Will Smith Catches Stray In Joey Badass and Ray Vaughn Beef

Vaughn joked that Joey's "ABK" song sounds like it.

July 19, 2025
Joey Badass, Will Smith, and Ray Vaughn
(Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)/(Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)/. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)

Will Smith caught a stray in Joey Badass and Ray Vaughn’s beef. Let’s hope that Big Willie doesn’t hop in the booth now to address the two because they won’t be able to handle that smoke.

Vaughn hopped on X to react to Joey’s new single, “ABK.” The rapper let it be known that he wasn’t a fan of Joey’s verse by posting a clip of Will Smith’s Lunch Break freestyle to suggest it sounded similar.

“That NEW JOEY VERSE ON ABK WAS LIKE😂😂😂😂😂😂😂,” wrote Vaughn.

Vaughn insinuated that he’d be responding with a follow-up message, writing, “I don’t want nobody in Cali gettin in. Cause he gone cry 20v1.”

Joey dropped “ABK” on July 17 as the first single from his upcoming album, Lonely At The Top. On the track, Joey asserts his claim as one of New York’s best emcees with the lines, “The question rhetorical, who the King of New York is? / “If it ain’t me, then who?/ I’ma need the proof/ If ni**as want to try to dispute, tell them get in the booth.”

Ahead of its release, Joey got candid about whether he should rank himself as the best or not during a conversation with TMZ. “I don’t really think it’s my place to rank myself — you know I’m biased,” he explained. “I think that I’m one of the illest, but that’s me and I think I’m supposed to feel like that."

“I definitely think there’s a lot more work to do, and I’m inspired and charged up to do that work so that the world can get in tune with what I already know,” he added.

Joey and Vaughn have been going back and forth for months after the former made a comment about West Coast rap on the song “The Ruler is Back.”

In the time since, Joey’s been busy applying pressure to Vaughn’s neck by allegedly filing a trademark for “TDEast,” dissing him during a Red Bull Spiral Freestyle, and calling out Kendrick Lamar because he wants more of a challenge.