Abe Beame’s all time favorite fighters are Bernard Hopkins and LL Cool J.
So this happened. I’m guessing the general consensus will be phony internet beef, but I’m intrigued. After all, this one has been percolating for a while. I have a personal link to a producer who was in Hawaii for portions of the recording of PotW’s all time favorite album, MBDTF. He told me that Drake basically served as a pinata out there (his verse was famously wiped off of “All of the Lights”). While Drake has admitted as much, Kanye always has felt like he moved in on his intellectual property, post-808s, and I always thought Kanye’s heel turn on his last album was a fascinating reaction to the swagger jack. Now things are getting personal, using his rook, er, artist Pusha T to get shit popping.
I guess the question is: is post-50 Cent beef in Hip Hop even possible or is it all calculated marketing strategies? This one has the potential to transcend personalities, an all-out Game of Thrones between the 2 premier camps in rap at the moment. But can anything as resonant as “Ether”/”Takeover”, “2nd Round Knockout”, “Hit Em Up”, “South Bronx”/”Queensbridge” be produced in this post modern era of detached perspective? You get the sense that these are two camps that genuinely dislike each other, despite Kanye and Wayne’s (and Nicki’s) past collaborations, so it feels like something more than an album to plug.
Drake already allegedly jumped into the fray with a freestyle at a show in DC, so this one has nowhere to go but up. I personally thought Drake murdered Common (another Kanye artist who took a shot out of the blue) with “Stay Scheming.” If nothing else it proved that he has a backbone for a battle. We all know Kanye has a penchant for epic rants. This could serve as a defining moment for several of the artists involved. I’m pulling up ringside with a bucket of popcorn and hoping this beef goes somewhere — managing to insert some urgency into what has already been a stellar year for Hip Hop. But what do you think?
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