Hot beef in Internets time

There used to be a time that Hip-Hop beef had to simmer over weeks with innuendo and rumors added to it like a hot beef stew.  It was little over ten years ago that beef between Big and ‘Pac took place on wax and we eagerly awaited to hear each chapter in the ‘Who Shot John’ saga.  The mixtape market and the world wide web were not in effect back then to the degree that we see today.  You had to wait for a response on wax.  In the meantime so many different rumors circulated and others became involved the whole scenario looked like a circus.  I was waiting to see which rapper would have boasted about sleeping with the other’s moms.  Unfortunately, for both Big and ‘Pac that their situation became bigger than rap music.

The battle that is developing between the DipSet and G-Unit is looking like one of the most interesting that Hip-Hop wil have seen in years.  The Dips back away from no one and G-Unit acts like the neighborhood bully that wants someone to say something sideways just so they can jump up to beat punks down.  Technology and the internets makes the action move at lightspeed, literally.  The Dips stay in the studio and on the world wide web and they respond to any challenge as fast as a fiber optic wire can carry a file.  G-Unit is equal to the task of staying up all night on the web so they make sure their response follows.  This shit is almost happening in real time.  If I get up from the computer to get a fucking wild cherry Pepsi I might miss being the first to hear a reply diss track.

The battle between the Dips and G-Unit looks a lot like the war we are fighting over in Iraq.  G-Unit is the more modern and well-armed force.  They have the machinery behind them to blanket the media with their artists.  The Dips, not so much, but where DipSet makes up for not being with a major label is their feistiness and work ethic.  They are like the Taliban that is embedded inside the cities of Iraq.  They jump out and leave a roadside bomb and then they run back into the huddle of crowded buildings for camouflage.  They strike quickly although they don’t hit hard enough to topple you they annoy you with their persistence because they keep coming back at you.  In the eyes of the people it looks like they’re winning, or at least it looks like they are able to hang with what should be a superior force.

The Dips have yet to obliterate someone they way that Fifty Cent ended the career of Ja Rule.  As a matter of fact, no one has been expelled from relevancy they way that Fifty removed Ja Rule.  Do you remember when LL Cool J smashed Canibus?  I still hear Canibus is around today.  When Jay killed Prodigy it didn’t remove P from the scene totally, it just put him in the proper scale, which was tiny.  NaS beat Jay and the two dudes are now co-workers and boyfriends.  No one has been thrown under the bus like Ja Rule.  Even hairy ass Ashanti won’t take pictures with him.  Cam’Ron and the Dips better put on their hard hats and their boots because the G-Unit don’t play these rapper games either.  When Tony Yayo was told that he couldn’t have access to the craft services trailer at the Busta Rhymes video he came back and shot shit up.  If this is how G-Unit deals with the cats that they are on the same label with how hardbody do you think they will go after someone on Koch Records?