Someone didn’t give Hammer the memo. Last week an occult specialist firmly and finally put to rest all those rumors about Jay-Z and the Illuminati. But that didn’t stop Hammertime from releasing a diss track and video against Jay-Z, accusing him of devil worship.

It’s likely an act of evil when Hammer is reviving himself from the clutches of irrelevance to “battle” Jay-Z, of all people. Nevertheless Hammer has held a grudge against Hova since Jay mentioned him in a track with Kanye West released last month. “Hammer went broke, so you know I’m more focused/I lost 30 mil’, so I spent another 30/’Cause unlike Hammer, 30 million can’t hurt me,” Jay-Z rapped on the song “So Appalled.” Hammer’s financial problems are not only well documented, he has spoken publicly about the bad financial choices that aided in his career’s demise. And yet something about Jay-Z’s verse rubbed him the wrong way.

So MC Hammer did what most broken hearts do these days — log on to Twitter and vent. Hammer released a fury of tweets against Jay-Z, thereafter referring to the rapper as #hellboy. Hammer’s line of assault caters to a rumor that’s been circulating about Hov for a few years now — that he’s a member of secret societies like the Illuminati and Freemasons.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when these rumors about Jay-Z being a member of the Illuminati started. The secret organization that may or may not actually exist is believed to be made up of powerful individuals who are controlling the world and worship the devil, and blah blah blah…it’s the type of stuff conspiracy theorists eat up. Rapper Prodigy began to champion the “Jay-Z is illuminati” rumor back in 2008, and it’s hung around the dark recesses of the Internet since then.

But Jay-Z added fire to the flame when he released his video for “On to the Next One” earlier this year. The odd and disturbing imagery of skulls and masked women dancing wildly confirmed it for some viewers — Jay-Z is illuminati!

Or he’s just really crafty at manipulating rumors to stir up a little publicity. Though Jay himself has denied allegations of devil worship and Illuminati membership, it took an occult specialist to finally get folk to believe that Jay is not a member. “I don’t think he’s an occultist, but I do think he is probably a genius in terms of using imagery,” author and expert Mitch Horowitz told BigThink.com.

For most of the sane and cognizant this was no surprise. Jay-Z might be powerful, but he’s not that powerful. It was easy to mistake Jay’s famous Rock-a-Fella hand signal as the work of a Delta Sigma Theta fanboy, but Freemasonry symbolism? I think not.

And yet Hammer has persisted in his plight. Earlier this week he released the video for his diss track “Better Run Run.” Already reaching several thousand views on YouTube, the video shows a Hov-like character being chased through the woods by the devil. King Hammer, as he now refers to himself, raps “Devil said I’m a give you the world/ He said I’ll take it can you give me a girl.” The video continues with weak analogies and insults, until Hammer finally ends it by baptizing (or drowning?) the Jay-Z character.

Jay-Z has been a good sport about the whole fiasco, recently commenting that Hammer took his lyrics the wrong way. Hammer, however, is holding on to his theory of devil worshipping hip hop stars, going so far as to require all interview requesters first denounce devil via his Twitter feed. Did Hammer take this “beef” too far? Without a doubt. But whether or not Hov worships the devil, Hammer’s exploitation of this rumor is definitely benefiting both parties in the long run.