiesta” remix.
Beanie says thing s were kicked off when Jay-Z got on the remix, which Jadakiss was originally on. The Lox thought Jay was subtly taking shots.
“Kiss had that record,” Beans said in an interview with Vlad, per HipHopDX. “He was on that R. Kelly record,. He didn’t take a shot at me. Jay took a shot at them. ‘After the party it’s the hotel lobby … and after the original it’s probably this.’ That ‘Fiesta’ joint. Kiss and them was on that joint first. It was a shot because it was a couple joints that they was on first and Jay jumped on joints and then you hear little stuff. We all know who the best is Big ain’t here so it was a lot of dark storm.”
Both Styles P and Sheek Louch have echoed a similar sentiment in past interviews — the tension originated from Jay-Z frequently appearing on tracks that Jadakiss and The Lox already did.
“Beans was like us but from Philly,” Styles said on Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion podcast. “You already know what Hov and Dame and them were doing, so that was more personal for me. Kiss and Hov kept being on the same remixes and something happened. It just felt like they were aiming at Kiss for me. Kiss is our Derek Jeter. Where we from, you fuck with one of us, you fuck with everybody.”
In 2017, Sheek said something similar. “Beans and them were saying some shit lyrically because they were slick-talking,” he said. “Them Philly n-ggas they be saying some shit. So that’s where I’d be like, ‘Oh shit, Styles get the guns! Where the fuck them n-ggas record at?’ Like it was that kind of situation.”
After back-and-forth jabs and diss tracks (including the fairly recent revelation that Styles P was dissing Jay on 1998’s “Reservoir Dogs” which may’ve helped kick off initial tension), Jadakiss and Beans squashed everything before it got out of hand during a meet up at Riverside Park in NYC in 2001.
Watch Beanie Sigel’s interview above.
