Papoose and Remy Ma Trade Diss Tracks After Nearly Two Decades of Marriage

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2026 — They were the couple hip-hop pointed to when it wanted to prove love could survive the industry, the prison bids, and the tabloids. Now Papoose and Remy Ma are doing what divorcing rappers have always done — taking it to the booth. His diss record "Jezebel," released September 11, climbed to No. 16 on YouTube's Trending Videos chart. Her rebuttal arrived September 25 in the form of Alimony, a surprise six-track EP whose title carries a deliberate wink at Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear — one of the rawest divorce albums ever recorded.

The feud has grown big enough that NPR weighed in. In his October 2 "Discursive Verses" column, Rodney Carmichael framed it plainly: after nearly 20 years of marriage, the two have gone "from relationship goals to hardcore foes," and the drama has pushed Papoose to what might be the most commercially viable song of his career.

The marriage that was the model

To understand why this one stings, you have to remember what they were. Papoose (born Shamele Mack) and Remy Ma (born Reminisce Mackie) married in 2008, and the origin story was the stuff of legend: he stood by her through a six-year prison sentence, kept her name alive, and built a brand around their loyalty. They became fixtures of Love & Hip Hop: New York, welcomed a daughter in 2018, and turned "Black love" from a hashtag into a business plan. When people said hip-hop marriages don't last, Pap and Remy were the counterargument.

That is precisely why the collapse has played out so publicly. For months, rumors swirled about the state of the marriage — fueled in part by Papoose's increasingly visible connection to boxer Claressa Shields, with whom reports say he has discussed marriage plans. In May 2025, Papoose filed for divorce. Since then, almost nothing about the split has stayed private.

"Jezebel": the opening shot

Papoose's "Jezebel" is the record that moved the fight from social media to wax. Dropped September 11, it leveled two serious charges: that Remy cheated during their marriage, and — the one that detonated across hip-hop — that he secretly wrote some of her rhymes.

For Remy, a lyricist whose pen is her entire identity, the ghostwriting claim was the dagger. As Carmichael noted in the NPR piece, "of all the daggers thrown, the one that lit a fire to Remy's pen is the claim that her ex wrote her raps." And the song worked: No. 16 on YouTube's Trending Videos chart made it, by Carmichael's measure, possibly the biggest commercial moment of Papoose's career.

Remy's answer: the Alimony EP

Two weeks later, Remy fired back with a full project. Alimony — six tracks, surprise-released September 25 — features Keke Wyatt, Tink, and ROE, with production credited to Hitmaka and Ron Browz. The centerpiece is "Why I Get Married?," a duet with Wyatt that arrived with an official video tracing a relationship through four stages: a dream wedding, emotional isolation, and finally walking away. The opener, "Rem The Pen," wastes no time: it name-drops Nicki Minaj and plants Remy's flag squarely on her own songwriting, answering the ghostwriting charge head-on.

She rolled the project out like a statement. At a September 25 release event, Remy took the stage in an all-black fit with a leather jacket that had "Jezebel" written across the back — Papoose's diss title, reclaimed as her own armor — plus a "Jezebel" chain. "We live in a society where if you don't say something, that means it's true," she told the crowd. "Don't bother me. When you do bother me, you get things like the Alimony EP." She added that she would never again "play small to make a man feel big," and made a point of saying she's still penning her own rhymes.

Why the title matters

Alimony is not just a title — it's a reference with teeth. Marvin Gaye's 1978 double album Here, My Dear was recorded after Gaye was ordered to pay the proceeds toward spousal support to his ex-wife Anna Gordy. He turned the obligation into one of the most brutally honest divorce records ever made: bitter, tender, and unflinching. By naming her EP Alimony, Remy places her record in that lineage — the divorce as art, the settlement as songwriting fuel. NPR's Carmichael called the parallel "an intentional play," and it's hard to read it any other way.

The ghostwriting war

Strip away the cheating allegations — both have accused each other of affairs — and the fight that actually matters to hip-hop is the one over the pen. Remy has been one of the most respected lyricists of her generation since her Terror Squad days; her 2016 comeback single "All the Way Up" with Fat Joe earned Grammy nominations and went multi-platinum. The idea that her bars were secretly Papoose's cuts at the foundation of that reputation.

She has denied it outright, and she has backup. Fat Joe — her longtime collaborator — has said publicly that he never personally witnessed anyone writing Remy's rhymes. On "W.Y.F.L." and now "Rem The Pen," she's essentially asked the same question: how does someone claim ownership of her pen after decades of her being recognized as an elite MC? It's a fair question, and the culture seems to be siding with her on it.

Two versions of the same breakup

The music is only half the story. The split has also played out in court filings, leaked text messages, and viral audio. Papoose has posted text exchanges with his lawyer about the divorce settlement — disputes over three shared properties, counteroffers, and his demand to be paid for music he says he wrote for Remy. "I tried to be nice," he wrote in one message, closing the thread with a warning that "a fight is inevitable."

Remy, for her part, has accused Papoose of cheating and, in audio that circulated widely, said he hasn't seen their daughter in months: "He don't even pick up my daughter. He don't even call her. She hasn't seen him in months," she said, adding, "No child support, no nothing!" A judge reportedly denied Remy's motion to dismiss Papoose's initial filing during a public virtual court appearance, and the case grinds on.

Papoose, meanwhile, has asked fans to keep supporting Remy while rejecting what he calls "false narratives" about him. Neither side appears interested in keeping the divorce private — and at this point, the privacy ship has sailed.

What the culture makes of it

Carmichael's NPR column lands on the uncomfortable truth: "Either Remy and Papoose are really hurt or really smart — or really, both — to monetize their messy divorce like this." He's not sure whether the diss-war-as-rollout is "a new pinnacle in rap worth celebrating or crying over," but he gives the couple "an easy pass" — their worst offense, he writes, is falling short of some respectability code.

There's a larger point tucked inside his column, too. Carmichael connects the "Jezebel" chart moment to a real industry grievance: at the top of 2026, YouTube stopped sharing streaming data with Billboard after a dispute over chart methodology, meaning a record can dominate YouTube — as "Jezebel" did — and barely register on the Hot 100. "Rap doesn't fall off the charts, after spending eight years in power, without heavy institutional levers being pulled," he argues. The diss war, in other words, is also a case study in how the culture measures hits now.

For now, the scoreboard reads: one diss track, one EP, one trending chart, one marriage over. The divorce is still unresolved, the court dates are still coming, and neither Papoose nor Remy has shown any sign of putting the pen down. Hip-hop has seen divorces before. It has rarely seen one this good at generating content.

Our music desk is tracking the Papoose–Remy Ma split as it develops, and the culture desk has more on the stories shaping the conversation.