Back when Common's now-classic "Resurrection" dropped he took a memorable subliminal diss at the whole west-coast on his song "I Used To Love H.E.R." with this line: "But then she broke to the west coast/ and that was cool/ Cause around the same time, I went away to school/ And Im a man of expandin, so why should I stand in her way/ She probably get her money in L.A./". And "I wasn't salty, she was with the boys in the hood". Of course, Common said this pretty naively, and had good reason for saying it (he was coming from hip-hop's perspective)... realistically "Boyz N The Hood" hadn't done anything positive for conscious hip-hop. But Ice Cube, looking at sagging popularity and lack of respect, took it as an insult. He then banded together with Mack 10 and WC (aka Dub-C) to create Westside Connection. And together they made the infamous "Westside Slaughterhouse", where Ice Cube took the subliminal diss by Common and blatantly insulted him on the wax:
"Used to love her, mad cause we fucked her
Pussy whipped bitch with no common sense
Hip hop started in the west,
Ice Cube bellin' through the East without a vest"



If you watch "Beef" the documentary, they show footage where Common is interviewed and he admits to being apprehensive to releasing a diss track. I wish I could find that footage, because everyone always assumes that Common was hungry to participate in the east-west beef of that time. And he wanted to separate himself from his "conscious" rap label. Right after "Westside Slaughterhouse" came out, Common recorded "The Bitch In Yoo", produced by Pete Rock (more proof that Common is proud of his place in hip-hop). But waited to release it, and was very weary of the consequences. Of course, nowadays we know that Common defeated Cube, and his mighty pen would not be challenged again so carelessly.



In this song, Common played it clever, and he really tore into Cube throughout. Although the song was great, I think Common unanimously won the beef when he proved that Cube was a gangster on T.V. and a Nation of Islam member at the same time.
You have to give Common the advantage in this beef. He had the advantage from the start, "I Used To Love H.E.R." is superior to both the diss records (and 99.999% of all other hip-hop songs). Disregarding that, and the fact that Ice Cube took offense to a small insignificant, sub-sub-subliminal statement... you still come to the conclusion that Common won this beef because "The Bitch In Yoo" is "Ether" of the 90's. Plus whose fucked with Common Sense since?