Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, T.I., Erykah Badu — these are just a handful of the high-profile artists Azealia Banks has scuffled with online in recent years.
Banks’ penchant for conflict nearly eclipses her bars in the years since her first mixtape dropped in 2012. Indeed, if there’s one thing Banks has become best known for, it’s perhaps her endless list of feuds on and off social media with her fellow musicians.
In March 2024, Banks hopped on Instagram to critique the cover and title of Beyoncé’s album Cowboy Carter ahead of its release. Despite Beyoncé herself explaining the meaning behind the project and why she decided to make an entire album in a genre she’s only previously dabbled in, Banks weighed in with a litany of assumptions and criticisms ranging from a lack of creativity (“Wow we didn’t even try to put even a little effort into a more artistic title?”) to outright ignorance (“reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war white art form”). She even took a shot at Bey’s husband, saying, “JAY-Z is the only boring thing here.”
This isn’t the first time Banks has taken aim at Bey. After the Grammy-winning artist’s seminal sixth album Lemonade dropped, Banks accused the Houston native of trying to take advantage of the social justice issues that were all over the news back in 2016. “She’s purposefully strayed away from political discourse her entire career to make sure she didn’t alienate white ppl,” she said at the time. “And now that black women’s suffering is a national conversation, she wants to hop on it and make our suffering ‘trendy.’”
And that’s not even the worst thing she’s said about a fellow musician. From lengthy back-and-forth beefs to one-sided rants and attacks, here’s a comprehensive look back at Banks’ most publicized feuds.
