The Diss Track

Madison, you're mad as a hatter, son, take your medicine
Damn, you in worse shape than the national debt is in
Sittin' there, useless as two shits
Hey, turn around, bend over, I'll show you where my shoe fits

— Alexander Hamilton, "Cabinet Battle #1," Hamilton

Picture this: you hate someone. Or maybe you hate a certain aspect of their personality, feel like they need a telling-off, or you're just mean. Simple insults won't work, and even a "The Reason You Suck" Speech isn't gonna cut it. So what do you do? Insult them in song!

This can be shown to highlight how mean someone is, and can be a Kick the Dog moment for villains— not only are they being mean, they're singing their insults, which implies that they're enjoying it and/or taking the time to write and sing a song.

On the other hand, if the one being sung to was mean/stupid/whatever themselves, this is likely meant to be seen as the character getting their just desserts, which the audience will likely agree with, provided it doesn't go too far.

Can overlap with Take That, Audience! if it's directed at the audience, Ode to Apathy if it's about how the disser doesn't care about the diss-ee, Misogyny Song if a man is insulting a woman for sexist reasons, Copycat Mockery if the singer imitates the one they're trashing, Break-Up Song if the singer goes full-blown insulting on their ex, Revenge Ballad if the song is the revenge, "I Am Great!" Song if it's a sort of "I rule, you drool" kind of song, "I Hate" Song if the disser outright hates the diss-ee, and Answer Song if it's in response to someone else's insulting song. Super-trope to "The Villain Sucks" Song and Hail to the Thief. See also Mocking Sing-Song.

Battle Rapping is a sister trope specific to hip-hop music, which often involves two or more rappers fire off Diss Tracks at each other.

Nothing to do with a town in Suffolk.

Examples

Advertising

• Cheetos had Chester Cheetah make a diss track towards Doritos and their spokesperson Chance the Rapper, rapping about how only Cheetos deserved to bear the "flamin' hot" name. Note that Doritos and Cheetos are owned by the same parent company, so this was just a promotional stunt.

Anime and Manga

• Aggretsuko: At a company drinking party, Director Ton realizes that Retsuko is the one that complained about him to the higher-ups and disses her via rapping. He gets far more than he bargained for when the meek Retsuko calmly responds by dissing him via Heavy Metal. Of course he's so plastered that he passes out and forgets the whole thing by the next morning. Maybe.
  Retsuko: WHY'D YOU GO AGAIN?! NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR IT!
  YOUR BEATS ARE WEAK AND YOUR RAP SUCKS!
  LOOK AT YOU, STANDING THERE, WANTING A REPLY!
  HERE IT COMES, PIG, HERE'S MY BATTLECRY!
  YOU'RE A SHITTY BOOOOOSS! YOU'RE A SHITTY BOOOOOOOOSS!!!
  I HATE YOU SO MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: Fujiwara delivers a scathing rap to Shirogane about her frustrations with tutoring him and how he sucks at everything but studying while he's teaching her how to freestyle after he makes it clear to her that getting your feelings out is more important that actually rhyming.
• The Story Between a Dumb Prefect and a High School Girl with an Inappropriate Skirt Length: When Sakuradaimon's dad meets Poemu, he's tongue-tied and can't think of anything to say. Then he remembers the Totally Radical way to talk to kids these days is through Battle Rapping. He improvises a diss track, but everyone else thinks he's just insulting her. Poemu shoots back with her own diss, and both of them apologize profusely later.

Comic Strips

• April Patterson from For Better or for Worse composed a ditty aimed at her schoolmate antagonist. "Wormy, Germy Jeremy Jones" gains traction among April's classmates, and annoys Jeremy enough to sic the principal on her.

Films — Animation

• In Aladdin, Jafar's "Prince Ali (Reprise)" is about exposing that Aladdin is just a nobody who became "Prince" Ali after using the Genie's magic.
• In Tangled, the song "Mother Knows Best" downplays this. It's mostly about how Gothel doesn't want Rapunzel to leave (because Gothel uses Rapunzels hair to turn young, though she's pretending it's because she's concerned for her safety), but there is an underlying theme of Gothel claiming/implying that Rapunzel would be putting herself in danger because she is naive. Gothel also claims in one verse that Rapunzel is sloppy, underdressed, immature, clumsy, gullible, grubby, ditzy, "vague", and gaining weight.

