We’ve seen rap beef starting over business issues, beat biting,
and various other matters but you know what else causes it? Trying to get publicity.
New York started hip hop so obviously it should stay in the limelight right?
Well, some people seemed to think so back then at least. What do you do when you see a city
with new and upcoming rappers getting attention? Diss them of course. This is Tim Dog vs Compton.
I’ve mentioned him in previous videos briefly as he was dissed alongside other artists in the midst
of other beefs going on as well. Now we’re going to delve a bit deeper specifically into Tim Dog
and his beef with Compton. For those that don’t know this is the guy who pretty much set off the
whole “east coast vs west coast beef” that was so hyped up in the media in the mid 90s. From the
late 80s into the early 90s hip hop was becoming more commercially prominent in the west coast,
specifically California. Between artists like DJ Quik, Compton’s Most Wanted, and N.W.A. there
were a lot of artists in particular representing Compton, a city that’s a part of LA county. By
1991 these artists had all received some critical acclaim and success with their debut albums, and
New York hip hop was still big but no longer the only area shining. Fed up with all this attention
they were getting, Tim Dog released his debut studio album, Penicillin on Wax in November 1991.
On it were multiple songs taking shots at Compton artists like DJ Quik and N.W.A in particular.
The intro of the album is essentially a skit dissing N.W.A. talking about them over the beat
from the intro of Niggaz4Life, their second album which was released earlier that year.
Apparently a lawsuit was filed against Tim Dog’s record label for using N.W.A.’s beat and they
settled out of court and on the next pressing of the album they removed the N.W.A. sample and used
a different beat for the intro. The biggest song regarding this beef however was the first single
from the album, “Fuck Compton” which released earlier in the year and focused on dissing N.W.A.
and Michel'le. This is a relatively underrated diss track considering that it basically started
the whole beef. Tim Dog takes shots at pretty much everything the west coast is stereotypically known
for like wearing shades, having jheri curls and the whole bloods vs crips gang situation.
He disses Dr. Dre here for the Dee Barnes incident, and he even claims to have had
sex with Miche’le, Dr. Dre’s girlfriend at the time and a fellow artist on Ruthless Records.
He also takes a shot at Ice Cube as well as Eazy-E but specifically states that he has no
issue with Ice-T who was another famous west coast rapper at the time also from the LA area.
The song was no lyrical masterpiece or anything but as a diss track I do enjoy it and found it
to be a bit humorous at times, especially when he mimicked Michel'le speaking voice. On the skits
“DJ Quick Beat Down” and “Michel’le Conversation” he makes mention of the artists in the titles.
On the former he spots DJ Quik and delivers a beating to him as the title says
and on the latter he has a phone conversation with someone acting as Michel’le who tells him she’s
not happy with what he said about her on “Fuck Compton” but he informs her that he was dissing
Dre because of the Dee Barnes incident and that she was only mentioned to further diss Dre. On
the second single from the album, “Step to Me” he takes plenty of opportunities to once again
diss Eazy, Dre, Ren, and DJ Quik. Oddly enough he’s actually in support of Ice Cube here despite
having dissed him on the previous single. I guess at this point since N.W.A. and Ice Cube were now
dissing one another he decided to side with Ice Cube in an attempt to diss N.W.A. even further.
It’s another good diss, though not quite as hard or talked about as “F Compton”. One of
the later songs on the album, “Goin Wild in the Penile” also contains a diss to Compton as well.
On the intro of the song Tim Dog mentions going to prison for killing a kid from Compton,
clearly a reference to all the disses he’s made to Compton artists earlier on the album.
Tim dedicated a decent portion of his debut album dissing Compton which is something I never seen
an artist do before. According to an interview by Ced-Gee, who produced several tracks on the album
including “F Compton” an executive from Sony told him that if Tim Dog dissed the west coast
it would help Tim get a record deal so they did it. Kool Keith in an interview would say something
similar, that Tim Dog basically did it for the money and it wasn’t a serious beef but more of
a competitive and publicity kind of thing as Tim Dog had even lived on the west coast for a while
around that time. They reworked a beat from one of the Ultramagnetic MC’s early hit songs,
“A Chorus Line”, which also served as the introduction to Tim Dog. He also reused some
of the lines from his verse on “A Chorus Line” in “F Compton”. The track set off a wave of diss
tracks in retaliation from Compton and the LA area overall. The year of 1992 was definitely not the
year of the Dog as Compton struck back hard. Let’s start with the most famous of the responses. As
I’ve mentioned in the video regarding the N.W.A. beef, “F Wit Dre Day” from the Chronic album was
a diss track aimed at Eazy-E, Uncle Luke and Tim Dog. The second verse, which is Snoop Dogg’s,
was aimed at Tim Dog. It makes sense to have the Dog go after the other Dog I suppose.
This is the most recognized diss to Tim Dog from the West and also the one he
would respond to later on. However it’s not even the only song that Dre and crew dissed him on.
