Original Rap Battle Roast Examples
Funny roasts When you’re in a friendly competition, it’s best to keep things friendly and fun. That way, everyone can keep laughing and enjoying the rap battle without things getting awkward or touchy. Here are plenty of fun rap disses: “You’ve got a face for radio but you’ll never get air time. / If they put your mug on TV the viewers would decline.” “Foaming at the mouth like a rat with rabies. / Better see the vet or soon you’ll be pushing daisies.” “What’s the name of the rapper whose rhymes were clutch? / Well it ain’t you, I know that much.” Check out our article of 160 Good Roasts for many, many more ideas!
Brutal roasts Sometimes you just need to turn up the heat and really dig in. Again, it’s best not to get too personal or hurtful, but ramping up the intensity can turn a game into a real competition and a battle of the pen. “Pretty sure I heard your bars in preschool / There are kids that rap better than this fool.” “This guy’s mouth runs faster than his mind / Maybe that’s why he can never rap in time.” “All bark, no bite. / Your bars are bad and your lyrics are trite.”
Great boasts A rap battle isn’t just about dissing your opponent into the ground, it’s also about making sure everyone knows that you’re not someone to mess with, and you have the skill to be a legend. Boasting about yourself is just as important as roasting your foe. “When it comes to rapping, I’m one of a kind. / Strap your brain in or I’ll blow your mind.” “Others try but few succeed. / A few of my bars is all you need.” “They’re just mad ‘cause I’m top of the podium. / Got them pressed, stressed, and salty like sodium.”
Best Rap Roasts of All Time
2pac vs. Notorious B.I.G. We’re starting with a truly scathing beef that’s already in the history books as the gold-standard for diss tracks and rap roasts. And it’s deep-seated, too. Tupac wrote “Hit ‘Em Up” in response to Biggie’s song “Who Shot Ya,” which is (probably) about a targeted shooting against Shakur. From that beef, we got some choice lines: Tupac: “Now it's all about Versace, you copied my style / Five shots couldn't drop me, I took it and smiled.” Tupac: “And your pop stars popped and get mopped and dropped / And all your fake-*** East Coast props brainstormed and locked.” Biggie: “I can hear sweat trickling down your cheek / Your heartbeat sound like Sasquatch feet / Thundering, shaking the concrete.”
Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake Here’s a more recent one, another beef that made history and that we all had the pleasure of witnessing. The details are complicated, but in a nutshell, chart-topper Drake picked a fight with the Shakespeare of rap Kendrick Lamar, and the results were several songs of burn after burn that ended with Drake ditching the mic and lawyering up. Kendrick: “Sometimes you gotta pop out and show n***** / Certified boogeyman, I'm the one that up the score with 'em…They not like us, they not like us, they not like us.” Kendrick: “The audience not dumb / Shape the stories how you want, hey, Drake, they're not slow / Rabbit hole is still deep, I can go further, I promise.” Drake: “I've emptied the clip over friendlier jabs / You mentioned my seed, now deal with his dad / I gotta go bad, I gotta go bad.”
Jay-Z vs. Nas A battle between absolute legends gave us some absolute banger lines. Jay-Z’s response to Nas’s “Ether” was so scathing that, as the story goes, his own mother disapproved, and he ended up apologizing. We’re a PG website, so we can’t include the best lines here, but you can get a pretty good idea from verses like: Jay-Z: “But really, I don't need the heat (Nah) / Your heart pump project Kool-Aid, you're sweet.” Jay-Z: “This is not beef, this is rap, homie; I don't have a scratch on me / You feel Jay soft, rip Jay off / Damn, I'm only worth over a hundred million.” Nas: “I embrace y'all with napalm / Blows up, no guts, left chest, face gone.”
