Lil Tjay doesn’t mention his online rival outright on his new single “Can’t Change,” but the message behind the record feels unmistakably directed at Adin Ross.
On the track, Tjay reflects on his upbringing, the survival mindset that came with it, and the difficulty of changing habits shaped by his environment—even as his circumstances improve. Shortly after the song dropped, the Bronx rapper took to Instagram and tagged Ross in a post featuring the record’s opening verse. “tis some shii you’ll just NEVA understand … 💔🩹,” he wrote, a move spotted by DJ Akademiks TV.
While the song itself avoids naming names, the post makes it clear Tjay’s perspective is personal. The implication seems to be that Ross—and others outside the culture—can’t truly grasp what Tjay experienced growing up, or how those experiences still shape him today. In that sense, the track reframes their ongoing online tension as something far less important than lived reality.
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The friction between Tjay and Ross isn’t new. It traces back to a livestream involving Kai Cenat and Kodak Black that sparked concern among viewers over Kodak’s condition. Tjay criticized both Ross and Cenat, accusing them of exploiting moments like that for content—though his sharpest words were aimed at Ross.
At one point, Tjay said he called Ross a “culture vulture,” claiming Ross responded by accusing him of drug use—an allegation Tjay strongly denied and framed as a racist assumption. Since then, Ross has fired back in his own ways, including trolling Tjay online and being loosely connected to diss-style responses through other creators.
Why Tjay chose this moment to tag Ross alongside such a reflective song isn’t entirely clear. But rather than escalating the beef directly, “Can’t Change” positions the conflict as secondary—almost irrelevant—compared to the realities Tjay raps about.
Whether this marks a turning point or just another chapter remains to be seen. Given their history, it’s unlikely this will be the last time the rapper and streamer cross paths online—even if, this time, the message came without a single name-drop.