Yungeen Ace and Foolio
are the two biggest rappers from Jacksonville Florida,
and they’ve been locked in a crazy beef for years
that put both of their names in the spotlight.
Some of the most savage diss tracks in the history of rap
have come out of their beef,
and Ace’s homie Spinabenz
is responsible for the viral song Who I Smoke.
Today we’re breaking down his wild come up
and how he helped put the war in Jacksonville on the front page.
Let’s get right into it.
Not much is known about Spinabenz’s early life,
but we do know he hopped off the porch way faster than most dudes
who get involved with the streets.
His older brother is another rapper named Whoppa Wit Da Choppa,
and they both started getting into trouble at a young age.
They started off in private school,
but even being in a nicer environment
didn’t keep them from being active in the streets.
Whoppa says back then
he wasn’t even that bad of a kid,
but Spinabenz was already acting wild when he was just nine years old.
They were always getting into fights and partying,
and not before long they jumped off the porch for real.
Even though they were acting out and getting into trouble,
Spinabenz and Whoppa was always involved with music too.
Back in the day Whoppa would freestyle with his homies,
and Spina would hop in and try to keep up
even though he was younger than everybody.
Back then they didn’t take it seriously though
and rapping was just a hobby.
But after they started going in and out of jail,
Spinabenz and Whoppa both knew they needed to switch up how they moved
and find a way out of the streets.
Spinabenz ended up dropping out of school in the 10th grade
after he got caught with a gun
and ended up with a felony charge.
He told DJ Smallz Eyes
that he was in the whip with some homies
when the cops pulled them over and found the strap.
Spina says the gun wasn’t even his,
but the cops pinned it on him
and he's spending around a year in jail.
After he got out,
Spinabenz didn’t really see a reason to go back to school -
and he was only free for a week
before he got locked up again on a probation violation.
After getting booked back to back,
he knew he didn’t ever want to end up in that situation again.
Spinabenz and Whoppa started a rap collective
called BMG on SoundCloud,
but the music wasn’t popping off
so they started posting on YouTube instead.
Even though Spina was trying to make it in the rap game,
he still had one foot in the streets
and got wrapped up in Yungeen Ace’s war against Foolio.
Ace and Spinabenz
actually met each other online playing Call of Duty online.
Then they found out their homies knew each other
so they linked up and started making music together.
Spina wasn’t as heavy in the streets at that point,
but linking up with Ace
put him right in the middle of Jacksonville’s craziest beef.
Most rap fans
didn’t start paying attention to what’s going down in Jacksonville
until last year when it hit the mainstream,
but it allegedly all started back in 2017.
That year,
Yungeen Ace blew up with the track Go To War -
and his homie Deontrae Thomas
killed Foolio’s cousin Zion Brown.
Ace wasn’t with Thomas when he murdered Zion,
but rumors were flying that he was involved somehow.
This is what allegedly sparked the whole beef,
and it only got worse from there.
In June 2018,
Ace, his brother, and two of their homies
were leaving a steakhouse after celebrating one of their birthdays.
That’s when a car pulled up and started letting off shots.
Ace’s brother and two homies all got killed,
and Ace barely survived after getting hit eight times.
Both sides lost a lot of people over the next couple of years,
including Foolio’s brother Bibby.
It’s not clear how involved Spinabenz was in the violence,
but his homie Lul Leeke
was one of the most savage dudes in the city.
Before he was killed in 2020,
Leeke was one of Foolio’s biggest opps
and allegedly even almost killed his girlfriend.
On April 20th 2020,
Foolio’s girlfriend was driving his car to the gas station
when someone spotted the car and started shooting.
She ducked down and drove off,
but ended up getting hit three times and losing a finger.
It was never confirmed that Leeke was the shooter,
but Spinabenz dissed Foolio on the track
I Don’t Smoke Kendre and said
“This n**** mama got shot and he still tweakin’
This n**** b**** got shot, Ku I know she leavin’
They shot that hoe finger off, she couldn’t even tweet it.”
Leeke also allegedly took out a dude named Jumpout in broad daylight,
and then in September 2020 he was shot and killed
right in front of Spinabenz.
Leeke, Spina, and some other homies
were sitting in the whip
when another car pulled up and started shooting.
According to rumors, Leeke was high off lean
and couldn’t react fast enough -
and he ended up getting shot in the head
and dying later that night at the hospital.
