With Drake and Meek Mill wrapping up there's a lot of people laughing and calling it petty that so much has happened through social media. They long for the days of Nas and Jay Z. The Game and 50 Cent. They think this is petty because Meek Mill didn't respond in 24 hours. Well, they're stupid. Rap Beef has always been petty and it's never been instant. Twitter just made it better.
First, claims of Meek taking too long to respond are stupid. Let's look at Jay Z and Nas. Jay had been throwing subliminals for a long time and name dropping Nas on random features for Rocafella artists. Then he finally mentioned Nas by name on the song Takeover. "Takeover," wasn't released in a radio station. Takeover wasn't released on SoundCloud. Takeover wasn't heard until you bought Jay Z's Blueprint album. That's right, you had to buy the album for the song. How did Nas respond? He responded with Ether. Was that instant? No, Ether also wasn't debuted on a radio station. It wasn't on Soundcloud. It was a full four months late on Nas' album Stillmatic. That's right, four full months for Jay Z to get a response from Nas. So Meek Mill waiting 4 days isn't crazy, especially when you consider he's on tour. His career isn't over.
That "trigger fingers turn to twitter fingers," line was funny and people are calling Meek petty but let's not forget beef has ALWAYS been petty. One of the earliest beefs was Kool Moe Dee vs Busy Bee. Kool Moe Dee didn't like the way Busy Bee rapped so while hosting a rap battle Busy Bee was participating in Kool Moe Dee decided to drop some surprise bars after Busy Bee won while Bee yells "SHUT UP."
Wait, that sounds really familiar. Meek and Drake have both been doing a lot of tweeting and making a lot of instagram post. That wasn't an option back in the day so you can't really call it silly because they're using what is available. Back in the day you just had to call Mike Jones phone number (281-330-8004) just to hear him ramble on for half an hour about how Chamillionare was a hater and wanted to be him. That probably helped Chamillionaire get a record deal because so many people were searching for his music due to Mike Jones.
Speaking of gaining popularity because of beef, Meek Mill. When the beef with Drake started Meek Mill had 218 thousand twitter followers. As I write this that number has exploded to 5.04 million. That's right, despite all the jokes and memes Meek Mill is 22.95 times more popular than when it started. His album is still selling well too. All Meek had to do was eat a little embarrassment and he made a whole lot of money and fans in the process.
So a lot about beef is the same but how has beef been made better by Twitter? Let's look at the line "trigger fingers turn to twitter fingers," again. Nobody died, got shot or even beat up in the Nas vs Jay Z beef, but that's not the case with a lot of beefs. Both Tupac and Biggie died because of beef. 50 Cent was stabbed in the beef with JaRule. Jeezy placed a $10,000 bounty on Gucci Mane's head during their beef and one man died trying to claim it. 50 Cent and The Game had a shootout in front of a radio station where members on both sides were shot. Royce Da 5'9 and Proof got into a fight during Royce's beef with D12. Nobody died then but Proof died after being shot due to a later beef. People died and had their lives permanently altered in the past. Twitter just made it so the worst thing that will happen is some gun emojis. I'll gladly settle if it means nobody dies.
Twitter has also made things easier to access. I don't need to tune in to Charlamagne explain why there's nothing wrong with him bleaching his skin and how Drake bought him some champagne so Drake won the beef. I don't need to tune into Funkmaster Flex dropping bombs and complaining about how Meek hasn't called him while playing reference tracks. Twitter cut the middle man out. I can get those hot of the presses tweets.
I also don't have to ask who anyone is talking about. In the past we had to listen to inside references about how "you know who did you know what with you know who," and how someone maybe had Ice Cube's chain but you had to go to the Cypress Hill show to see it. Now you can just see twitpics of people with the Migos chain. We know it got stolen. We don't have to wonder if Drake really has a ghostwriter. We know it's Quentin Miller. No more inside jokes. The only inside joke we don't have answers to now is which one of T.I.s friends peed on Drake.