Films — Live Action

• In Annie (1982), Annie sings to Sandy about how he's a dumb dog and shouldn't follow her. She likes him really, but thinks it's the only way to get him not to follow.
• The Muppets' Wizard of Oz: The song sung by the Wicked Witch of the West, portrayed by Miss Piggy, sings to Dorothy about how she will never be famous like she wants.

Literature

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The songs sung by the Oompa-Loompas about the bratty kids all qualify to an extent:
  • Augustus's song makes jabs at his greed and his weight, and says that he'd be better off being made into fudge.
  • Violet's song is mainly an anti-chewing gum song, but it does call her a "dreadful girl" and shame her for chewing gum.
  • Veruca's song berates her for being a Spoiled Brat, and her parents for spoiling her in the first place.
  • Mike's song, like Violet's, downplays this as it's mainly a Warning Song about not watching too much TV, but it does imply that Mike is dumb and unimaginative as a result of watching too much TV.
• In one of the Frances books "Best Friends for Frances", after Albert tells Frances that baseball is not for girls, she sings a song about how they're no longer friends and he's fat.
• In Little Town on the Prairie, it's revealed that when the teacher, Eliza Jane Wilder^note The reason she has the same surname as the author is because the author later married her brother, was a kid, her classmates wrote a song about her, calling her "Lazy Lousy Liza Jane" because she was late for school and had lice.

Live-Action TV

• Community: After breaking up with Britta, Vaughn makes an insulting song about their relationship and performs it in front of the entire school. Later, he does the same with Pierce, who had joined his band only for the two to have a falling out. In The Stinger of that episode, Pierce is shown writing a diss track directed at Vaughn. Vaughn finds out and vows to make yet another diss track.
• Friends: Phoebe's old songwriting partner steals Phoebe's signature song "Smelly Cat" and turns it into a cheesy jingle for kitty litter. Phoebe deals with her anger by writing a new song to vent her feelings.
  Jingle bitch screwed me over!/Go to Hell, jingle whore/Go to Hell, Go to Hell, Go to He-e-ell
• Sesame Street:
  • In "Don't Be a Bully", some monsters tell off another monster in song for stealing their ball, calling him a bully.
  • In "The Wasteroon Song", three sentient water drops chastise two kids named Freda Bailey and Sheldon Cox for leaving the tap running, calling them "wasteroons".
  • In "We've Got a Brand New Baby", a monster girl sings about how she finds her baby brother annoying because he can't do much, doesn't wear clothes, is bald, makes annoying sounds, cries a lot, and she doesn't know why he was even born.
• Shameless (US): Fiona briefly marries a musician, only to leave him not long after. When she tries to talk to him, he insists that he feels no ill will towards her. He then proceeds to perform a song titled "Fuck You Fiona".
• In Victorious, Tori once sang such a song to a guy who went out with her, as a way to get her to do all the work on their group project, and had the intent of dumping her once their teacher gave them their grade. Tori used the other girls that he had conned in the same way as her back up singers.

