Rap Battles.

 

if you were plugged into current events around the time of the eclipse (4/08/24) you'd know all about the fiasco (no pun intended) around J cole and Kendrick. 

long story short, Kendrick observed Drake and Cole get buddy buddy (presumably in an attempt to covertly undermine his image overtime) and decided to empty the clip (figuratively of course)

this of course activated Cole's Emcee spirit and he automatically penned a response in what seemed to be a lyrical exercise. or "7 minute drills" as he apparently calls them. (the fact that its the name of the diss song is just him being clever)

after letting it marinate for a mere 48 hours, he appeared on stage in a room of his fans and announced that he wanted to apologize for responding to Kendrick's verse.

according to him, it was the lamest, most immature thing he had ever done up to that point  and that it didn't align with who he is and the direction he wanted his life to take. 

and honestly that is absolutely his prerogative. he's a human being and he's not obligated to entertain the hip-hop public in the way that we want. especially if it wasn't a core aspect of his brand to begin with. 

except wait.

Competitive energy has actually been a part of his brand since the beginning of his career.

but that's besides the point.

after a few days of drowning in the rap discourse on twitter (yeah I know) 

I've discovered one disturbing fact. 

these new suburban rap fans think rap battles aren't the norm. they think that competitiveness in rap is something people just came up with!

They paint this picture as if to say competition is low vibrational energy and we should mature past it. 

most of the time, I can get behind growing beyond things. but in this particular case, there is no other reaction other than to projectile vomit. even radio personalities showed up with this new sanitized rhetoric in order to defend cole and his open and public surrender to Kendrick as an Emcee. 

news flash guys, its nothing to defend or recontextualize. 

J Cole is also an adult. it's highly likely that he knows what this choice means and was ready for the consequences. 

J Cole aside, if only you suburbanites knew how often all of your favorite rappers used to battle. Jay-Z, DMX, Busta Rhymes, I'm pretty sure Eminem was in something called the rap olympics which to my understanding was some sort of rap battling tournament. and that's without mentioning the very large very active Rap battle wave that people are still participating in. 

it just pisses me off, because hip-hop is the only genre where as soon as money is involved, the core principles of the genre are all of a sudden up for debate. all these think pieces to me about growth and changing with the times are just good old fashioned manipulation to me.  if people are so above hip-hop, they would have chosen to do something else by now.