DJ Akademiks has heard the “feds” accusation before, but hearing it from Lil Baby, on camera, in the middle of an Atlanta music video shoot, was apparently enough to make him respond with force.
Footage recently surfaced of Baby delivering the line, “Fuck Akademiks that n***a the feds,” while out in Atlanta filming new visuals. The clip spread fast, and Ak was ready.
Half of Atlanta rappers documented on audio tape telling to cops including half the n***s he still call ‘TWIN’ … is this n***a stupid … if I’m the Feds… young thug the lieutenant I report to him,” Akademiks fired back on social media.
Half of Atlanta rappers documented on audio tape telling to cops including half the niggas he still call “TWIN” … is this nigga stupid … if I’m the Feds… young thug the lieutenant I report to him. https://t.co/DdJKc0O6sA
— DJ Akademiks (@Akademiks) June 8, 2026
The response was pointed: by invoking Young Thug and the RICO trial that rocked Atlanta’s rap scene, Ak turned the fed accusation back onto Baby’s own circle.
This beef has roots going back to October 2022, when Lil Baby dropped his album “It’s Only Me” and took two shots at Akademiks on wax. On “Top Priority,” he rapped, “Akademiks, n***as think they can’t get touched.” On “From Now On” featuring Future, he went after Ak’s pockets: “Akademiks know he ain’t as rich as me.”
Akademiks played it off with laughing emojis at first, then escalated on Twitch, joking that if Baby ever ended up in a RICO case, he’d show up to testify against him. Baby later went on “The Breakfast Club” to clarify that the “Akademiks” line wasn’t a direct threat, just a reference to internet critics in general. Ak wasn’t buying it.
The feud reached its ugliest point in January 2026, when Baby’s assistant K-Rich allegedly slapped Akademiks at a Brand Risk event in Miami. Ak went on a multi-day livestream meltdown, calling Baby a “p*ssy,” challenging him to fight, and dropping a significant claim: that Quality Control Music had previously paid him $30,000 to promote Baby’s music and ease the tension, a payment he says was followed by the Miami ambush.
Streamer Adin Ross later revealed Baby was open to a celebrity boxing match, but only at a reported price of $40 million. Akademiks passed.
By March 2026, when Baby and Young Thug were spotted together sparking collab rumors, Akademiks was back on livestream clowning both. In May 2026, he publicly lobbied Drake to keep Baby off the “ICEMAN” album entirely, saying: “Yo, Drake, please. You don’t need this n***a on ICEMAN. Please… Leave this n***a in Sephora aisle three.”
Now, Baby is back in the booth taking shots, and Ak, true to form, isn’t letting it breathe.
These two have been circling each other since 2022, and every time a quiet period sets in, one of them reignites it. Baby seems content using his music as the vehicle. Akademiks is happy to respond on every platform available to him. With new music apparently in the works from Baby’s camp and Ak already on record predicting it’ll be “garbage,” the next chapter of this rivalry is already being written.