Music

• Beck once performed a song making fun of a rival musician and club owner who kicked him out of the Viper Room and threatened to kick his ass. The musician is never named in the song itself, but the song was titled "Johnny Depp". The song has never been recorded onto an album.
  He's totally pregnant with his own self
  Opening his pores like a thousand cameras
  Filming and trashing, cashing in on death
  Spray-painting everybody with his breath
• Professional Super Smash Bros. Melee player Chillin (formerly chillindude829) has recorded several diss tracks about competitors:
  • His most famous one is "Respect Your Elders", which he recorded before a Salty Suite exhibition against Leffen. It mocks Leffen's rude conduct, calls him "god-awful" and claims that he will get destroyed in the match. Then the match took place, and Chillin lost 5-0.
  • "HBox/M2K Doubles Diss Track, feat Chu Dat" is about a time Chillin and Chu defeated Hungrybox and Mew2King despite the latter team being the favourite by a large margin.
  • "Nice Shot Hugo (Hugs Diss Track)" mocks HugS for various losses.
  • "One Trick Phony" starts by dissing Mr. Wizard (the main TO for the EVO national tournaments) for his perceived bias against Melee, while also suggesting that Melee doesn't need EVO. Mike Haze then tells Chillin to diss someone else, and the rest of the track makes fun of Salem's hate for the Melee community.
• Eric Clapton's "Promises" charts the end of a marriage where the two people involved have not only fallen out of love, they cannot stand each other any more.
  I got a problem, can you relate?
  I got a woman, call it love-hate;
  We made a vow we'd always be friends,
  How could we know that promises end!
• Bob Dylan specialized in songs that sneeringly excoriate various unnamed individuals. Four particularly memorable examples are listed.
  • "Positively 4th Street" takes pointed potshots at a two-faced "friend."
    Yes, I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes,
    You'd know what a drag it is to see you.
  • "Like a Rolling Stone" sharply criticizes a former privileged and haughty woman who has fallen down on her luck.
    You used to laugh about
    Everybody that was hanging out,
    Now you don't talk so loud,
    Now you don't seem so proud
    About having to be scrounging your next meal.
  • "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is a cutting indictment of a former lover.
    Goodbye's too good a word, babe,
    So I'll just say fare thee well.
    I ain't saying you treated me unkind,
    You could have done better but I don't mind,
    You just kinda wasted all of my precious time,
    But don't think twice, it's all right.
  • "Ballad of a Thin Man" is a snarling indictment of a pseudo-intellectual who dislikes Dylan's music.
    Well, you walk into the room like a camel, and then you frown.
    You put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground.
    There ought to be a law against you comin' around.
    You should be made to wear earphones.
    'Cause something is happening and you don't know what it is,
    Do you, Mr. Jones?
• GWAR has "Slaughterama", a diss track against hippies, '80s hair bands and neo-nazis in the style of a quiz show where wrong answers get your head blown or torn off.
  • From the same album, there's their hit song, "Sick of You". A one-size-fits-all song for any objectively awful person.
• Metal doesn't have very many examples of outright diss tracks in the same vein that hip-hop does, but Machine Head's Aesthetics Of Hate could certainly class as one; directed at William Grim in response to an article they wrote for the website Iconoclast, insulting the prowess and appearance of the then-recently deceased "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, the guitarist of Pantera and Damageplan. The article angered vocalist/guitarist Robb Flynn to the point where the song became a six-and-a-half-minute condemnatory tirade. While Grim isn't called out by name, his article - from which the song's title was derived - and the website to which it was posted, most definitely was.

  For the love of a brother, I will say these fucking words!
  No silence against ignorance, Iconoclast! I hope you burn in hell!

• As befits of their moniker as the "World's Most Dangerous Rap Group," N.W.A and its various members definitely had brush-ins with this trope, on both sides of the disses, and sometimes even against each other:
  • One of the earliest disses involving the group would be "Fuck Compton" by Tim Dog, which also attacked the entire gangsta culture and lifestyle prevalent at Compton.
  • As Ice Cube left the group due to royalty disputes, they made the tracks "100 Miles and Runnin'" and "Real Niggaz" which jabs on Cube's departure from the group; the latter even goes so far with the following line:
    ''We started out with too much cargo
    So I'm glad we got rid of Benedict Arnold, yo.
  • Understandably, Cube responded to the abovementioned disses with "No Vaseline", basically going after everyone in the group, with particularly large amount of vitriol towards Eazy-E and the group's manager Jerry Heller. This particular track was touted as one of the best disses ever made, as it basically left the rest of NWA at the time unable to respond.
  • When Dr. Dre made the decision to leave as well, he had his own baggage to unload on his former co-founder Eazy-E. This came in via his debut solo album The Chronic, through the single "Fuck Wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')"; the accompanying video for the single even parodies Eazy-E with the "Sleazy-E" character, and the Ruthless Records label as "Useless Records".
  • Eazy-E went back at the abovementioned diss with the iconic tracks tracks "It's On" and "Real Muthaphuckkin G's." The latter track particularly goes after Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight; and to drive the point home, its accompanying video responds to the Sleazy-E caricature mentioned above, by way of a Black Comedy payback skit.
    Mothafuck Dre! Mothafuck Snoop! Mothafuck Death Row!
    Yo, and here comes my left blow
    Cause I'm the E-A-Z-Y-E and this is the season
    To let the real mothafuckin' G's in
    You're like a kid you found a pup and now you're dapper
    But tell me where the fuck you found an anorexic rapper?
• "Hit 'Em Up" by 2Pac and the Outlawz is an all-out declaration of war toward The Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy, and the entire East Side Hip-hop scene.
• At the lowest point of their mutual relationship after the breakup of The Beatles, John Lennon wrote and recorded "How Do You Sleep?", a very nasty Take That! aimed at Paul McCartney. Paul had made a rather veiled reference to John and Yoko on his album Ram. John's response, which specifically named Paul songs like "Yesterday" and "Another Day", was not at all veiled. (The two were more civil to each other in later years before Lennon's death.)
  The sound you make is muzak to my ears
  You must've learned something in all those years
• While the subject of "Bound For The Floor" by Local H is unclear, it seems to be about a person who is an Extreme Doormat and why they disgust the singer.
  You just don't get it. You keep it copacetic, and you learn to accept it, you're so pathetic.
• Origami Angel: GAMI GANG has "You Won't." It's about the singer calling out someone who's backstabbed him, saying that their insults don't hurt and they'll never be as good as him.
  And I will take the fall
  If it means that someone else won't have to hear the shit you say
  Behind the back of someone else in such a stupid petty way
• Kat McSnatch:
  • "You are a Cunt" plays this for Vulgar Humour, calling the listener the eponymous profanity a great deal, along with other insults like "imbecile" and "son of a bitch". The singer also says that she tries to be nice, but makes an exception for the listener.
  • "I Don't Like You" is about how the singer dislikes the listener, believes them to be not right in the head, and wouldn't care if they died.
• Carly Simon's song "You're So Vain" is a bouncily sarcastic hit about a woman's egotistical ex-boyfriend with a penchant for globetrotting hedonism ("I hear you went out to Saratoga / And your horse naturally won / Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia / To see the total eclipse of the sun") and homewrecking ("You're where you should be all the time / And when you're not you're with / Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend"). After several decades, Simon finally admitted that the song is at least partially about Warren Beatty.
• The Songdrops song "The Bully Song" is a jab at bullies, with the lyric "Hate to break it to ya but deep down you know it's true: when you're knocking someone else down, the lowest one is you."
• Taylor Swift's song "Mean" is a second-person song calling an unnamed person out for being mean. Swift wrote it about a music critic who she believed gave her an unfair review, although she has never named names.
• Tears for Fears:
  • In "Wino" ^note the B-Side of "Suffer the Children", Roland Orzabal (who has told the media that he hates his dad) depicts his father as a pathetic loser who doesn't want to do anything but drink and smoke all day, seemingly content to die slowly from his addictions.
    You're happy dying, you don't wanna change
    Remove your fix and you feel your pain
    
