Virginia’s tenured MC Skillz says there’s no way around it, Uncle Murda stole his concept and ran with it. Since 2002, Skillz has been doing a freestyle song called “The Rap Up” that sums up the year in review. Uncle Murda started his own series of the same name and idea in 2014. Until now, the two have been able to co-exist without incident, but last week Skillz dropped another freestyle, this one titled “Murda Gram,” a diss record aimed at Murda (hear it further below). Today, Murda retaliated today with “Why You Mad,” his own freestyle over the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Long Kiss Goodnight.”

“The simple fact [is] that I know I created it,” Skillz said via phone from Virginia while beginning to tell of his qualms with Murda (whom he referred to as a “dumb rapper with a smartphone”).

“I know before 2002, there was nobody putting out one song that summarized all of the things that happened in hip-hop and pop culture,” said Skillz. “I know for a fact nobody was doing that before me. Anybody that say ‘Rap Up,’ you got it from me. It’s blogs called ‘Rap Up’ now. It’s cool. But you know in the early days of YouTube and Vine, you would have these Vine stars and YouTube stars and they all would be doing their ‘rap ups.’ But they all would be, ‘Shout out to Mad Skillz,’ ’cause they knew. I ain’t never had nobody be like, ‘Fuck Mad Skillz. This the real ‘Rap Up,’ fuck that nigga.’”

Well, that is, he hadn’t heard it until last week.

Murda’s “Rap Up” of 2017 was the first of his offerings that Skillz decided to listen to. And he got an earful to say the least. Murda starts off saying, “Don’t nobody wanna hear Mad Skillz shit.”

“He would say in interviews, ‘[Mad Skillz] is the PG version. I’m the R version,” the Grammy-nominated songwriter lamented. “Nah, nigga, you’re the biting version. Say what it is. You bit it. You keep saying you ‘took it.’ No nigga, you bit it. Up until this point, I didn’t really care.”

But what sent Skillz over the edge was an alleged direct message on Instagram that he received from Murda in which the Brooklynite told him he “fell off.”

So Skillz retaliated with “Murda Gram.” Besides calling him “thirsty,” Skillz takes aim at Murda’s real name, his dad, and says he signed to “G-Unit 10 years too late.” He raps: “And you can gun talk all day, that’s yours / But you ain’t seein’ me with these goddamn bars / You will never say you took me / Before that happens, Young M.A will give you some pussy.”

“People still asking me today who Uncle Murda is,” Skillz said. “I’m like, ‘He’s just somebody who needed to catch it.’ I don’t know why the DM got me. I was like, ‘Nah man, you gonna catch these bars.’ To get back in that chamber was ill. It was never a question if I was sure if I still had it. It was fun. I’ve been DJing heavy so I wasn’t focused on rapping. It was like riding a bike. It wasn’t hard getting back to.”

Some lines that are bound to raise eyebrows are: “And what I’m about to say might piss New York off / But you the reason why New York soft.”

“I don’t have a problem with New York,” Skillz insisted. “If you would have told me back in the day [that] cats from Brooklyn would be biting from cats from VA, I would have told you, ‘No way.’ I don’t respect Murda enough as a Brooklyn rapper to feel my pen gotta be sharp. When I think of Brooklyn rappers with bars, I don’t think of Uncle Murda. I don’t want credit for lighting Uncle Murda’s ass up, that’s not even a real battle. If it was somebody else from the borough or New York, I would say, ‘I gotta get right.’ I look at New York as the Mecca. But it’s changed. It’s not the hotbed for music like when I was coming up. I would never disrespect the city [but] I feel like he’s a soft nigga from New York. I put it that way.”

Skillz’s opinion aside, Murda has never been shy about speaking his mind on record and he has never been shy about jumping into a rap battle. Regardless, Skillz says he’s not engaging Murda anymore.

“It’s one and done,” Skillz promised. “When have we ever heard Uncle Murda spit some bars or is it a whole lot of ra-ra East New York shit? I need bars. Bar it up.”