Arby’s slogan is “We Have The Meats.” Well, apparently Arby’s also now has beef with one of its biggest rivals.
And in the latest salvo in the cut-throat fast-food war, the sandwich chain, which is privately owned by Roark Capital Group, recruited an unexpected ally with a personal grudge against McDonald’s.
Arby’s latest internet ad “Spicy Fish Diss,” features the Virginia-based rapper Pusha T, aka Terrence LeVarr Thornton, just absolutely ethering McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich, with a series of disses so brutal that Ronald McDonald will no doubt have to go into witness protection.
Pusha T is the consummate rapper’s rapper, known for detailed storytelling and sharp wordplay, and he brings those skills to bear on the song.
“Filet-o-Fish is s**t/And you should be disgusted,” he scowls, adding “A little cube of fish from a clown is basic/ Say less, this argument is baseless/ Drowned in tartar/that Filet-O-Fish is tasteless.”
Before he went onto a solo career that’s included collaborations with Kanye West, including the iconic “Runaway," Jay-Z and Ty Dolla Sign, he made his name with the duo Clipse, alongside his brother Gene Thornton, who now raps as "No Malice.”
The duo’s second album Hell Hath No Fury is considered one of the best rap albums of the ‘00s by critics and hip-hop aficionados. It’s also an album length thesis statement on the ins and outs of selling cocaine, filled with both practical advice and rumination on the toils of the drug industry.
So on paper, Pusha T might be considered an unexpected choice for a fast food company to embrace.
But if you want to stick it to your rival, it can’t hurt to recruit one of the fiercest rappers alive. And staying true to his brand, King Push manages to slip in a bar referencing his coke rap past: “If you know me and you know me well/ Our fish is gonna tip that scale.”
The song, which features a tight, string-laden beat and an evocative video featuring a scared clown and an angry bear eating a fish, is paid advertisement, but on his Twitter page, Pusha included the hashtag #ArbysPaidMeButIWouldSayThisAnyway.
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Why Does Pusha T Have Beef With McDonald’s?
Pusha T is not a man you want to cross.
He’s been feuding with Drake for years, and in 2018 dropped the diss track “The Story of Adidon,” in which he revealed the pop rapper had fathered a child in secret, which in Pusha’s view made him a deadbeat dad.
While rap beefs are part of the whole hip hop game, rappers having a vendetta against a fast food chain is much rarer. However, in this case, it does come with a back story.
It all comes back to McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle, one of the franchise’s long-running and most recognizable advertising campaigns.
Pusha T claims Clipse wrote part of that song, alongside the production duo The Neptunes (who produced Clipse’ first two albums) and Justin Timberlake, and that he only paid a one-time fee but no royalties.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, he said “I am solely responsible for the ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ swag and the jingle of that company. That’s just real. I am the reason. Now I gotta crush it.”
Many parties have disputed Pusha’s claim, and it turns out the making of the jingle is a surprisingly murky topic. But clearly, Pusha is still mad at his lack of royalties.
“I did it at a very young age at a very young time in my career where I wasn’t asking for as much money and ownership," he said. "It’s something that’s always dug at me later in life like, ‘Dammit, I was a part of this and I should have more stake.’ It was like half a million or a million dollars for me and my brother — but that’s peanuts for as long as that’s been running.”
“I had to get that energy off me, and this [ad] was the perfect way to get that energy like, ‘You know what? I’m over it,’” he said.
Pusha T and Arby’s go way back to 2018, when the company licensed the 2014 EDM hit “Burial,” which is credited to Pusha T, Yogi and Skrillex for the We Have the Meats” campaign.
Even though his voice doesn’t appear in the ad, he owns 40% of the track and gets paid every time it airs.
McDonald’s hasn’t responded to the diss yet, but the brand does have a surprisingly deep connection to hip hop.
The company has a partnership with Travis Scott, and footage of his fans ordering his McDonald’s Travis Scott Meal went viral last year, but the company cut ties with him in the wake of the disaster at his AstroWorld festival left 10 people dead.
But long before that, the company also cut its own rap video advertisement in the 1980s, that features Ronald McDonald being a total hater and pointing out that the rapping McNuggets couldn’t sing.
Twitter Is Eating This Up
A very serious rapper going unreasonably hard on a fast food fish sandwich is just the sort of story Twitter loves, and plenty of people had jokes as soon as the dis dropped.