    You're a wino
    A cigarette smoker
    You have a good time
    They call you a joker, don't they?
  • In "Fish Out of Water", Roland Orzabal deplores how frivolous Curt Smith had become after they achieved global stardom, the latter being constantly distracted by the glamorous lifestyle that his newfound wealth and fame afforded him. Orzabal feels that Smith was lazily coasting on the band's success with his good looks and charm while contributing little to the music in comparison to Orzabal, who's the main songwriter. From Orzabal's perspective, Smith would be nothing without him, so now that Smith has severed all ties to Tears for Fears, Orzabal likens his ex-best friend to a fish that's wholly out of its element, an aimless dreamer who will either (figuratively) suffocate on land or get lost at sea without Orzabal's talent.
    With all your high class friends you think you've got it made
    The only thing you made was that tanned look on your face
    With all your cigarettes and fancy cars
    You ain't a clue who or what you are
    
    You're dreaming your life away
    Fish out of water
    Go swim in the tide today
    Fish out of water
  • Smith's Answer Song "Sun King" paints Orzabal as a spiteful, narcissistic, reclusive despot who's exhibiting signs of mental instability. The former believes that the latter is out of touch with reality because a lot of Orzabal's decisions are based on the Western Zodiac, which includes rationalizing his psychological abuse of Smith (Smith is indeed Orzabal's muse). ^note Smith did complain about Orzabal being overly obsessed with astrology; the latter brought astrology books to the recording studio, and he refused to work on certain days because his horoscope said it would turn out badly if he did so. Just to add extra salt on the wound, Smith also taunts his ex-partner by telling him that he looks ugly now that he's ageing, probably as payback to Orzabal for badmouthing Smith to the press by claiming that the latter was a talentless Pretty Boy. Despite Orzabal's inflated ego, Smith views his former friend as a miserable, pitiful wreck.
    The evidence is on the page
    Not much to show for so much rage
    It makes me smile
    You lost it somehow
    
    Solitude was your only choice
    Bitterness your only voice
    I saw your face
    The time is talking now
    
    Boy you looked so bad
    
    You make the Earth revolve
    You make the camera sing
    No conscience can absolve
    The Sun King
    
    A small, imbalanced, vain recluse
    You use the planets to excuse
    Your costumed smile
    Your childish abuse
    
