When the Aztec emperor Montezuma met Spanish conquistador Cortés, he offered him his throne. In the eyes of Aztec elites, who spoke an arcane and exceedingly formal dialect, this was a great show of disrespect. Politeness for the Aztecs signaled superiority. However, the Spanish interpreted the gesture in the manner that persists today: as the Aztecs acknowledging Cortés to be the fulfillment of divine prophecy. What became of dissing in code? Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, hidden in caves, emerging in cities…

If you listened to the viral diss songs coming out of Jacksonville, Florida, you might mistake them for love songs. On March 28, rapper Yungeen Ace with friends SpinaBenz, Whoppa Wit Da Choppa, & FastMoney Goon released a music video titled “Who I Smoke.” As of May 2021, it has over 17 million views on YouTube. The video shows the young gentlemen on a golf course, dappered in polos and fancy watches, rapping over 2000s hit “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. “Cause you know I'd walk a thousand miles if I could just see you,” she begins. SpinaBenz looks into the camera and grins:

“When I see you, I'ma push your shit back, boy / Choppa get to spitting through your set, we don't fight, boy / Twelve paramedics couldn't save your fucking life, boy! / Rod K dead and he never coming back, boy!”

The boys flock together and point towards heaven for the hook: “Who I smoke? Bibby! Who I smoke? Teki! Who I smoke? Lil 9! And now I wonder…”

It’s an amazing moment. Unfortunately, Bibby, Teke, Lil Nine, and Rod K are all real people—were people. Teenagers. They are the dead “opps,” enemies, of Yungeen Ace and his ATK crew. They were gunned down in gang-related incidents and the song is an attempt to humiliate their surviving crews.

It was only natural that a few weeks later, Bibby’s older brother, Florida rapper Foolio, released “When I See You Remix.” Over a stirring R&B beat first used by Fantasia, he escalated the level of disrespect, clowning a 2018 triple homicide in which Yungeen Ace’s younger brother and two friends were shot and killed while celebrating a birthday. Ace got shot eight times but survived, traumatically. In the video, Foolio dances at a graveyard with a printout of the three victims, singing “happy birthday” and how he’s “smoking 23,” the nickname of one of the fallen. “When I See You Remix” has over 6 million views on YouTube and is Foolio’s biggest record to date.

This is the new norm in Jacksonville, a city whose drill scene is based upon clowning the dead. While the Chicago and UK drill scenes also bring up dead opps in their music, Jacksonville takes it to a whole new level. Shortly after 16-year-old Bibby’s death, one ATK member, Ksoo, released an album called “Bibby Out.” The art featured the faces of deceased rivals—deceased rivals that some on social media allege Ksoo personally killed. Ksoo, along with his father who is accused of aiding him, is now awaiting trial for Bibby’s murder.

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The key innovation of Yungeen Ace and Foolio’s two new diss songs, “Who I Smoke” and “When I See You Remix,” is in swinging the “you” from the love songs they sample towards their opps. Call it smooth drill: making threats and disses over love songs. While Ksoo’s “Bibby Out” album cover is cruel and inaccessible, you can play “Who I Smoke” at Bar Mitzvahs—and I’m sure kids are. Like many great gangsta rap moments, from Cam’ron’s pink campaign to Young Thug’s “we smokin penises!!!” Tweet, Jacksonville’s new disses fuse ignorance, comedy, and vague pause-worthiness. “You always on my mind,” sings Foolio, reviving the lost Aztec art of dissing in code. “Riding through Melvin with that iron, I wanna see you…”

Of course, the real violence behind these viral videos is unfathomable. Both Yungeen Ace and Foolio have lost over 20 people each in the streets. Sources estimate Jacksonville to have over 100 operating gangs, including ATK (Yungeen Ace and cohorts), 6Block/Vontaland (Foolio, Cojack, Rod K, Teki), Young & Ruthless (Lil 9), KTA (enemies of ATK), 1200, Raloway, Keepshooting 4KS, 5020, Double O 9300, Backstreet, and more. The subreddit r/DuvalCounty does an excellent job of documenting the city’s conflicts. But the central narrative here is the stuff of movies—a beef between Jackonsville’s two biggest stars from its two biggest crews.

