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Lil Baby Calls Out DJ Akademiks in New Clip; Akademiks Fires Back
A short video from June 8 reignited the long-running Lil Baby vs. DJ Akademiks feud after Baby spits a line calling Akademiks "the feds." Akademiks answered on X, dragging in Atlanta connections. The rivalry—diss tracks, a slap claim, and talk of a boxing match—remains unresolved.
There is a particular cruelty to public feuds in the age of short clips and unfiltered X posts: they land like paper cuts, persistent and hard to ignore. On Monday, June 8, a brief video that circulated on X and hip-hop channels did that kind of damage — showing Lil Baby on what was reported to be a France set, landing a line that reopens an old wound.
In the clip Baby spits, “F**k Akadamik, that ni**a the feds.” It’s a short bar, blunt and deliberate, and the footage was enough to restart the back-and-forth between the Atlanta rapper and streamer DJ Akademiks.
Akademiks didn’t let the line sit unanswered. He posted on X a post that reads like a snipe and a threat rolled into one:
“Half of Atlanta rappers documented on audio tape telling to cops including half the niggas he still call ‘TWIN’ Is this ni**a stupid … if I’m the Feds… young thug the lieutenant I report to him.”
The reply tracks the contours of a feud that has stretched for years: criticism of music, diss records, online scavenging for dirt, and then an escalation into personal encounters. In 2022, Akademiks publicly criticized Lil Baby’s work in the build-up to the rapper’s album It’s Only Me. Baby answered on wax — notably on “From Now On” featuring Future and the track “Top Priority” — where he targeted the streamer by name.
Elsewhere in the timeline, Akademiks went even further when rumors swirled that authorities were investigating Baby, saying he would testify. The two then traded insults throughout 2023 and into 2024, punctuated by social-media callouts and reposted clips.
Earlier this year the feud briefly threatened to spill off the timeline and into real life. Lil Baby’s assistant, K Rich, claimed he slapped Akademiks during an encounter; Akademiks has confirmed the attempt but denied it landed. On a later stream Akademiks recounted the moment with an expletive-laced dismissal:
“Lil Baby, eat a d**k, ni**a. I’m not even gonna address [K-Rich]. You eat a d**k, ni**a.”
Rumors of a boxing match between the two were floated in the aftermath, a ready-made spectacle for a culture that increasingly seeks physical resolution for online beef. That match never materialized, but the idea itself says a lot about how these conflicts are consumed — negotiated through spectacle, then monetized, then recycled.
What feels notable now is how a single line in a short clip can resurface a half-decade of tension. Both men have careers that depend on attention: Baby as an artist whose albums and features still move streaming numbers and festival bookings; Akademiks as a commentator whose reach depends on controversy and scoops. Neither stands to benefit much from simmering quiet.
There’s also a local color to the argument. This is partly an Atlanta story — a city where alliances and rivalries are often embedded in studio sessions and shared histories. Akademiks’ post drags in those shared connections by name, calling out people Baby still calls “twin,” which is meant to sting as much as the diss on record.
For now the exchange is a reopening: a video clip, a social-post rebuttal, old diss records, an attempted slap, a canceled fight. It’s messy and familiar, the way many rap arguments have been over the last decade. It will likely follow the usual arc — more comments, more clips, maybe another bar on a future track. Or it will fade, until the next line finds a place in someone’s timeline and the cycle begins again.
See Lil Baby’s diss on Akademiks on “From Now On” and “Top Priority,” and listen back to Akademiks’ on-the-record takes if you want the full chronology. This one is still unfolding.