    Boy you looked so sad
• Timbaland's song "Give It To Me":
  • Has a lyric that takes aim at producer Scott Storch. The jab was allegedly in reference to a past dispute the two producers had over credits on the Justin Timberlake hit "Cry Me a River."
  I'm a real producer
  You just a piano man.
  • Justin Timberlake features on the song and takes a dig at Prince, who had commented on Timberlake's then-recent song "SexyBack" by saying, "For whoever is claiming they are bringing sexy back, sexy never left!"
  If sexy never left, then why's everybody on my shit?
  Don't hate on me just because you didn't come up with it
• Played for Laughs in Weird Al's "It's All About the Pentiums" (a parody of "It's All About the Benjamins" by Puff Daddy), where Al dismantles an opponent whose tech savvy is lacking.
  You've gotta be the dumbest nooby I've ever seen!
  You've got white-out all over your screen!
  You think your Commodore 64 is really neato!
  What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?!
  You're using a 286? Don't make me laugh!
  Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?!
  You could backup your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette!
  You're the biggest joke on the internet!
• Gotham Chess
  • In the "Guess the ELO" episodes, Levy Rozman encounters a 1600-rated player who was playing poorly for his rating, causing Rozman to go on a rant that was turned into a rap song. Then Young ELO released two diss tracks playing the role of the 1600-rated player:
  • In "Checkmate", the 1600-rated player strikes back at Rozman by trying to explain the logic behind one of his poor moves, bragging about his skills and how he can crush Rozman, and calling Rozman the sidekick of Hikaru Nakamura.
  • In "Mate in One", he takes aim at Hikaru Nakamura for his alleged big ego and toxic behaviour, and claims that he only relies on bullet chess because he can't play classical.
• Drake and Pusha T ended up developing beef throughout 2018 after the latter challenged the former on his lack of authenticity, originally prodding Drake on his newly-publicized reliance on ghostwriters. Drake's inciting diss track, "Duppy Freestyle" — accusing Pusha of leeching off Kanye West for his success and prodding his history as a drug dealer — was generally well-received, but Pusha's retort, "The Story of Adidon", was the stuff of legend: putting aside the ghostwriter allegations, Pusha publicly ousted Drake as having had an illegitimate child with a pornstar, calling him out as a deadbeat dad for neglecting his own son, additionally calling out his longstanding insecurity of "not being black enough", and digging up a very unflattering image of Drake performing in blackface from 2007 as its single artwork. Drake quietly petered out of the beef and was forced to confess to the world his son's existence, baggage that he's needed to carry around with from his career onward.
• Eminem:
  • As of 2022, the most commercially successful diss track of all time was "Killshot", a diss track aimed at Machine Gun Kelly that is also the second-fastest debut for a hip-hop song on YouTube (it was beaten a few years later by 6ix9ine's "GOOBA") and the most viewed song with no attached video on YouTube. The diss track served as a Career Resurrection for Eminem after an album considered his worst ever and a Win Back the Crowd album that left him in a stronger but still unstable position, and turned Kells from an acclaimed pop-rapper to a derided joke.
  • Long before "Killshot", Eminem's feud with Ja Rule resulted in multiple diss tracks from both of them. The most famous of these are "Hailie's Revenge" (which happened after Ja Rule dissed Eminem's daughter in one of his diss tracks) featuring Obie Trice and D12, and "Go to Sleep" featuring DMX and Obie Trice (again). "Go to Sleep" is notable in that it was supposed to be part of the soundtrack for Cradle 2 the Grave, the same soundtrack that birthed "X Gon' Give It to Ya".
    "DMX asked Eminem and Obie Trice to do a lil song for the soundtrack of his movie and they spent 4 and half minutes graphically threatening Ja Rule's life"
  • His feud with Benzino resulted in "Nail in the Coffin" and "The Sauce", which cemented Benzino's reputation as a Memetic Loser.
• 50 Cent was well-known as Ja Rule's infamous arch-nemesis. And it all began with Fifty firing the first shot with "Your Life's on the Line."
• Insane Clown Posse got into a feud with Eminem and released a few tracks making fun of him, including a parody of "My Name Is" called "Slim Anus". Eminem retaliated with his own disses sprinkled throughout several of his own songs, particularly on the song "Marshall Mathers".
• "Union Dixie", the Answer Song to the unofficial anthem of the Deep South, was sung by Union troops on the front-lines of the American Civil War.
• "Yankee Doodle" was originally sung by the British to make fun of the American colonists by painting them as uncultured bumpkins. "Macaroni" was a fashionable style of dress, so "stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni" basically meant they were too uncultured to realize how uncultured they were. The rebelling Americans started singing it back to them.
• Adam Green disses Jessica Simpson in this song "Jessica" in which he claims her music is devoid of any love.
• The Dandy Warhols released the song "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth," a diss track against Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre. The track's chorus "I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passe" criticizes Newcombe's addiction. As depicted in the documentary Dig!, which follows the falling out between the two neo-psychedelic bands, Courtney Taylor-Taylor of the Dandies played the song for Newcombe and invited Jonestown to the set of its music video, prompting members of Jonestown to universally mock the production amongst themselves. Newcombe would later record an Answer Song, "Not If You Were the Last Dandy on Earth."
• Queen: The opening track of A Night at the Opera, "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)", scathingly rails against the band's previous manager, Norman Sheffield, among other things likening him to "a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride" and outright telling him to kill himself. Sheffield was never mentioned by name in the song, but recognized that it was about him and sued for libel... which instead resulted in the song's subject matter becoming public knowledge. On the Live Killers version, Freddie Mercury ramped it up a bit more by saying it was dedicated to "a motherfucker of a gentleman".
• The Ur-Example of those in hip-hop was "Biters In The City" by the Fantasy Three, aimed at the Crash Crew, because the latter had ripped off the beat of the Fantasy Three's previous single and used it on their own single.
• Shakira's long-awaited collaboration with Argentine producer Bizarrap in January 2023 turned out to be a diss track targeting her former boyfriend, retired footballer Gerard Piqué, months after their rather unceremonious breakup, as well as his new partner, Clara Chía:
  So much talk of being a champion,
  And when I needed you,
  You gave me the worst version of you.
  [...]
  A she-wolf like me isn't for rookies.
  A she-wolf like me isn't for guys like you.
  I was out of your league and that's why
  You are with another one who's just like you.
  [...]
  You left me with your mom as a neighbor,
  the press at the door and a debt with the Treasury.
  [...]
  I'm worth two 22-year-olds,
  you traded in a Ferrari for a Twingo.
  [...]
  So much time at the gym,
  But maybe work out your brain a little too.