In one corner is Yungeen Ace, 23, repping ATK. Ace does the biggest numbers, over 30 million for some YouTube videos, and has the biggest following outside Jacksonville. He’s handsome—though he looks far too weathered for his age—and doesn’t have any face tattoos. If he can beat the cops and the opps, he can go mainstream. If. In one of his recent singles, “Gun Em Down,” he sings about his tortured responsibilities: “I’m trying to take like ten of yours if you take ten of mine…gun em down, gun em down, gun em down / you say my name, we gotta gun em down.”

In the other corner is Foolio, 22, repping 6Block. Haitian, jumbo dreadlocked, and often found in graveyards (he claims to have filmed over 20 videos in cemeteries), Foolio is considered by some to be Florida’s most hated rapper. He was the first rapper popping in Jacksonville—many of his opps were first seen in his videos—and claims credit for starting the city’s drill scene, which he acknowledges is centered on clowning dead opps. “People wasn’t talking about dead people in my city,” he asserts. “I started that.”

Though it’s tempting to see Foolio as the Joker to Ace’s Batman, it’s unfair to see him as the only villain. Yungeen Ace is just as ruthless: “Know I’m smoking [homeboy], and one thing, they just can’t get him back,” he gloats in “Who I Smoke.” When an interviewer asked Foolio how he’d like to be remembered, he said “as a funny, lighthearted dude who was loyal to his team,” though he had no remorse for the family members of his dead opps: “It comes with the streets.” Foolio also said that after Ace’s “Who I Smoke” video, which plastered the names of his dead brothers on screen, he needed to defend them.

The dead are one of civilization’s last remaining taboos. Corpse mutiliation is considered a war crime by the Geneva Convention. But in a very twisted way—squint your eyes—the diss videos are also a way of honoring the dead. Bibby, so ignobly clowned in “Who I Smoke,” is given his respect by Foolio in “When I See You Remix”: “Ralo died with his heat / for speaking on Big B / Haha! Rest up Bibby!” Foolio says.

Whatever you want to call this genre—happy drill, smooth drill—it’s definitely something new. I’m sure some oldhead will disagree, but this is the arrival of such a feeling in our time, a new way of terrorizing the enemy. A few cultural trends led up to this moment, the foremost being the pervasive nihilism of Gen-Z artists. The utter disregard for life. They say 20 is the new 27: XXXTentacion, Juice WRLD, and Lil Peep all died around that age. Others got locked up: YNW Melly and Tay-K. 6ix9ine would be too but he snitched.

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Yet it’s hard not to see 6ix9ine’s influence in the social media antics. We all remember when 6ix9ine went to O Block to mock the Chicago rappers he beefed with. After “Who I Smoke” dropped, Foolio went to Ace’s neighborhood and danced around a Melvin Park sign. Examining further, one could also say that the antisocial tendencies and goth energy that surround so many Florida rappers nowadays, but especially Foolio, began with Spaceghostpurrp.

In the beef between Yungeen Ace and Foolio, it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Our demand for authenticity and our fetish for violence are encouraging these young men to play “Call of Duty in real life,” as one YouTube commenter said. We’re rewarding them with millions of views and intoxicating fame. Club appearances and hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve seen Instagram videos of white high school students in party buses chanting the names of Foolio’s and Yungeen Ace’s dead younger brothers.

A few days ago, Yungeen Ace dropped the “Who I Smoke” instrumental with the hook attached, allowing anyone to insert their “dead opps” into the song. I’m sure mainstream rappers will jump on, alongside both hood and suburban youth. I’m sure Yungeen Ace and Foolio will only get bigger, provided these videos aren’t their demise—whether from gang retaliation or authorities who are watching and listening closely. Once you go there you can’t go back. The results will be entertaining, but the consequences are tragic.

Editor’s Note: One day after publication of this article, a new video by YTK named “Let It Off” sampling Mariah Carey’s “Shake It Off” emerged. It appears this new genre of “smooth drill” is here to stay.

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