Two months later,
Foolio’s 6 Block crew took two L's back to back.
A dude named Spazz2x was murdered at the Hilltop Village apartments,
and the next day
a dude named Rod K was shot and killed at the same place.
Rod K was starting to pop off in the drill scene
with tracks like Strap Story and Hot Boyz,
and being affiliated with Foolio was definitely helping his career.
It looked like he had the potential
to be the next big rapper in the city,
but he was found by the police with gunshot wounds
one day after his homie was killed.
Nobody knows who killed them,
but there have been all kinds of rumors about Rod K’s death.
Some say he was spinning the block trying to get revenge for Spazz,
but others believe he was backdoored by his own people.
Whatever actually went down at the Hilltop Apartments,
Spinabenz and Whoppa both dissed the opps over the situation.
Whoppa wrote
“You can talk about Leeke all dayyy
but not yo dawgs who got smoked after him”
on IG, and Spinabenz has dissed them both on records.
At this point the war in Jacksonville was already crazy,
but then Spinabenz, Ace, Whoppa, and FastMoney Goon
took it to the next level when they dropped Who I Smoke.
Spina told Dirty Glove Bastard
that he came up with the idea
of using Vanessa Carlton’s track 1,000 Miles for the sample,
and when he got the beat back from the producer
everyone knew it was going to be a hit.
The song popped off like crazy and racked up millions of views.
Part of what made it so popular
was the catchy upbeat sample
combined with some of the most savage disses rap fans have ever heard.
Spinabenz opened the track up by dissing Rod K on the line
“Rod K dead and he never comin’ back, boy
We gon’ treat this b**** like a match how we strike, boy
Left his ass in the street, this the end of your life, boy.”
The rest of the track is full of disses aimed at Foolio and his dead homies,
including his little brother Bibby.
Before Who I Smoke dropped,
the war in Jacksonville was only covered by the local news.
But Spina and the rest of them put the beef in the spotlight
after the video went viral and racked up over 40 million views on YouTube.
A couple of months later,
Spina took more shots at Rok K
and Spazz2x on the track I Don’t Smoke Kendre.
He said
“Rod k died, he was spinnin’, guess he freezed up
F*** his last words, Ku, the last thing he seen was us.”
and “Spazz2x got dropped, how he do that?
Scrollin’ through his phone in Hilltop, thought you knew that?”
All the wild dissing got a lot of eyes on Spinabenz.
But before he could take it to the next level and hit the mainstream,
he caught another gun charge and got locked up again.
The cops pulled him over while he was riding around with his girlfriend
and ended up finding guns in the car.
Spina can’t have weapons since he’s a felon,
but the guns were registered in his girl’s name and were all legal.
That didn’t stop the police
from booking him on a gun charge though.
They found less than 20% of his DNA on one of the straps,
but that was enough for him to catch the charge and go to court.
He was originally let out on bond,
but back in September
he got locked up again
after he took his ankle monitor off.
Spinabenz was facing 30 years on the gun charge,
and the prosecutors even used his lyrics against him in court.
On the track My Glock, he said
“My Glock cost $300
Oh she 18? Give that b**** $300 too.”
They tried to make it seem like Spinabenz
admitted to having his girl buy him a gun in her name,
and they also brought up other lyrics where he talked about guns and violence
to prove he was guilty.
Luckily the jury found him not guilty
since there was no real evidence against him,
but Spinabenz isn’t out of trouble yet.
He’s still facing up to five years in prison
for tampering with the ankle monitor,
but it’s not clear when that trial will start.
Hopefully Spina beats the case and focuses on his music.
He’s also talked about wanting to get his GED before,
and it’s clear that he not tryna be caught up in situations like this.
Spina revealed to DJ Smallz Eyes
that he’s been diagnosed with PTSD,
and he even let fans know
how much pain the streets have caused him
on tracks like Never Think That, where he rapped
“It get cold out here in these streets
Walking alone no coat with my heat
Bad vibes so strong make it hard to find peace
And I ain’t got nobody to call, but everybody call me.”
And “Bad news on the phone
it made my heart skip a beat
Drowning in my emotions make it hard for me to breathe.”
Spinabenz definitely has the talent
to make it in the rap game and leave the streets behind
so hopefully he makes the right move
and gets out of Jacksonville if he hasn’t already.
Rest in peace to everyone affected by the violence in Jacksonville.