Rap Beef Fallout

What happened with all the noise about the rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake? The news of the release of one diss track after another blew up social media just a few weeks ago. It seemed to be the talk of our community over a weekend, a reprieve from the noises of college campuses. But as quickly as that fire started to burn, it suddenly disintegrated. The hype and excitement vanished almost overnight. From my view, it was because superficial conflicts are like sparks; they flare up quickly but burn out just as fast. Nevertheless, something about the beef resonated inside of me and brought back memories of an exodus of Blacks that found freedom in Rap music.

Rap Evolution

Growing up in the eighties, I witnessed rap take form and grow like a seed. When the Black community shifted from “Ain’t no stopping us now” to “Rapper’s Delight,” I was in the youthful stride of my life. As a teenager, I watched with googly eyes when Ice Cube appeared on MTV dressed in all black with a fresh Jerry curl and his bad attitude. I am young enough to remember the days when people carried their jukeboxes blasting Run DMC or Easy E like Radio Raheem.

I am just old enough to remember how rap started to bloom and hit the mainstream with lyrics of resistance and poetic stanzas that told the stories of ghetto life in melodic form.

I will confess, when I was really young, I approached rap with disinterest. Growing up there had been so much hype around the lyrics until I mostly just stayed away. It was take it or leave it. But in my community, music fans debated and critiqued KRS-One and Mobb Deep, Mos Def and NWA and Run DMC, OutKast and LL Cool J, The Roots and Talib Kweli, Eminem and Dr. Dre, Queen Latifah, Foxy Brown and Roxanne, Kanye West and Lauryn—I fell in love with rap because of Tupac.

Long gone are the days when rappers described in poetic detail the conditions of the black community. Today, songs like Tupac’s "Brenda’s Got a Baby," a ghetto classic, doesn’t resonate with a generation that is now given permission to kill their babies. Yesterday, rap represented a generation that struggled, survived, made it to the other side and repented. We all understood what Biggie meant when he made the confession, “when I die, I want to go to hell—.”

Whatever our route we march to the same drum and believed we could escape the projects and prisons. Rap told the stories of the overcomers. How we made it out the gutter. We have loved, cried, sacrificed, failed, fought, and lost tremendously, but by the grace of God and on the heels of the street sounds of our community, we have crossed over and now we stand in the promised land—looking back. That is not the same narrative shaping the history of millennial rap today.

Current State of Rap

Today’s rap music is based on the most profane ideas and abuses that propaganda can offer. Rap purports to be gangster but is, in fact, absolutely not. Mainstream rap is a watered-down version of what it once was. It’s commercial and generic, providing our children with superficial images of materialism and the sacrificing of their soul for access to obtain silver and gold.

At first glance, it seems as if rap has always been about cars, jewelry, and hoes, and there is some truth to that. But my generation, the progenitors of hip-hop, learned that rap was about our stories—a melodic voice of people searching for a way out. While rap music today is focused on materialism, it’s about upscaling the use of the most illicit and immoral behaviors imaginable and making a fortune doing it. Kendrick Lamar and Drake's series of diss tracks represent a Western ideology that belies the basis for the genre of music they represent.

My own reflection

The beef is between the elite and the bourgeoisie, thus the one line that resonated with me, as I listened to as much of the diss tracks as I could stand,

"You p***ies can't get booked outside America for nan I'm out in Tokyo because I'm big in Japan I'm the hitmaker y'all depend on."

In other words, Drake was calling for Kendrick Lamar to elevate his game. I know there is the perception that Kendrick Lamar won this back and forth, however Drake’s assessment is true. How is he a Canadian artists selling out world tours using an American Black medium. He lacks substance and experience and yet it can’t be denied he has become the new face of rap. He’s like Eminem, absent the struggle and flow. Absent the framework of the struggle of growing up in the ghetto in the United States. But this is the evolution of a genre.

For me, I grew up without my father. My mother was an alcoholic, and she worked 2-3 jobs at a time. My education was subpar, and I had a child at 21. With all obstacles against me, I found a way (or I should say God led me) on the pathway out of the ghetto, and I am pleased to say rap music was one of the instructors on my journey. ‘Fuck the Police,’ in my mind, meant keeping your car clean—licensed, insured, and registered. I went from perm to straight, thinking you might have some, but you just lost one, and no one would dare even think about calling me a bitch. Because it had been ingrained in my mind that we had the power.

