On a crisp September day in 2018, murmurings in the hip-hop beefscape began to rumble. Beef was to be had. Back was to be clapped. Feuds were to ensue. But it all began (as many hip-hop beefs do), with a tweet by 50 Cent. In (the now-deleted) post, Fiddy gave the world:

And the award for the strongest neck in Hip Hop go’s to Busta Bus Yay LOL

And it was good.

What drove Mr Cent to delete his enthusiastic (“Yay LOL”) post — clearly a celebration of Busta Rhymes’ seraphic physique? We may never know. What we do know, however, is that Rhymes noticed. He noticed biggly.

Damn I’m just payin’ attention to what’s goin’ on cause I been busy finishin’ this new album.. I heard yo ass was ackin’ up my brother @50cent. 😂😂😂!! Your tough look looks funny as hell you tight button face havin’ ass nigga 😂😂😂😂. You look like you was smellin’ shit like yo bandana stink you rancid face lookin’ ass mu’fucka… 😂😂💥💥💥💥💥Fuck you startin’ wit me for?!. That’s why I’m a keep bustin’ yo ass and EVERY FUCKIN’ BODY else ass on EVERY STAGE!!! You deflated tire performin’ face ass nigga!!! 😂😂😂💥💥💥 Now you need to go get EVERY Strapp!!!! 😂😂😂😂!!!!!

Shots fired!

Tight button face! What does that even mean?

Naturally, 50 Cent was adamant that his bandana did not stink. It did not stink at all.

He was convinced Busta was working with bad information and he was going to let him know as much. He would go on to reiterate his observations about Busta Rhymes’ neck and, this time, he would NOT be deleting any posts. Experts agreed we were now at Beefcon Level 3.

@bustarhymes is mad at me because l said he has the strongest neck in hip hop 🤷🏽‍♂️ but he got the strongest neck l ever seen 👀fuck it. LOL #lecheminduroi

🤷🏽‍♂️ indeed, 50 Cent. 🤷🏽‍♂️ indeed.

We were now in full swing and there was nothing stopping these two overweight middle-aged men from Instagramming personal barbs at each other like a couple of old biddies having at it in a late-night Walmart checkout lane.

Not content to leave it there, we were very quickly treated to the tasteful nude of Busta Rhymes that we never knew we needed.

Busta Rhymes has a long and illustrious career established on the very basis of necks and their various constituent strengths. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the beef we’re seeing today had it’s seeds sown all the way back in 2001:

Of course, his neck was significantly “less strong” back then, but we don’t ever tell him that.