NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Tia Tyree, a Howard College professor who has studied rap feuds over time, in regards to the present feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
No matter resentment they’d stayed underneath the floor. This spring their feud burst out into the open with diss tracts that have been far more direct than the veiled verses they’d been exchanging.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “EUPHORIA”)
KENDRICK LAMAR: (Rapping) I hate the best way that you just stroll, the best way that you just speak. I hate the best way that you just costume. I hate…
SHAPIRO: And final weekend it exploded. 5 songs went forwards and backwards, full of more and more private accusations…
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FAMILY MATTERS”)
DRAKE: (Rapping) They employed a disaster administration staff to wash up the truth that you beat in your queen. The image you painted ain’t what it appear. You are useless.
SHAPIRO: …Which means that two of the largest names in music at the moment are engaged in a really actual, fashionable and public rap beef. Tia Tyree is a professor of communications at Howard College who has studied rap feuds over time. Welcome to the studio.
TIA TYREE: Thanks a lot for having me.
SHAPIRO: These songs are getting increasingly barbed. Drake has accused Kendrick of spousal abuse. Kendrick has accused Drake of getting a secret daughter. Is that this excessive, or is it fairly typical of hip-hop feuds?
TYREE: If in case you have one thing that’s related, that’s probably genuine and true, there isn’t any line. There isn’t a line within the sand of, do not come throughout right here. If you happen to can say it, it may sting, it might be impactful, it might be one thing that somebody speaks about later, then it may be on the desk.
SHAPIRO: And I think about that may serve a number of features past simply tearing down the opposite particular person. What are a few of these functions?
TYREE: The aim actually is superiority. Who has the crown? In hip-hop tradition, it is at all times, who’s your high 5? What was the perfect rap music of final yr? And so the dialog began with, who’s the large three? And that was J. Cole, Drake and Kendrick Lamar.
SHAPIRO: And that was actually a lyric alternate in…
TYREE: Completely.
SHAPIRO: …A few the tracks that – yeah.
TYREE: J. Cole, now we all know, was sensible to bow out, leaving these two to proceed sparring. So the aim is de facto to take the crown, depart little doubt.
SHAPIRO: We’re speaking about Kendrick Lamar, who has a Pulitzer, and Drake, who’s arguably one of the vital commercially profitable rappers of the final decade. Is that this actually about an genuine battle for supremacy, or is a few of it about watching, you already know, like, two nice tennis gamers volley the ball forwards and backwards?
TYREE: So in hip-hop tradition, one would argue how a lot is that Pulitzer prize value? In hip-hop tradition, then the dialog turns into, who’s extra genuine? Is it the man from Canada? Or is it the man who actually grew up with hip-hop tradition in California?
SHAPIRO: And are your report gross sales numbers only a signal that you just’re commercialized and promoting out?
TYREE: One thousand p.c as a result of we now have a pop rapper. I do not suppose we will deny that.
SHAPIRO: Drake.
TYREE: Then we now have the aware rapper who has purchased a number of understanding and Black consciousness and simply uncooked beats and headbangers to hip-hop tradition.
SHAPIRO: I do know you have written rather a lot about beef between feminine rappers. Do you see a distinction between the best way males have these sorts of feuds and the best way ladies do it?
TYREE: There may be an absolute distinction. Males are actually extra violent. Males are talking extra about what their crews can and can’t do, what they may do to the opposite rapper. Girls take a completely totally different stance. Girls say, I am higher by way of being a lyricist. I look higher. I costume higher. My purse is costlier than yours. And most significantly, ladies actually give attention to sexuality and physique look as a result of in hip-hop tradition, how a girl seems to be and her sexuality is a giant a part of what sells.
SHAPIRO: Clearly, a number of these accusations are very ugly, however is there additionally part of this that’s good for the trade, for the followers, for the rappers? We’re getting a number of new music out of this feud.
TYREE: One thousand p.c. In the long run, a number of what is part of the music trade could be very packaged. We all know the drop dates. That is spontaneous. It is one thing we did not anticipate. You go to mattress. You get up. There’s one other monitor, and it is like Christmas morning.
SHAPIRO: Proper.
TYREE: So, sure, this is a chance for hip-hop to showcase one thing that is very totally different.
SHAPIRO: It is such a distinction between, like, Beyonce and Taylor releasing their, like, 31 tracks which were so polished and honed that simply, like, over the weekend, as a substitute, we’re getting one…
TYREE: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: …After one other.
TYREE: It is a man in a studio with a microphone and a beat, and it reveals how completely simplistic however impactful rap might be. It is presupposed to be my genuine story, what I can put collectively in my mind and provides again to my viewers. And we’re form of seeing that that is poetry. That is totally different.
SHAPIRO: Professor Tia Tyree of Howard College. Thanks a lot.
TYREE: You are welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF KENDRICK LAMAR SONG, “NOT LIKE US”)
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