Don't look now, but our little hip-hop wing of the blogosphere is erupting into one huge, ridonkulous etherfest. I usually try to steer way clear of this shit, but I figured I'd put together a little guide for the uninitiated, since I've had a front row seat for so much of it.

Easily the most amusing to me so far has been the beef between XXL's own Noz and Phonte, the best rapper in Little Brother. I guess because the Minstrel Show caught a brick, their label has got Little Brother making Gangsta Grillz CDs and playing the lowest common denominator rap circuit in places like Fayetteville, North Carolina, opening for the likes of Yung Joc, Young Dro, and Dem Franchize Boyz.

Only thing is, LCD rap audiences could give a fuck about Little Brother's music, which is too smart for poor black people. Phonte said as much in a post on Little Brother's MySpace blog, which set my go-to guy off. Noz countered that it isn't so much that Little Brother is too smart for poor black people, but the fact that they kinda suck balls. OutKast and Kanye West make smart music and can play anywhere.

Which would've been a perfect opportunity for Phonte to counter that Little Brother's music is, in fact, much smarter than either OutKast or Kanye's, who both kinda suck, but I guess he's got an image and/or career to protect. Hence today he's furiously backpedaling, trying to claim he never actually said Little Brother was too smart for poor black people.

He also calls Noz a "cracker." His white fans should demand an apology, lest Little Brother end up the next Defari or some shit.

Speaking of crackers, another amusing beef is the one that erupted between, again, XXL's own kris ex and long-time hip-hop blogging gadfly Clyde Smith. I've had my own sordid history with this cad going all the way back to my glorious college days, but I had to give that shit up a while ago, once the talk of gunplay and threatening phone calls started.

Since then, he's managed to mention me in about every other post at his failed hip-hop marketing blog. But I don't bother to respond, because I don't need those kinds of problems. For a while there, it seemed like this strategy might work, but the fact that I've managed to find gainful employment and make like 8x what he makes seems to have renewed his interest in fucking with me.

When it was announced that myself and my baby's mother, among other people would be blogging for this site, he took it as an opportunity to allege journalistic impropriety on the part of Tara Henley, just because we have such a close relationship. If it wasn't for the sacred, time-honored tradition of bros before hoes, I would've had to put my shoe on that cracker.

More recently, kris ex got pissed at some pretty low, even by his own standards, personal attacks Clyde Smith took at XXL boss Elliott "Yellow Wedding Cake" Wilson and his family. exo laid out the case against Clyde Smith here in a post as part of his hilarious "beef week," and also threatened, jokingly, to slap the snot out of his nose or some such.

Clyde Smith's responses so far have been ridonkulously bizarre and myriad, not unlike his infamous obsession with the Jay-Z Cristal boycott. So far there's been a series of posts on his original failed hip-hop blog, which have led to the creation of a new blog on Brand Destruction focusing on kris ex - though like the true mental case that he is, he seems to have already given that up.

Word on the street is that Clyde Smith's health is failing. Maybe his doctor managed to convince him all this beef wasn't good for him. Lord knows I'd hate to see something bad happen to him.

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