The Blood of Hiphop

Over the last 20 years since the gangsta raps of Ice T and N.W.A. filled radio waves with vivid depictions of death and despair in American inner cities, violence has been imbedded in the back of peoples minds whenever they hear the word "rap". At the same time in history KRS-One's Boogie Down Productions in the South Bronx and Marly Marl's Juice Crew From Queensbridge NY were beefing. They released several striking diss songs toward each other beginning with, MC Shan and Marley Marl's "The Bridge" in 1985.

Taking offense to juice crew's statements about the birthplace of hiphop, Krs-One released the classic "South Bronx". This battle went strong for 2 years until BDP's member Scott LaRock was gunned down after trying to dissolve a domestic dispute with fellow rapper D-Nice.

Throughout hiphop history there have been numerous beefs and altercations but for the most part they were nonviolent. Fast forward to November 30^th 1994 and legendary rapper Tupac Shakur gets robbed and shot at a Times Squares Quad Recording Studio. Soon after he is convicted of sexual assault, which he vehemently denied. While serving his sentence while having a #1 album Me Against The World released, he starts to think that his friend, fellow rapper The Notorious B.I.G., who was at the studios at the same, knew about the robbery beforehand and did not tell him. After 8 long months in jail, Tupac is bailed out by Suge Knight, The CEO of Deathrow Records, for $1.4 million. Later that summer in 1995 2pac released "Hit Em Up", a scathing diss song that started out with "First off F@#@ed your bitch in that click you claim, Westside when we ride come equipped with game, you claim to be a player but I f#@ed your wife, we bust on badboys, n#@#@s f#@#@d for life", Referring to his alleged tryst with B.I.G.'s wife Faith Evans. The rest of the track gets more hateful as it goes on and at the end he speaks to Biggie Smalls and Bad Boy records, yelling and with intense emotion. He truly hated this man for what he did, or didn't do.

2Pac was a force in the west coast and Biggie was a force in New York City. After Hit em up was released, tensions got to be too much between the two with a few altercations happening at music industry events and parties. Including most notable Suge Knight's appearance on the 1995 Source Awards where he tells the audience "Anyone out there who wanna' be a recording artist and wanna stay a star, but don't have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos, all on the records, dancing, come to Death Row". He was referring to Sean Comb's tendency to appear in his artist's videos and adlib over the songs. Suge knight also believed that Sean Combs had his best friend shot at an Atlanta music industry party in 1995. Tupac had gone onto diss everyone who talked bad about him including The Fugees, Da Brat, Chino XL, Mobb Deep, De La Soul, Lil Kim and Lil Cease, Dr Dre, LL Cool J, and Jay-Z in countless diss tracks.

By September 1996 some say all this caught up with him as the east and west coast beef that was fueled by the media was like a runaway train when on the 6^th, in Las Vegas at the Tyson - Seldon fight at the MGM, Tupac was shot 5 times as he was riding down the highway after leaving the event. He died on September 13^th 1996 of respiratory failure due to his wounds. Almost exactly 6 months later on March 8^th, 1996 Biggie smalls was presenting an award at the 11th Annual Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles. He was booed by the audience and after the show he attended an after party hosted by Vibe magazine. Later that night on March 9^th, 1996 at 12:45 AM as Biggie left the event his SUV was shot and 4 bullets hit their target. He was pronounced dead at 1:15 at Cedar Sinai medical hospital. This had wide impacts throughout the hiphop community. Had the battles on wax from the 80's really escalated into this? The answer is yes it has.

As time went on and other rappers filled the void of 2 of the greatest, There have been many notable beefs. Some violent and some just on records. Nas and Jay-Z for example had a beef in 2001. But in 2006 Nas singed to Jay-Z's Def Jam Recordings. The rapper 50 Cent released his debut "Get Rich Or Die Trying" with many songs directed at rapper Ja Rule. After a few years of this and a few stabbings and shootings between the two, Ja's career had faultered. 50 Cent has had beefs with other rappers including Nas, Joe Budden, Fat Joe, Shyne, Jadakiss and D-Block, The Game and Camron.

Their have been many other incident's including in 2003 the 2 separate shootings of the Violator management building in NYC within the span of two weeks. The 2000 Source awards also saw violence break out when someone came up and punched producer Dr. Dre while he was onstage. Seventy five people rushed the stage and began fighting. The source awards has had many other altercations in its history. Also the February 2006 shooting of busta rhymes bodyguard on the set of the video "Touch It (Remix)".

On one hand, violence is part of the" ghetto culture" in America so its only inevitable that violence spills over into rap. On the other hand there are many hiphop artists who are trying to empower the youth like Talib Kweli, Mos Def and Little Brother notably. Hiphop has proven to be just as productive as it is destructive. Why should it result to such violence. For the sake of hiphop, or for the sake of pride?, It's definitely the latter.