By Faye Darku
Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past couple of days the Drake and Meek Mill beef is very familiar to you. Of course Meek is not the first rapper to have a problem with “Soft” Drake, but this time around; social media has made it the feud of the century. For those who have been living under a rock here is the back story.
On July 22, 2015 Meek Mill, the Philly rapper accused Drake of not tweeting his album on which Drake is featured on but also using a ghostwriter to write his verse on their “R.I.C.O” collaboration. The whole existence of hip hop has been about one’s credibility in writing your own verses but in recent years music in general has evolved and instead of a song or a rap having one writer, musicians are now collaborating with other less known artists through reference tracks. I mean Kanye West does it but that is the root of Meek Mills problem with Drake.
Stop comparing drake to me too…… He don’t write own raps! That’s why he ain’t tweet my album because we found out!
-Meek Mill (@MeekMill)
I’m sure the response Meek Mill was expecting was for fans to start bashing Drake and calling him a fraud in hip-hop but that did not happen. What did happen was the internet asking, “who compared you to Drake in the first place?” and “who cares.”
Mill also credited Quentin Miller as Drake’s ghost writer not just for Meek’s song featuring Drake but also for his very well-known songs “10 Bands”, “Know Yourself” and “Used to”.
Drake didn’t respond to Meek while the internet was going crazy, but rapper Hitman Holla posted a screenshot of his DM with Drizzy, where the Toronto rapper replied, “I signed up for greatness. This comes with it.”
Without asking for it Quentin Miller became the center of the internet when a reference track was leaked of him rapping “10 Bands” which sounded a lot like Drake’s version but with different lyrics in some parts. Miller later release a letter on Tumblr saying he never will and never was a ghostwriter for Drake. However the two did collaborate on songs together which Drake credited him for.
The internet had three days to do what the internet does by creating memes before Drizzy finally responded with “Charged up,” a mellow diss track with some shots at Meek.
Even adding a reference to Nicki Minaj with, “No woman ever had me star struck/ Or was able to tell me to get my bars up/ I’m charged up,” he raps before delivering: “Rumor has it I either f–ked her or I never could/ But rumor has it has never done you n—as any good.”
Meek later responded calling the diss track “Baby lotion soft….. I can tell he wrote that 1 tho.” But while Drake was staying true to the hip hop culture of releasing diss tracks the internet was calling for Meek to get off of social media and respond with bars which he did not do.
On Wednesday morning (July 29) Drake went on the offensive with a new freestyle called “Back to Back” and if you were disappointed in “Charged Up” — this track was not baby lotion soft. There’s no doubt who he’s talking about when he spits, “Trigger fingers turn to Twitter fingers,” and makes another Nicki reference with, “You love her, then you gotta give the world to her/ Is that a world tour or your girl’s tour?/
Those verses had the internet declaring a winner even before Meek dropped his track. Social media began the Weak Mill trend going comparing the success of the two rappers and calling Meek a hater.
It took five full days before Meek responded with bars with “Wanna Know” and let’s just say the internet didn’t want to know because almost everyone who had their eyes on this beef called it trash. Even some fast food chains and politicians were not feeling it. People are saying Meek committed career suicide because the guy he was calling out as using ghost writers actually wrote a better diss track.
Here is the deal with the beef, it’s been really good for hip-hop music as a culture but you also have to factor in how smart Meek Mill is which I don’t think people are paying attention too. He recently released his album and what’s a better way to bring attention to you music and generate sales than to go after the most popular rapper out right now and it worked because Meek’s album is currently No.1.
This certain is not the classic hip-hop beef we are used to, Tupac vs Biggie or Jay Z vs Nas; but one thing it is… it is entertaining thanks to social media.
