They know William Reed at Neiman Marcus
After a year in which the Kendrick vs. Drake beef dominated all conversations about rap, the last six months have been relatively quiet. Of course, if you look closely on IG pages or on the more cancerous YouTube channels, you can find all the Shade Room street gossip you need. But as far as actually interesting lyrical crossfire, there hasn’t been much worth writing about.
But with only a few months left in 2025, two of the underground’s most compelling new voices, Skrilla and YFG Fatso, are trading the best diss songs since Kendrick salted the earth of the imaginary Atlanta inside the Boy’s head.
Hailing from Kensington in Philadelphia (or “Zombieland”)Skrilla bends tropes of street rap–pain, survival, faith, and addiction–and refracts them through the Philadelphia opioid crisis, religious duality, and high-fashion aesthetics. It’s something new: raw, vivid, and sometimes difficult to watch. YFG Fatso, from Chicago, moves in a more recognizable drill lineage. What separates him is his delivery: sharp, aggressive, and stripped-down. Fatso raps as if he’s stabbing at the beat. If Skrilla builds decrepit worlds within his records, Fatso tears holes straight through them.
It started after a 2024 Chicago studio shooting left Skrilla, Brandon Buckingham, his cameraman, and a Bloodhound manager Spence, struck by gunfire. Buckingham, the controversial white flavor of the month YouTuber, who films rappers in their neighborhoods (we all know THAT style of content), had previously linked with Skrilla and members of Bloodhound. After leaving a studio session, enemies allegedly ambushed the group outside in the parking lot.
Out of the chaos between the two artists came a pair of the best diss music in recent memory. Too often rap beef either fizzles out or gets swallowed by outside drama. Here, the records themselves command attention. These are disses you have to run back. Visuals you better study. Artists you can’t ignore. Skrilla has already dropped multiple tracks aimed at Fatso: first “Chiraq,” then the standout “Die 4 Me,” the most fully realized diss so far from Skrilla.
“Die 4 Me” opens with pure paranoia: a beat that sounds like the gates of Hell creaking open, pulling you down into your own descent. Skrilla nervously watching tinted cars creep down his block, admitting how drugs have worn down his soul, then weaving religious imagery from both Islam and Santería:
“Destroyed my soul with poppin’ Percs and sippin’ lean
Snatchin’ souls, I never told, bitch that’s a code that’s in the deen
Stafallah
Allahu Akbar, can you help me make it far?
Havin’ talks with Elegua, he told me he not never far, bitch he right here”
Mixing Santería and Islam in a diss record? That’s different. It makes you stop mid-song and say, what the fuck?
Midway through, the diss shifts gears:
“And it ain’t still leave my brain the way I seen a nigga done twitched
The nigga bitched
When he seen that Draco flash in front his face
Classic gangster, this what happen when a YN get a taste
a nigga blood
Blood savage, sacrifice a blood addict
Why the fuck young bull done say my fuckin’ name like he savage?
You’s a bitch”
Here the record stops feeling like a diss and turns into a lashing. Skrilla raps like a disappointed father talking down to a reckless son. It’s not just a rapper trading bars, it’s a lecture, a public scolding, the kind of correction you witness when a kid acts out in public and gets snatched up on the spot.
The video doubles down. “Die 4 Me” plays like a Christopher Nolan set piece; shadowy filters, Gotham-esque streets, Skrilla masked like a DC Comics villain in front of a Rolls Royce Ghost. A cameo from Philly’s own FSDABENDER only heightens the spectacle. FS feels like AR-AB’s spiritual successor, reckless in both interviews and lyrics, carrying that same mix of charisma and volatility that makes you wonder how long it can last.
Fatso’s response has been swift. A leak of his most recent reply, which surfaced about a month ago on Youtube titled, “Skrilla Diss,” shows he’s not only matching Skrilla’s energy but upping the energy. The track is incredible: the beat sounds like a sample lifted from a Weather Report or some other ’70s fusion-jazz record. Stripped back and skeletal makes Fatso’s delivery land harder. He raps like he’s racing the beat, every bar compressed into a threatening burst, almost as if his engineer doesn’t know how to loop a beat on ProTools. Lines from the leak do classic credibility work: strip the opponent of authenticity, frame him as a follower, and weaponize the crowd.
“Who TF dude ain’t gang / he just dick ride that same shit / got him hit / your fans gon get you killed / this Chiraq business you a lil philly bitch.”
Another bar twists age into threat:
“You grown but that mean nothin i been out huntin’ I make you the oldest vic.”
This is compact, violent flexing–the language of escalation.
Despite the real-world stakes, these records demand to be judged on craft. The beats, the flows, the visual storytelling, all of it feels cinematic. If we’re keeping score, Skrilla’s up one, but only because he’s officially dropped both the song and the video. Hopefully this doesn’t end in something darker, but for now hip-hop has its authentic diss record moment back: aggressive, urgent, and difficult to ignore.
We rely on your support to keep POW alive. Please take a second to donate on Patreon!