Theatre

• First Date has the song "In Love With You," which Aaron sings to a vision of his ex Allison. It starts off with Aaron remembering all the good things about her, but eventually he realizes how much of a terrible person she was and lays into her.
• Hamilton:
  • The Cut Song "Congratulations" consists of Angelica Schuyler tearing into Alexander Hamilton for not only cheating on his wife (her sister), but then publicly confessing to his infidelity in order to prove himself innocent in a separate and much smaller scandal.
    Congratulations.
    You have invented a new kind of stupid,
    A damage-you-can-never-undo kind of stupid,
    An open-all-the-cages-at-the-zoo kind of stupid,
    Truly, you didn't think this through kind of stupid.
  • Another Cut Song, "An Open Letter," is one minute of Hamilton dragging John Adams for his perceived incompetence, arrogance, and irrelevance. It's a send-up of classic rap diss tracks, as well as a massive "The Reason You Suck" Speech. Only one line made it to the show:
    Hamilton: SIT DOWN, JOHN, YOU FAT MOTHER***!
  • Both "Congratulations" and "An Open Letter" were recorded (by Dessa and Watsky, respectively) and released on The Hamilton Mixtape, a Concept Album featuring cut songs, remixes, and covers of songs from the show. Fans were very happy to get both of these diss tracks in their full glory.
• Keating! The Musical has the song "On The Floor", which takes the form of a rap battle between Paul Keating and John Hewson; most of the insults Keating uses in the song were taken from actual lines he used in Parliament.
• In "Playing the Game" from the Mary Poppins stage play, Jane and Michael's Living Toys berate them for playing too rough with them, even at one point singing that they "don't deserve fun".

Video Games

• Guild of Dungeoneering: Whenever a dungeoneer dies the bard plays a song making fun of them and by extension the player.
• The Heart Pumps Clay: One of the official screenshots◊ is of Talking Animal Crow's lines, which are bracketed by eighth notes. As Music Is Eighth Notes, the lines are mocking the listener, the words are implied to be in a singsong-y tone of mockery.
• Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has the Phantom of the Bwahpera's song. Words don't even begin to describe the D-minor disses.
• Ollie King: The lyrics of the song "Teknopathetic" is a series of complaints from someone playing a video game to a Know-Nothing Know-It-All teammate.
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: One testimony is titled "The dissing of Phoenix Wright". It's a rap.
• River City Girls: "Rich" about Break Up Song of a relationship that's built on being paid because Screw the Money, I Have Rules!, and it's directed towards the buyer and about how their methods don't work:
  I don't care what you pay,
  Just watch me walk away.
  If cash is your reason
  you won't keep anyone.
• Exaggerated in a genocide run of Undertale Burgerpants reveals that Metaton, in lieu of yelling at him for screwing up at work puts on a CD that consists entirely of songs about how Burgerpants sucks at his job.

