“We crossed swords a few times and then it turned into a feud”: Fatboy Slim recounts feud with MobyFrom Eminem’s Without Me diss to Aphex Twin apparently calling him an “elitist”, Moby has had a small handful of feuds throughout his career. And it seems Fatboy Slim is the latest to add his name to the pile, admitting that the electronic producer was once his “nemesis”.
Speaking to The Guardian, DJ Norman Cook admits that he and Moby haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. When asked if he had a nemesis, Cook replies: “For a while, Moby. We crossed swords a few times and then it turned into a feud.”

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Cook isn’t exactly the kind of person you’d expect to get into a feud. His acid house mixes are the perfect soundtrack to a good time – but Moby, somehow, managed to grind his gears. “Now, I’m kind of an easy-going person,” Cook admits. “I don’t really get into beefs. But we fell out and we were on each other at that point.”
To some extent, Cook admits that the clash may have been due to how alike they were. Musically, the pair were hugely influential in their own rights, with Cook helping forge big beat as a genre and Moby paving the future of dance music as a whole. “We were quite similar in what we were doing and I think that’s one of the reasons why we got into the feud,” he says.
Over the years, the pair have been pitted against one another by both fans and critics. Back in 2020, Riff magazine noted that Moby and Fatboy Slim embody “turn-of-the-millennium electronica” and “will always be connected”. Elsewhere, the DVD Talk forum has a thread comparing the two DJs, rather hilariously entitled ‘Battle of the Skinny White Boys – Fatboy Slim vs. Moby.’
Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine how Moby managed to ruffle Cook’s feathers. Even when discussing his beef with Eminem with Steve-O’s Wild Ride podcast, he’s quick to try and soften any remaining bitterness, asserting that he thinks Eminem is “really talented”.
And Moby is fully aware that the Eminem feud – and any feud, for that matter – doesn’t suit his message. “[At the time] Howard Stern said… ‘who wants to pick on Moby?’” he recalls. “‘It’s like picking on the weak kid who doesn’t know how to tie his shoelaces.’”

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