The age of social networking has provided millions of fans with the ability to connect with their favorite stars like never before. If your favorite hip hop star is an avid tweeter, which most are, you are able to know what they’re doing, where they are, and who they’re with almost all of the time. But another thing fans get to see is the “beefs” or rivalries that these celebrities have. Hip hop is notorious for feuding artists, sometimes leading to death, in the case of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur as a result of the East Coast vs. West Coast feud. Today, beefs have gone viral. Artists use twitter to express their feelings and the world can now see. There have been numerous twitter beefs, or tweefs, since Twitter became popular. 2012 has been a year full of tweefs so I have made a list of the tweefs I think made the biggest impact on the hip hop community.
Top 4 Hip Hop Tweefs of 2012
1.Chris Brown vs. Drake
Earlier this year Drake and Chris Brown had a bottle throwing altercation allegedly over R&B singer Rihanna in a New York City club. After this incident, Chris (who is a notable twitter thug) took to twitter to express how he felt about the night. This is a top Celebrity beef not because of the tweets Chris Brown directed to Drake, but because of the response from the twitter community. Drake is a rapper who occasionally sings and Chris Brown is a singer who occasionally raps. Both rappers/singers are light skin African Americans. The combination of the singing and “light skinnedness” don’t give Drake and Chris the most street cred. Not to mention they threw bottles, not punches. So in the days to follow twitter was full of jokes about light skin males being weak, gay, punks, etc. Many people have been saying light skin is going out of style, and this event might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
2. Roscoe Dash vs. Meek Mill and Miguel and Kanye West and Wale
Roscoe Dash is best known for his club anthems, but to my surprise he is apparently a pretty good songwriter. Roscoe claims that he wrote for Wale and Kanye, but got no credit. So like any frustrated youth of today, he logged onto twitter and took shots at any and everyone who he thought did him wrong. Meek Mill fired back at Roscoe to defend his label mate Wale. Miguel who is featured on the song Roscoe claimed to write was also brought into the argument because of an interview he where he stated Roscoe had no part in writing the song. This beef makes the top four list because it involves one of the hottest hip hop artists of our time and some of the newest rising stars of hip hop. It also shows how collaborations can go horribly wrong.
3. Chief Keef vs. Kanye West
Chicago rapper Chief Keef blew up this year, due to his hit single “I Don’t Like.” His newfound popularity came largely from Kanye West’s remix of the song. But Chief Keef told twitter that Kanye’s remix didn’t help him at all. This beef is important because of the response it got from the twitter community. People could not believe an up and coming artist would diss THE Kanye West. There were plenty of comments saying that Chief Keef could say goodbye to his career for pulling a move like this. And many people called him ungrateful for Kanye’s help
4. K. Michelle vs. Toya
Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta star and native Memphian, K. Michelle and the former wife of Lil’ Wayne and current wife of producer, Memphitz, Toya Wright, used twitter to hash out the problems they have with one another due to K. Michelle’s public allegations against Toya’s husband. K. Michelle claimed that Memphitz abused her and ruined her record deal when they were together. This beef made the top four because Love and Hip Hop Atlanta was such a hit and controversy in the Hip Hop community. There were even small rivalries between the people who believed K’s story about being abused by Toya’s husband and people who took Toya’s side. This year we grew to love K. Michelle from watching Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta, but we had also fallen in love with Toya from her time on Tiny and Toya and Toya: A Family Affair. This tweef was so controversial because no one could be truly right about whose side they choose because no one except Memphitz and K. Michelle know the whole truth in this situation.
While Twitter has given celebrities the platform to easily connect with fans, it has also allowed them to publically feud over trivial matters. Although this type of beef is no where near as bad as the killings that have occurred in the past because of beefs, it still brings out the worst in people while the world watches.