What Kicked Off The Latest Hip-Hop Spat?
What spurred Meek Mill to launch an assault on Drake on Twitter and kick off what set out to be a week of increasing heat surrounding the controversy about ghostwriting in Hip-Hop.
Meek Mill had had enough and felt that the comprisons between him and Drake were simply unwarranted. Drake had appeared on a featured verse off the track R.I.C.O. from Meek’s recent album Dreams Worth More Than Money, and Meek had been told by someone that the verse had been written by someone else. For Meek this was enough to trigger him to start a hip-hop beef on Twitter attempting to expose Drake.
Stop comparing drake to me too…. He don't write his own raps! That's why he ain't tweet my album because we found out! ?
— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015
Most people aren’t aware that the majority of artists collaborate on lyrics, verses, and hooks. Its all part of the creative process, however some think that you aren’t real if you don’t write your own lyrics.
All the great ones have accepted and embraced lyrics from another artist at some point. Jay wrote ‘still Dre’ for Dr Dre, Eminem has written for Snoop and Dre, Michael Jackson had most of his songs written for him. Does anyone care as long as we get great music?
The whole game know forreal they scared to tell the truth! I can't wait tok these guys and sit back and act like they don't know!
— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015
In this case it may be a little more debatable because Drake is still at the top of the game, he’s selling albums, breaking records, collecting big cheques. While Meek is still coming through, which makes the confrontation controversial…… but maybe only for a day or two.
Drake Responds with ‘Charged Up’
Drake remained silent on Twitter he responded with a new track ‘Charged Up’ which dropped on his OVOSound Radio show on Beats 1 over the weekend, “I did some charity today for the kids / But I’m used to it cause all y’all charity cases / All y’all stare in my face and hope you could be to replace me / Snitchin’ on us without no interrogation / I stay silent ’cause we at war and I’m very patient,”.
“Cops are killin’ people with they arms up / But your main focus is tryin’ to harm us?”
It was cool, he wasn’t scathing, and it may be enough to satisfy that the streets and the internet trolls that he’s finally responded, but it isn’t ‘Ether’ or ‘Takeover’, it’s a polite but strategic take down. It fires shots, but it won’t kill or incite escalation. Why? Because for Drake there are more important things that are worth fighting for.
Quentin Miller Responds to his Alleged status as Ghostwriter
While the disses continues to roll around – will there an end to the controversy around ghostwriting? Not at all. An idea or rumour online is like a contagious virus. It takes a lot of time and work for people to forget about it or be convinced otherwise.
And so while Hip-Hop continues to be the fodder for the mainstream media who can’t get enough out of scooping up the dirt on Twitter and competing to desperately feed it out as ‘news’ on sites such as Business Insider, and Time, simultaneously a more important story is continuing to unfold in the U.S with yet another innocent death at the hands of law enforcement.
