It’s no secret that right now the rap scene is exploding with an incredible amount of beef and straight dissing after Kendrick Lamar took a shot at Drake on Future and Metro Boomin’s new song “Like That”. Now, this chaos that has roped in artists from across the industry is the latest in a long line of historic rap beefs, a unique concept within the music industry to this specific genre. Although we’ve already gotten great music from multiple artists in such a short amount of time, it seems like things are only just getting started. So, two opinion writers take stances on the question, what’s better for the genre? Competition or collaboration?
Point (Luke):
Historically speaking, teamwork makes the dream work.
But in a genre of music as diverse, popular and polarizing as hip-hop, it’s much better when the top players are going at each other. Competition brings out the best and drives up popularity. Take the newest beef: everyone v. Drake.
Like any other major source of entertainment, hip-hop is full of competitive and egotistical personalities. Just like in sports where individual rivalries such as: Bird v. Magic, Brady v. Manning, Ovechkin v. Crosby and Clark v. Reese fundamentally pushed the interest in their respective sports to all-time highs due to their battles.
Everyone pretends that we want to see collaboration and good sportsmanship at the very top of these fields, but that’s not really the case. There’s a reason that this year’s NCAA women’s tournament had so many viewers, and why a verbal beating of one of the most commercially successful hip-hop artists of all time spread like wildfire. Tension creates wonderful entertainment.
“Like That” by Metro Boomin and Future featuring Kendrick Lamar has produced unparalleled commercial success. Upon its release, “Like That” sat atop the Billboard Hot 100, with four other songs from the project also entering the chart’s Top 10. The song debuts with 59.6 million streams, the top mark for 2024 so far, with interest in it largely driven by Lamar’s fiery verse, which was a complete dragging of Drake.
It’s like what Lebron James (someone who knows a thing or two about competitive individual rivalries) said, “Nothing like 2 heavyweights doing What They Do Best! For the love of the sport.”
I’m not necessarily a Drake fan but he is commercially smart enough to have capitalized on all the negativity surrounding his beef. Likewise, everyone will be waiting for a response. The commercial success of rap beefs is good for the genre overall, plus it’s more entertaining watching dysfunction than function.
Counterpoint (Tomas):
A small disclaimer before I actually make my case: I love what’s happening in rap right now as I am a huge Drake hater and Kendrick fan. There is an easy appeal to seeing your favorite artists at their best, just trying to take each other down with a personal viciousness that doesn’t often appear in normal releases.
Still, this only applies to a very selective group of very famous artists whom people already strongly identify with and follow. If you’re a small artist, you know who doesn’t care about problems you have with other people or artists? The vast majority of people. A major part of the reason that huge rap beefs like Kendrick v. Drake can attract so much interest is because people already love them, and their lives are so talked about already in the public eye.
For smaller artists, and this is just a general truth across the music industry, working WITH others in collaboration helps to boost your efforts to a wider audience and makes the process/career of music making into a sustainable career. Specifically in rap music, feature verses have been HUGE to the careers of many artists who needed a bigger platform to promote their music. Record companies run by artists can also be a form of collaboration, like with J.Cole’s Dreamville, which helped advance the careers of some now huge artists like JID.
Plus, at the end of the day music is an artform that comes from perspective, and having more people in the room able to input their style and talent into a project makes for incredible tracks too. I think the Freshman XXL cyphers are a big example of this. The emotion and creative juice that can come from absolutely ripping into someone else is equaled by the combination of great artists working together.