People have to stop being so impatient. You have a four month limit to respond before it's a surrender. On the other side of things everything about this is better since nobody is dying. It's still funny. We get to see memes every day, they didn't have those back then. We're at a wonderful time when we can see Goldie Taylor react to "Back to Back." The diss tracks may be few and far between still but at the least the jokes are coming back to back.
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
Follow @OriginalKingD
First, claims of Meek taking too long to respond are stupid. Let's look at Jay Z and Nas. Jay had been throwing subliminals for a long time and name dropping Nas on random features for Rocafella artists. Then he finally mentioned Nas by name on the song Takeover. "Takeover," wasn't released in a radio station. Takeover wasn't released on SoundCloud. Takeover wasn't heard until you bought Jay Z's Blueprint album. That's right, you had to buy the album for the song. How did Nas respond? He responded with Ether. Was that instant? No, Ether also wasn't debuted on a radio station. It wasn't on Soundcloud. It was a full four months late on Nas' album Stillmatic. That's right, four full months for Jay Z to get a response from Nas. So Meek Mill waiting 4 days isn't crazy, especially when you consider he's on tour. His career isn't over.
Wait, that sounds really familiar. Meek and Drake have both been doing a lot of tweeting and making a lot of instagram post. That wasn't an option back in the day so you can't really call it silly because they're using what is available. Back in the day you just had to call Mike Jones phone number (281-330-8004) just to hear him ramble on for half an hour about how Chamillionare was a hater and wanted to be him. That probably helped Chamillionaire get a record deal because so many people were searching for his music due to Mike Jones.
Speaking of gaining popularity because of beef, Meek Mill. When the beef with Drake started Meek Mill had 218 thousand twitter followers. As I write this that number has exploded to 5.04 million. That's right, despite all the jokes and memes Meek Mill is 22.95 times more popular than when it started. His album is still selling well too. All Meek had to do was eat a little embarrassment and he made a whole lot of money and fans in the process.
So a lot about beef is the same but how has beef been made better by Twitter? Let's look at the line "trigger fingers turn to twitter fingers," again. Nobody died, got shot or even beat up in the Nas vs Jay Z beef, but that's not the case with a lot of beefs. Both Tupac and Biggie died because of beef. 50 Cent was stabbed in the beef with JaRule. Jeezy placed a $10,000 bounty on Gucci Mane's head during their beef and one man died trying to claim it. 50 Cent and The Game had a shootout in front of a radio station where members on both sides were shot. Royce Da 5'9 and Proof got into a fight during Royce's beef with D12. Nobody died then but Proof died after being shot due to a later beef. People died and had their lives permanently altered in the past. Twitter just made it so the worst thing that will happen is some gun emojis. I'll gladly settle if it means nobody dies.
Twitter has also made things easier to access. I don't need to tune in to Charlamagne explain why there's nothing wrong with him bleaching his skin and how Drake bought him some champagne so Drake won the beef. I don't need to tune into Funkmaster Flex dropping bombs and complaining about how Meek hasn't called him while playing reference tracks. Twitter cut the middle man out. I can get those hot of the presses tweets.
I also don't have to ask who anyone is talking about. In the past we had to listen to inside references about how "you know who did you know what with you know who," and how someone maybe had Ice Cube's chain but you had to go to the Cypress Hill show to see it. Now you can just see twitpics of people with the Migos chain. We know it got stolen. We don't have to wonder if Drake really has a ghostwriter. We know it's Quentin Miller. No more inside jokes. The only inside joke we don't have answers to now is which one of T.I.s friends peed on Drake.
People have to stop being so impatient. You have a four month limit to respond before it's a surrender. On the other side of things everything about this is better since nobody is dying. It's still funny. We get to see memes every day, they didn't have those back then. We're at a wonderful time when we can see Goldie Taylor react to "Back to Back." The diss tracks may be few and far between still but at the least the jokes are coming back to back.
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
Follow @OriginalKingD
