Joey Badass Appears to Fire Back at Ray Vaughn on “Pardon Me”

It seems like Joey Badass can’t let Ray Vaughn have the last word.

On Tuesday, Badass unleashed his latest track, “Pardon Me,” in which he seems to fire back at the TDE rapper.

“Nobody knows your name kid, but I know what your aim is / I shoot you, I’m brainless, you shoot me, you famous,” Joey raps on the second verse, seemingly suggesting that Vaughn is attempting to gain notoriety in taking shots at him. Badass also borrows the second line from Jay-Z’s 1998 song, “Streets is Watching.”

At the top of the year, on Jan. 1, Badass dropped off the single, “The Ruler’s Back”—another Jigga reference—in which Joey disses West Coast rap and Kendrick Lamar.

“Too much West Coast dick lickin’ / I’m hearin’ n***as throwin’ rocks, really ain’t shit stickin’ / ‘Cause if we talkin’ bar-for-bar, really it’s slim pickings / I rap like I draw pentagrams and kill chickens, n***a,” Badass raps, also a reference to the opening song from Jay’s 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt.

Days later, on Jan. 8, Vaughn responded to Badass with a freestyle over Lamar‘s “The Heart Pt. 6,” called “Crashout Heritage.”

“What’s with the sneak dissin’? Takin’ shots at us, then hide the Uzi / ‘Cause the only badass the world was recognizin’ is Boosie / Please don’t get confused with shootin’ the movies, we really shootin’ / Was on Soul album, so if you ask me, you look like a goofy.”

To ensure that Badass received the message, Vaughn tagged the 2000 rapper when sharing the video online: “2025 no sneak dissin, only crash outs. @joeybadass.”

On Feb. 8, Ray also dropped off another song, “Impossible Patty,” seemingly aimed at Badass as well. “We tired of the impossible patties. @joeybadass,” Vaughn captioned a clip of the song’s music video.