Web Original

• AsapSCIENCE's "Science STYLE" is directed at anyone who dismisses the work of scientists and "makes fun of nerds", by stating how science is omnipresent in one's everyday life and how the nerdy scientists they make fun of are smart, attractive, and about to revolutionize human society and culture with their contributions. The bridge also bluntly tells the listener, "So, don't be dumb!"
  You know those iPhone apps that help you flirt?
  Well, it was the STEM field majors who designed it all first
• Actually a major plot point during 'The Devil's Six String' arc of Devil's Candy. Yahgie is challenged by Tremolo to a rock-off, which is far more dangerous than it sounds. It involves both sides dissing each other with song lyrics while simultaneously trying to kill each other with their music. Yahgie even prepares for it by being tied up and forced to watch the most embarrassing moment of his life on repeat and having his mother write insulting songs to toughen him up.
• The pilot video of Dubbed By Strangers ends with a diss track on Rex.
• Empires SMP Season 1: Joel writes one about his fellow ruler, fWhip, with his friend, fellow ruler, and brother-in-law, Jimmy backing him up. The diss track is ultimately intended to be friendly and ends in a request for peace between the empires. It's apparently noteworthy enough to have an entire prophecy dedicated to it.
  Words spat through vicious mockery will sound strangely melodious from the mouth of a Mezelean.
• Helluva Boss: In "Mammon's Magnificent Musical", Fizzarolli sings a song named "2 Minutes Notice" when he decides to quit being the face of Mammon's brand. Fizz rather colorfully tells Mammon to go fuck himself after years of abuse and exploitation, calling him a cuck, a greedy bastard and a sad sack of shit in front of a live audience. It's not until Fizz namedrops him that Mammon realizes the song is about him, and while he is not amused in the least, he is far more furious that his biggest money-maker is resigning.
• YouTube songwriter IgikoPop wrote a brutal track expressing her disdain for Ken Penders, the head writer of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), who is widely hated not just by the Sonic fanbase, but by the comic community as a whole for his petty and childish behavior that ended up causing the soft reboot and eventual cancellation of the longest-running American comic series.
• Prior to Minecraft Championship 15, Quackity wrote and performed a diss track targeted at the fans who take the event too seriously, a number of the competitors, and himself.
• Mishovy Šílenosti's song "Cyberbully Channels Are Cancer" is a Take That, Critics! song to YouTubers who made fun of his Pokémon Go song.
• PewDiePie: Played for Laughs with "Bitch Lasagna" and "Congratulations", a pair of diss tracks against Indian music record label and film production company T-Series, as the two creators were in competition at the time for the most subscribed YouTube channel. PewDiePie brings up T-Series' shady past, possible mafia collusion, and the fact that they sent him a cease and desist letter for expressing his disdain for their company.
• Randy Rainbow: "A Very Stable Genius" is a parody of the Modern Major General song about how Donald Trump claims to be a "very stable genius", but his actions suggest otherwise. It also claims that he has a Teeny Weenie and an even smaller brain.
• Red vs. Blue Season 14, Episode 20 "Throwdown" features the Red Team and Blue Team having a rap battle in which Sarge and Church go back and forth insulting each other until the Mercenaries show up to lay down their own diss track.
• Strong Bad accidentally creates one in the Strong Bad Email "Sibbie". When a viewer asks Strong Bad to write a song about him, Strong Bad refuses and states he will "never, ever, ever write a song about The Sibbie"... The Cheat ends up turning it into a song that became a big hit. Strong Bad then screams, "I freaking hate Sibbie!" and that immediately ends up becoming a song as well.
• Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: Bob once collaborated with Saiko in making a music video just for money and fame. His video was a diss track at his "friends'" expense but he just didn't care. His friends were not amused that they and Saiko, who didn't realize that the diss track was in mean spirits, made a diss track of their own to counter his.
• Twisted Translations: Sometimes, the Translation Train Wreck results in lines coming off as unintentionally mean and turning the song into a diss track:
  • Subverted for "You've Got a Friend in Me", where the woman singing the translated lyrics is initially very rude to the one singing the actual lyrics, claiming that they're not friends and no one loves her, but then they make up and become friends.
  • In "Friend Like Me", Genie is insulting Aladdin for not having any friends (possibly because Genie's girlfriend likes Aladdin).
• The Underdogs have made a diss track where they jokingly roast other Smash Bros. Youtubers.

