For those keeping score at home on your rap sheets, the current tally seems to be 50 Cent: 3, Rick Ross: 1.
I’m not talking about album sales; neither has had an album come out recently, both 50’s “Before I Self Destruct” and Miami rapper Ross’ “Deeper Than Rap” are scheduled for release in March. The score is referring to the ongoing and gradually intensifying beef between the two.
Let me bring you up to speed.
Basically, the track “Mafia Music” from Rick Ross’ upcoming album “Deeper Than Rap” leaked to the Internet, and contained therein was a line mocking (or just mentioning, depending on how you look at it) how 50 Cent’s home burned down while his ex-girlfriend and son were inside (they were fine). For anyone remotely familiar with hip-hop, you know that the one person you don’t throw shots at idly is Curtis Jackson.
Naturally, 50 fired back with the diss song “Officer Ricky,” which logically exploits the fact that Ross was outed last year as a corrections officer, a claim which the rapper continues to deny as a fabrication, given that his whole image as a rapper is predicated on the idea that he is a former drug dealer or kingpin (boss, if you are so inclined).
Since then, the beef has gotten more ridiculous, with 50 really digging his heels into this squabble, going so far as attempting to humiliate Ross by taking Ross’ ex-girlfriend out shopping for furs and Gucci, and then putting it all on video and posting it on the Internet. Ross has since tried to take the high road, pretending not to be bothered by the fact that Curtis “Boo Boo” Jackson, rap’s Lex Luthor, took the mother of his child out shopping and then claiming that he’s destroying 50 lyrically.
Now that I’ve got that out of the way, doesn’t this all seem totally ridiculous? Naturally, the Internet hip-hop community is eating this up. We’re human, we love conflict, especially when it’s public. That I can understand. However, it seems to me like this, as well as many other highly publicized rap beefs, is completely staged. It’s almost like professional wrestling: threats, schisms and valuable players changing stables.
Beef has been a part of hip-hop for a long time. So much so that there’s even a DVD series about it. Hip-hop rose from the streets, where loyalty and honor were and are paramount, so it only makes sense that this mentality has carried over into the music world.
But like anything, once something becomes more popular, it also becomes more complicated. With more people entering the hip-hop scene in the ’90s, and more regional factions, there was bound to be friction.
On that note, there are some beefs in hip-hop history that do seem legitimate. For example, Nas and Jay-Z. What started out as a professional disagreement, where Nas failed to show up to record a vocal part, turned into one of the seminal disagreements in hip-hop, where Jay claimed to have slept with Nas’ baby’s mother. Or how about Jay-Z and R. Kelly? When they went on tour together, Kelly behaved erratically (surprise!) and failed to show up for performances. When someone starts costing you money, I suppose I can understand. I’m sure some of the friction was also caused by the fact that Kelly kept bringing middle school field trips backstage.
But in the case of this particular beef between Rawse and Fitty, it seems like they’re just publicizing themselves to keep everyone aware of their album releases. After all, it worked on me since I already mentioned the release date.
I mean how hard would it be for Ross to give 50 a heads up before recording “Mafia Music,” and explain how it’s going to benefit both of them? As long as no disrespect is felt, what’s the problem? Although the whole “baby mama shopping spree” thing does seem a bit personal, it’s just like a wrestling match to me. This is when you think your favorite wrestler is going down after getting hit with a gnarly turnbuckle dive, and then a third party rushes out of the background with a folding chair.
On the other hand, if this beef is indeed real and not kayfabe as I suspect it, it’s just indicative of the failed hip-hop alliance system, or the Concert of Hip-Hop, if you will.
So many hip-hop beefs are intensified by the “You’re with us, or you’re against us” mentality. Because of this dominant ideology, powerful and fairly inflexible alliances are formed between rappers and crews. For example, Lil Wayne and The Diplomats are buds, T.I. and Ludacris, formerly beefing, are down, and Young Jeezy and Kanye West are tight. On the flip side, 50 Cent is good with almost no one outside of his immediate G-Unit crowd, save for Eminem and Dre, because he’s so committed to the hip-hop alliance system.
What hip-hop needs is a rap Klemens Von Metternich, or a rap Otto Von Bismarck, to create a hip-hop balance of power. This person would need to rule over the rap game and make sure nothing gets too out of hand. While conflict is entertaining, wars ruin careers and send rappers who once regularly made music into hiding.
Take Cam’Ron for example, one of the most off-the-wall cult figures in rap, and at one time one of the most dominant. Fresh off of a beef with 50, Cam’Ron retreated from the limelight, and a schism between him and other Diplomats Jim Jones and Juelz Santana developed. What did we, the fans, get out of this? In a war, someone is supposed to win. But in that beef, nobody did. The Diplomats are in shambles, we got no new recordings from Cam for a long time, and we get friggin’ “Pop Champagne” from Jim Jones. Just great.
So if the alliance system isn’t working, we should dismantle it, or loosen it up. We all know what happened because of the alliance system in Europe (At least I do. What up, Ms. Bergen!) I realize that this seems like the only way to generate more sales, but there’s also another way.
Make better songs.
If you want to pop a champagne cork into your eye every time you hear “Pop Champagne,” then e-mail Ayres at jayres@media.ucla.edu.