When I think about the heavy influence rap had on my journey, I can relate to how rap has influenced our young people. The rap today no longer represents my generation. While I think perhaps rap today distorts truth, I believe truth will rise out of the crevices, it’s a genre that will cross generations. Rap, because of its mix of lyrics and melodic beats, will always carry the zeitgeist of generations.

Where I empathize with our youth is their stories are being told by individuals whose only agenda is capitalism. Let me state, I am a capitalist, but only because I believe there’s the best chance for a rose to grow in concrete. I am completely aware that while that is true, it also creates a culture of copycats.

Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s diss tracks are exactly that—a copycat. The music is their own, but the idea that putting out hit after hit of diss tracks will create the spark that gets people talking about Drake and Kendrick, in the same way the release of Jay Z diss tracks and Nas’s response, got the attention of an entire generation, was a bit naive, if I have to be frank. The Drake vs. Lamar seems inorganic and maybe even contrived in a boardroom. In reality, what happened with the Jay-Z and Nas beef could have manifested in a boardroom, but we had never seen anything like that sweep across the world. A beef on the world stage between two privileged brothers—using the term very carefully because Kendrick Lamar grew up poor in resources but it doesn’t appear he lacked love—was unoriginal.

I understand that dissing is all about who can hurl the most insults with the best flow. That’s the takedown. This idea that ‘I can do better then you, I got more fans and have flown on more flights, is just basic and immature. The rallying cry of a generation, one step away from the slums of the ghetto, pretending to have been unearthed from beneath a stone, is painfully inorganic. It reeks of marketing and more money for the music industry.

Who is elite and who represents the bourgeoisie, I suppose that depends on where you sit on the wealth ladder. The elite can include people from different backgrounds and areas of expertise, while the bourgeoisie is specifically related to ownership and control. There is a silent notion played out of who owns rap and who can control its narrative.

Rap was like poetry. Artists like Jay Z brought an entire generation of young people into another world. There were some rap songs with beats and lyrics that resonated so much with reality—you can easily take the place of Victims like Brenda or Caroline or Ms. Jackson. Those rap songs forged a genre that represented our voices.

As far as Drake and Kendrick Lamar as artists are concerned, I like them both. I have a few of their CDs in my Apple Music Library. I like Drake’s music just like the next guy, but I have never taken him as a serious rapper. I’ve always felt his music was whitewashed and clean. Not harmful, not provocative, but something to bop your head to. When Kendrick Lamar first came on the scene, I listened to him because of his poetic flow. Next to Eminem, I don’t know any other rapper that has such an original and methodically lyrical flow, but honestly, I could never get down with his beats and his lyrics fall flat.

It’s because of my bias, I can’t say much about this millennial rap beef or the diss tracks that went back and forth. But I will say there was a bit of hype that caused a sensation and created discussion of a time that is now long past and yet part of our history.

I remembered the day “The Blueprint” dropped. It was on 9/11 and as The World Trade Center started to burn, there was hype of the release of the Blueprint. I remember driving down I-95, dropping my baby off at daycare, and going to work, listening to “Reasonable Doubt” with twenty dollars in my pocket intent of going out at lunch to get the CD, when my son’s dad called me to say, The World Trade Center had been bomb. That was life changing to hear of that attack in America. After the shock of the news in the office, I went out to get the CD at lunch time and remember how everyone in the mall was talking about the bombings. The Blueprint and9/11 will forever be connected, as that night I rode home listening to The Blueprint with America on my mind.

I imagine tomorrow will be the same for many young people. One day their eyes will be opened, and they will look back and contemplate the music that shaped their lives. There is the reality about truth—fakes will always arise. It’s up to you to learn the difference. Today’s rap is meant for the youth, and it’s up to them to determine what the evolution of rap will be for their generation. It seems for them mainstream rap represents Western values that many around the world deem colonialist.

For me, the rap of yesterday has faded to black. In reflecting on the recent rap beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, it's clear that while the excitement and hype around such conflicts are fleeting, they still manage to evoke memories of a bygone era when rap was a powerful voice of resistance and storytelling. Today's rap scene, dominated by materialism and commercial interests, contrasts sharply with the authentic narratives of struggle and triumph that defined earlier generations of rap—that’s just a fact. While Drake and Kendrick Lamar's diss tracks may stir momentary controversy, they ultimately reflect a diluted version of rap's original purpose.

As someone who found solace and empowerment through rap music, I hope that future generations will one day discern between superficial trends and the genuine, transformative potential of the genre.