They were clearly offended by “F Compton”, and I don’t blame em. On the skit “The $20 Sack Pyramid”
from the Chronic album they diss Tim Dog quite hilariously as well. Also on the song “Puffin on
Blunts and Tanqueray” the B side to the “Dre Day” single, Dre sends a shot at Tim Dog in the intro
alongside Eazy-E and Uncle Luke. If that wasn’t already enough, as I mentioned in the DJ Quik
vs MC Eiht and Compton’s Most Wanted beef video they dissed Tim Dog as well because of “F Compton”
It’s funny that these two both took time away from their OWN beef to return verbal fire at Tim
Dog. On Quik’s second album, Way 2 Fonky he came at Tim Dog on the title track with various lines
mentioning the Bronx as well as an altercation at the music conference Jack the Rapper where Tim Dog
was threatened over the beef and apologized and admitted that he only dissed Compton in order to
get paid. He came at Tim again on the last track of the album “Tha Last Word” which was a track
shouting out various artists but also another opportunity to diss Tim. Compton’s Most Wanted
dissed him on their third album Music to Driveby on the songs “Who’s Fuccing Who?” and “Another
Victim”. “Another Victim” has multiple subliminal shots but the second verse mentions someone from
“way over there” as well as someone saying “F Compton” which are pretty obviously references to
Tim Dog, he then mentions a “Timmy” which we can assume is directed to Tim Dog from that as well.
Decent disses overall and it continues to go on from here with other artists. Tweedy Bird Loc on
his first album, 187 Ride By dissed Tim Dog on the songs “Fucc the South Bronx”, and “What’s Really
Goin On”. I like how Tweedy specified the South Bronx while Tim Dog mentioned Compton in general.
Then again you could say that probably comes from the Boogie Down Production song “South
Bronx” where KRS-One dissed the Juice Crew as one of the rappers featured on “F the South Bronx”
also disses KRS-One, which is just random to me as KRS-One had nothing to do with dissing Compton.
Stray Shots and all that I suppose. “Fucc the South Bronx” or “South Bronx Can’t Touch Compton”
as it’s also known as, is a scathing diss towards the South Bronx and contains plenty of shots
at Tim Dog. Another favorite diss track of mine. It’s just so direct, no subliminals, just hardcore
lyrics. The other track, “What’s Really Goin’” on is a diss aimed mostly at Ruthless Records,
especially Eazy-E, MC Ren, and Dre but while doing so Tweedy shouts out Tim Dog for dissing
N.W.A. but then disses him for dissing Compton as a whole and once again takes shots at the South
Bronx and even Boogie Down Productions’ member D-Nice. Once again more stray shots. Unfortunately
Tweedy Bird Loc passed away in April of 2020 reportedly from a heart attack at the age of 52.
As I said however the disses continue, also in 1992 the group E.L. Me & The Street Products
released a self-titled track from their album 16 Lessons From the Street where they dissed Tim
Dog for dissing Compton and also made mention of him on the outro of the album titled “Outshout”.
The next year in 1993 the group Rodney-O and Joe Cooley released the album F New York, I guess they
decided to take it a whole step further with that title. It includes the song “But You Don’t Hear
Me Though” which took shots at multiple artists including Tim Dog on the last verse making mention
to New Yorkers and one in particular dissing Compton. This would about do it for the barrage of
shots aimed at Tim Dog in response to “F Compton”. A little later in 1994 Tim Dog responded to Dre
and Snoop with the EP Bitch With A Perm featuring the title track as well as the song “Dog Baby”.
I find the title track pretty dang funny honestly, not as hard a comeback as his
first song “F Compton” was though. The title track features at least two different versions
with a different beat and slightly different lyrics but still is a diss towards the two.
These songs recycle a bunch of flows and lines from The Chronic songs and turn them into funny
jabs poking back at Dre and Snoop which honestly I found to be quite enjoyable as I do tend to like
parodies. However if you’re looking for anything new or amazing lyrically you won’t find that here.
Even the beats sound similar to a west coast style, most likely done on purpose as well.
The beef would be done now for the most part as far as Tim Dog goes. The so called east coast
vs west coast beef continued on though as we probably all know between Bad Boy Records and
Death Row Records for a little while. Tim Dog went on to release more solo albums as well as
continuing to work with the Ultramagnetic MCs and released a collaboration album with Kool Keith,
the founder of the group. Tim Dog would unfortunately pass away however in February 2013.
Oddly enough it was rumored that he had faked his death at first to avoid having to pay money
regarding legal trouble he had gotten himself into recently. According to an interview by Ced-Gee
Tim was known to be a bit of a schemer who would always be doing something to get paid and
even implied that Tim Dog might still be alive. However it was confirmed the next year in 2014
that his death was indeed fact. As usual, another rapper was taken too early from us but let us not
forget that he was another South Bronx rapper who caused a stir in hip hop for a few years
that would spiral into one of the biggest media situations of the time regarding the culture.
That’s it for this episode of the Rap Beef Series, head to the comment section below and share what
your favorite track in this beef is and what you think about the artists involved and what
beef you’d like me to cover next or what other hip hop related content you’re interested in.
I was thinking about covering some current events in hip hop as well to go along with the videos
talking about the history. As always, thanks for watching, stay tuned for more, subscribe
to the channel and make sure to click that like button, and I’ll catch you guys in the next video.