50 Cent vs. Ja Rule This is a feud that went on for decades, mostly because 50 got too much of a kick out of it and wouldn’t let it die. It all started when Ja got robbed in New York, and one of 50’s guys was accused. The rest is history, and that history is mostly 50 and Ja trading diss tracks. 50 Cent: “Any living thing that cannot co-exist with the kid / Must decease existin', little n****, now listen.” 50 Cent: “I eat you for breakfast, the watch was an exchange for your necklace.” Ja Rule: “On your grave it's gonna read: ‘Here lie 50, who snitched on many / That half a dollar, that nickel, them dimes, and died like penny.”
Epic Rap Battles It doesn’t take a legendary rapper to craft a legendary line, but at this point, the Epic Rap Battles crew is legendary in their own right. The YouTube channel imagines rap battles between real and fictional rivals, and some of the lines are historic: George R.R. Martin to J.R.R. Tolkien: “All your bad guys die, and your good guys survive. We can tell what's gonna happen by page and age five!” Stalin to Rasputin: “Cool mustache, Wario. Try messing with the Mad Monk, you'll be sorry, yo.” Steve Jobs to Bill Gates: “I built a legacy, son, you could never stop it. Now, excuse me while I turn Heaven a profit.”
Roasting Your Friends in a Rap Battle
Keep your roasts lighthearted if you’re roasting friends. With big rap beefs, the rapper’s reputations and careers (and sometimes their lives) are on the line. But usually when you’re roasting someone, it’s just a friendly competition between buds. Avoid cutting too deep or focusing on things your friends are sensitive about. Keep it easygoing, fun, and remember that it’s just a game. This is a great time to remind them of funny things they did in the past, or embarrassing things that’ll really get them blushing (without making them angry). If this is a serious event, feel free to push a little harder and dig a little deeper. Just keep in mind that the audience needs to approve of your bars, too, and if you go too hard, they might not keep rooting for you.
Target your opponent’s quirks instead of their serious flaws. Some things might dampen the mood, like mentioning a dead relative, or your opponent’s addictions or illnesses. Instead, notice the funny little habits or quirks they have, and focus on those. When in doubt, roast something your opponent has control over, like how they dress or act, and not their physical traits or serious struggles, which they don’t have control over. Good example: “All dressed up like it’s your first of school, huh? Tuck in your shirt, geek, and try not to drool, bud.” Bad example: “Your mom left because you’re ugly.”
Keep each diss short, sweet, and about 2 lines or less. We’re not writing novels here, just dissing our friends. If your bar is too long, it could get awkward or you might mess up the delivery. Keep each diss short, snappy, and self-contained, then move on to the next one. That way, they’re more memorable, and you can pack more punches into your diss. When in doubt, keep your disses to 1 or 2 lines or sentences, and try to keep each line under 15-20 syllables.
Find good bars by making lines that rhyme. Rhyming isn’t a requirement, but it’s a shortcut to making your bars flow and sound catchy. Start by spitting out any old bar, then take note of the last word, and form your next bar just by rhyming with that word. It’s as simple as that! For example, you might think of the line, “Verse so hot it’s lit like kerosene.” Then, look for a good word that rhymes with kerosene. How about “obscene?” That’s a negative word that’s easy to work into a line, like, “Beat you so bad the audience finds it obscene.” Remember to stay on beat, and make sure that your rhyme also has some rhythm and that you can say it in time to the beat. Feel free to write your lines ahead of time and recite them when the moment comes. That said, great rappers master the art of improv.
What are ‘bars’ in rap battles?
A “bar” is a good line in a rap. In music, a “bar” is a measure or a unit of time. Rap and hiphop music took that term and started using it to mean a good verse or a great line. It can be a single, literal line, like in a poem, or it can be a set of good lines that all add up to pack a real punch. Whatever the case, you’d call it a “bar.” Example: “Drake had good verses, but Kendrick had real bars.” Similarly, “8 bars” refers to 8 measures or units in a song. Often, a song’s chorus is 8 bars. In rap, 8 bars is sometimes a whole verse.
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