Making for the tastiest beef in hip-hop history, rapper Meek Mill is currently embroiled in a burgeoning feud with Whataburger, the fast-food chain celebrated throughout the South for its dexterous lyrics and honey-butter chicken biscuits. It began, as every important war does, on Twitter, where Whataburger came to the defense of fellow soft-serve purveyor Drake over “Wanna Know,” a diss track Mill recently released in response to two diss tracks from Drake, which Drake released in response to several diss tweets from Mill, which Mill made in response to ineffable disses Drake made in the general direction of Mill, which were forged by the roiling discontent of a universe vexed by mankind’s petty machinations within its indifferent void. Said machinations now include a rapper being mocked by a burger restaurant.
Like the oft-touted 36,864 possible ways to order a Whataburger, the myriad layers of the Drake-Meek Mill-Whataburger War are difficult to comprehend fully, and they can make for a sloppy mess if you try to take it in all at once. But the most basic chronology goes like this:
On July 21, Meek Mill claimed that Drake failed to promote Mill’s album, on which Drake contributes a guest verse, because Mill had learned that Drake uses ghostwriters to pen his lyrics. Drake’s dark secret exposed and their friendship thus severed, Mill suggests, Drake retaliated with the most barbed weapon available to modern man: He didn’t tweet.
After this “ghostwriter” accusation lit up social media and other artists got involved, Drake quickly responded, releasing two diss tracks within mere days of each other. The first, “Charged Up,” mostly brushed off Mill’s claims as professional jealousy, and reminded everyone that he is extremely successful and wealthy. “Oh no, we eating,” Drake scoffed, saying that everyone who was coming after his crew “ain’t about to starve us.” After all, Whataburger is open 24 hours.
The second song, “Back To Back,” escalated the situation by taking even more direct aim at Mill—specifically, his relationship with Nicki Minaj, whose fame continues to eclipse Mill’s own. “Is that a world tour, or your girl’s tour?” went its most infamous line, a reference to Meek being the supporting act at his girlfriend’s recent concerts. (Again, this all began because one rapper didn’t tweet about another rapper’s album.)
“But what did Whataburger think of ‘Back To Back’?” everyone wondered. In response, Whataburger maintained the two most deeply held tenets of its business model: undying loyalty to Drake, and making delicious burgers that are good for stuffing your shame.
But did Mill take Whataburger’s advice? Unfortunately, no.
After many days of waiting—and, it seems, approximately an hour’s worth of writing—Mill put his thoughts to drum sounds and released “Wanna Know.” Accompanied by a Photoshopped image of Drake as a member of Milli Vannili, “Wanna Know” drops several first-name references to Drake’s presumed ghostwriters, includes a snippet of a track that supposedly proves Drake borrowed another rapper’s rhymes, abruptly segues into a montage of motivational speeches from Diddy’s Instagram, and ends with a quick, unelaborated line about the time a friend of rapper T.I. urinated on Drake in a movie theater. The song’s scattershot approach isn’t helped by Mill’s near-incomprehensible, mush-mouthed flow—though even reading the annotated lyrics on Genius evokes its own garbled, Joycean madness.
“Wanna Know” also features a line where Mill threatens to tie Drake’s mother up, “Fuck your sister in the ass and hit your brother up, pussy.” In short, “Wanna Know” is a lot like landing on the third page of a commenter flame war. You can’t follow what these guys are even fighting about anymore, and you just wish they would stop.
Within hours of its release, “Wanna Know” was met with immediate derision across the Internet, as everyone from professional athletes to @Seinfeld2000 to members of the Toronto city council chimed in to call it weak. Drake responded with a photo of himself laughing, sans caption, allowing the world to fill in the blanks.
Then finally, Whataburger broke its silence—and it seemed even the fact that Mill had apparently recorded his vocals in a drive-thru couldn’t sway it. No, Whataburger’s high standard for diss tracks remains as staunch and cutting as its refusal to serve taquitos after 11 a.m.
And here we are. Meek Mill is presumably already preparing a response diss track for Whataburger, in which he makes vague, first-name allusions to its fry cooks, then threatens to fuck a chicken sandwich.