genre, fueled by the hip-hop rivalry phenomenon (especially the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry of the mid-1990s). More recently, entertainers from outside the traditional music landscape have adopted the genre.

In the course of constructing their argument, artists often include a wealth of references to past events and transgressions in their diss tracks, which listeners can dive into. Artists who are the subject of a diss track often make one of their own in response