The Lame Return of Beef: Part 1 – The Story of Drake vs. Meek Mill

“What’s beef?”

Once upon a time in the intricate culture of rap, beef was the easiest way to end up dead or in jail (next to being black in America, of course). Beef was when people went missing and anonymous notes found their way to you and your loved ones. Beef was all the pretext rappers needed to lyrically slay their opponents. These days though… well, one out of three ain’t bad. In these strange and becoming-yet-stranger times we live in, it would seem rap beef plays out a little differently. I got my hands dirty with the details to give you the full picture of what a modern beef entails. At the risk of sounding horribly reminiscent of the tabloids, this is the story of Drake vs. Meek Mill.

Very nearly the most well-known rapper on the planet, Drake is to rap what Apple is to music: Iconic, colorfully-packaged and seemingly everywhere. It feels like only yesterday most people shared the same strong opinion of Drake and his music. His brand of rap came with a signature singing portion that everyone agreed was terrible. With unabashedly honest lyrics detailing his many and varied failed past relationships, his unending desire (to tell us about his unending desire) for money, and, perhaps strangest of all at the time, his love for the city of Toronto, Canada he calls home, all peppered with simile after corny simile; it seemed only a matter of time before Lil Wayne’s protege and Young Money signee would be forgotten in the annals of here-and-gone artists the ruthless industry makes periodically. The boys’ club that is rap would refuse him, and he would forever be known as “That kid from Degrassi who tried to be a rapper.”

But Drake didn’t disappear.

He continued to make his music his way and, to the confusion of all his naysayers, only grew in popularity. We were all ready to count him out, but the one thing hip-hop had never counted on was ironically one of its favorite subjects: Women. Women loved Drake. Something about him reflected an unfulfilled need in them. To be wanted. To be spoken to about real, intricate human feelings. Oh, and to be loaded on top of that. Drake filled the R&B gap for a generation that doesn’t sing about love. The years went by from his 2010 debut album, and his fanbase only grew with every new release. Slowly, through hit single after hit single, one slick feature after another, Drake crossed the gender divide. Even through a series of memes (more on those later) depicting him as an overly emotional, whitewashed goofball (“Don’t Drake and drive, you’ll end up at your ex’s house”), the money and accolades all came Drake’s way. Drake never gave you a chance to forget him, as he was always on the radio at any given moment, if not with his own music (many of which were not album singles but instead individual tracks released through his personal label’s Soundcloud), then featured on another artist’s song.

Cue 2015

Barely preceded by an enigmatic short video teasing the release of an album, the internet received If You’re Reading This, Its Too Late. People were mid-sentence asking what song that was during that one scene of the movie when they were blessed with the full track it was from: “Know Yourself.”  I watched the tide change overnight. I saw veteran Drake haters grudgingly nod their approval, and within a week of listening to the album over and over again, we were all family. It spawned meme after meme based on its scribbled album cover. Internet parody is a strange thing. Often, those most heavily parodied walk a thin line between what people love to hate and hate to love, but it was easy to tell this time which side people were on. This was a Drake seemingly everyone could enjoy.

And then we have Meek Mill. Practically the image of starting from the bottom, Meek’s rise to prominence has been marked by numerous setbacks and legal troubles. Known for his fluency in battle rap, he’s gotten multiple co-signs from well-known and respected artists and recently began dating rapper/singer Nicki Minaj. Here is the root of our beef, but crazily enough, not how it started.

On June 29th, Meek Mill released his second studio album, Dreams Worth More Than Money. It featured a few associated artists, Future, Nicki Minaj and most notably Drake. It was met with generally positive reviews and was the #1 album in the country for 2 weeks. And then Meek opened his mouth. Disappointed that Drake hadn’t tweeted his album (yes, you read that correctly), Meek took to Twitter to voice his displeasure.

 

Doing his best to completely fail to “read the room” (Its Drake Season remember?), Meek began bad-mouthing Drake about his collaborations with other artists. Petty re-tweet grievances aside, Meek alleged that Drake didn’t write his own material, and took it further by saying he found out the verse Drake had on his album wasn’t written by him either.

 

 

The tweets went viral, and the internet lost it.

 

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It was clear from the beginning. Everyone with two thumbs and too much time on their hands was ready, willing and able to come to Drake’s defense. Not long after, OVO Sound aired its second show on Apple’s Beats1 radio, where Drake dropped off this gem.

In what was to be the first of his volley of diss tracks aimed at Meek, Drake compares working with him to charity, gripes that people are always looking for a reason to come at him and that he’s finished doing favors for “so-and-so’s that no one knows.” He also jabbed at how Meek is star-struck by Nicki and had to be told to lyrically pull his weight. The internet was just as charged up, and they showed it. DrakeDBZ The Drakesphere waited for Meek to respond in kind with his own diss track. And waited. And waited. There was word Meek was penning out his response, but the days went by, and nothing surfaced. Drake, for all his talk to the contrary, seemed to relish the sport of attempting to speak his opponents to death and grew impatient with Meek’s lack of response. So he struck again.

“I waited four days, where y’all at?” In this track, Drake goes for the killing blow.

This for y’all to think that I don’t write enough
They just mad cause I got the Midas touch
 You love her, then you gotta give the world to her
Is that a world tour or your girl’s tour?
I know that you gotta be a thug for her
This ain’t what she meant when she told you to open up more
 Trigger fingers turn to twitter fingers
You gettin’ bodied by a singin’ nigga
I’m not the type of nigga that’ll type to niggas
And shout-out to all my boss bitches wifin’ niggas
(Make sure you hit him with the prenup)

Drake has been known for years to be sweet on Nicki Minaj, but as far as we were told, the two haven’t ever been more than really great friends. You wouldn’t be able to tell though from the angle he’s decided to shoot back at. Meek finally responded soon after, but by the time he did many were already saying Meek Mill’s career was over.

While not a terrible diss track by any means, it speaks to a different climate and a different mentality than from where Drake approaches. Many felt the track was equal parts lacking and late, including City of Toronto Councillor Norm Kelly

 

Since then, Meek has passed the time dragging Drake’s name (as well as anybody even remotely associated with him) through the mud at every stop on Nicki Minaj’s Pinkprint tour, of which he’s the opener. Fans wait with bated breath for Drake’s response to this wanton running-of-the-mouth. There are whispers abound of a third diss track, a 3peat of Drakes continues lyrical rampage on Meek Mill.

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Undercooked rap beef or not, this situation has bled onto other artists lives, with Philadelphia native AR-AB (who received a shout-out by Drake on Back To Back) catching heat from people in Meek Mill’s camp after releasing an annoyed diss track. Aimed at Meek for taking shots at him while on the road, AR-AB asserts he wasn’t even involved in their feud and couldn’t believe that Meek (also from Philadelphia) would be speaking ill of him.

Incredibly, this has also reignited a fire of bad blood from last generations contenders of rap beef, Ja Rule & 50 Cent. As Meek said, it’s getting spooky out here! I don’t know if its just the summer heat or the Ghost of Beef Past, but little fires seem to be breaking all over entertainment’s landscape. The worse part of it is how entertainers seem to be conducting themselves in these situations, without a single regard to the fact that many of them are adults (not you Taylor Swift, you keep doing you). The upcoming Part 2 of The Lame Return of Beef will delve into the social effects and possible repercussions of this parade of pettiness.

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