Western Animation

• 3rd & Bird: In "Baby Jordan", Muffin sings a song to Jordan about how she dislikes him, or, as she puts it, she "no like" him, for stealing all her attention and not being able to say her name correctly.
• Animaniacs: The Goodpigeons don't take well to the statue of Martin Scorsese in the park being replaced by that of Regis Philbin and proceed to angrily sing about how they refuse to perch on the new statue's head. It's just a statue, but they do sing as if they have a general dislike for Philbin himself.
• In The Boondocks, "Eff Granddad" is an entire rap song from Thugnificent aimed at Robert. To be fair, however, Robert was behaving unreasonably throughout the episode, refusing to leave Thugnificent alone.
  • It's definitely not helped when Granddad rebuts with a Diss Track of his own... one so hilariously awful it has to be seen to be believed.
• Centaurworld: In "Holes: Part 3", Horse and Wammawink sing a passionate duet born out of their jealousy and hate for Becky Apples and Jeffica, respectively.
• In The Fairly OddParents!, "Boys in the Band" is about Vicky wanting to marry Chip Skylark for his money. Timmy rescues Chip, and he performs a song called "Icky Vicky" about her evil nature and bad babysitting service.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "Setting A President", Bloo and Mr Herriman make a song which demonizes Frankie (although nothing they sing is true) and praises Mr Herriman to help the latter keep his job of house president.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Candace's song "E-V-I-L B-O-Y-S" is about how her stepbrothers are "evil" for doing crazy misdeeds such as building roller coasters in the yard and driving cattle through the city.
  • Doof's song in "Tree to Get Ready" is mostly a List Song of people who annoy him, but he caps it off by singing about how his "goody two-shoes brother, the favorite of my mother" is at the top of that list, and he wants to dump pigeon poo on him.
• Regular Show:
  • In "Karaoke Video", while they are drunk in a bar, Mordecai and Rigby sing "We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore", where they insult Benson (saying they can't take anymore garbage from this loser), Skips (calling him a know-it-all who's stuck working as a groundskeeper) and Pops (mocking his unintelligence) without realizing it. When they watch their performance on a tape at home, they are shocked at what they said.
  • In "Rap It Up", Pops is targeted by a rap group with a rude song. Mordecai, Rigby, and Pops enter a rap battle against the group, deflecting their insults back towards them through poetry.
• The Simpsons:
  • "Everybody Hates Ned Flanders" is a song Homer Simpson writes in "Dude, Where's My Ranch?" about his neighbour Ned, and how Homer hates him. He calls him a "stupid jerk" and even makes fun of his wife dying (which Homer himself was at least partly responsible for). Flanders and his kids like the song.
  • "The Great Phatsby" features a rap by Jay G calling out to Mr. Burns for falling for his Obsidian Card scam. Mr. Burns attempts to get back at him by forming a supergroup of artists bearing a grudge against Jay. However, he is thwarted by Jay not only buying the master recording for their song and destroying it, but also bribing the supergroup into changing their opinions on him and Mr. Burns.
  • "Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part Two": After Mr. Burns' chicanery causes Tito Puente to get fired as Springfield Elementary's music teacher, he gets his revenge by writing a salacious mambo.
• South Park: In "Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo," when Kyle's mom shuts down the Christmas pageant due to her Political Overcorrectness, Cartman sings a song about how she's a "big fat bitch." He reprises this during her anti-cursing campaign in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, with everybody else joining in... until Mrs. Broflovski walks up behind Cartman while he's singing.
• Total Drama World Tour:
  • The song "Boyfriend Kisser" is a thread of death threats and insults towards Gwen for kissing Duncan, therefore destroying his relationship with Courtney. Curiously, Duncan gets very little hate, all of it being directed towards Gwen.
    "You're not my new sister, you're a pus-y gothy nasty blister!"
  • "Her Real Name Isn't Blainley" is Geoff's revenge on Blainley for sending his girlfriend to Siberia. He mocks her on national TV by saying how she isn't the person she pretends she is, to the point where even her name is fake.

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