Why Are This Year’s Music Beefs So Wack?

Carl Williott | August 4, 2015 8:00 am
Meek's Piss Diss, Solved
The burning question behind Meek Mill's diss track aimed at Drake has been answered.

Music beefs used to Mean Something. Biggie and Pac went from being friends to legitimately hating each other and wanting to see the other dude dead. Nas and Jay Z‘s feud over pussy and NYC power came when both rappers were at their lyrical peaks. The members of Fleetwood Mac engaged in epic scales of drug use and intra-band adultery and backstabbing and then wrote an entire album about it. Today’s music beefs can be boiled down to tweets and trade secrets. They are, at best, good for an afternoon of funny memes.

Maybe it’s because we live in the age of Twitter and knowing all about all stars, so even the tiniest details get blown up into huge issues, thus forcing celebs to respond to some inane backstory, thus inflating this meaningless nonsense it into a bigger story than it deserves to be. And that’s how we go from “No Vaseline” to “Wanna Know.”

Below, we’ve rehashed this year’s four biggest music feuds to highlight just how wack they really are.

Meek Mill vs. Drake

drake meek mill pee piss diss
CREDIT: Twitter

Why It’s Wack: Gotta be the first high-profile hip-hop feud where the raps are secondary to social media and memes.

This all started with Meek Mill getting pissed that A) Drake didn’t tweet out a link to the iTunes Store page for Meek’s album and B) Drake sometimes employs a ghostwriter. Regarding that second issue, how can a goddamn Rick Ross signee purport to make a valiant stand about authenticity and realness? As for Drake, at least this feud ended his constant stream of passive-aggressive bullshit and actually forced him to address a (non-Hooters waitress/non-stripper) conflict head-on. It also made the world privy to the time he got whizzed on in a movie theater, which is a net positive I suppose. But other than that, we got one “baby lotion soft” diss track from Drizzy, followed by one that hit harder but still, it’s like, OK so you’re making fun of Meek for having a super hot, super successful girlfriend? Then Meek offered up a rambling, uninspired response followed by a wedgie threat, and it all amounts to a beef about tweeting, songwriting, peeing and internet jokes. This is not the world we were promised after “Control.”

Zayn Malik vs. Naughty Boy

zayn malik naughty boy

Why It’s Wack: Any time there’s beef involving a One Direction member, it has all the gripping drama of teens lobbing potshots via AIM away messages.

Zayn Malik‘s Twitter tantrum aimed at British producer Naughty Boy came out of nowhere. The two seemed to have a fruitful working relationship, and at one point Zayn even came to Naughty Boy’s defense against his former 1D mates on Twitter. Then Malik did a 180 and fired a couple cheap shots at the producer, basically calling him a fat nobody. (Just further proof that the “fat” angle only works when it’s being barked by 2Pac as the beat drops.) All because Zayn thought Naughty Boy leaked some demos. The only thing softer than this feud is the Naughty Boy piñata One Direction smashed on stage.

Katy vs. Taylor


Why It’s Wack: Enough passive-aggression to fuel an entire season of Four Weddings.

Never has so much been made of so little — are Taylor and Katy really in a cycle of perpetual shade because of some backup dancers, like dancers are such a rare commodity and can’t take multiple gigs? It’s the Tinkerbell of feuds, it only exists if enough people tweet about it. The “Bad Blood” video was supposed to be the “Ether” of this rivalry, but instead it just showed Taylor stockpiling famous friends so she can eventually blackball Katy. The closest we’ve gotten to a full-blown confrontation between the two stars was when Katy subtweeted Taylor, pointing out her hypocrisy after Taylor threw herself into Nicki Minaj‘s VMA debate. If the wackness of a beef is directly proportional to the amount of times “subtweet” and “shade” are used when discussing the beef, then this is the wackest of wack beefs.

Miguel vs. Frank Ocean

miguel frank ocean split

Why It’s Wack: Because it didn’t even last an afternoon.

This one could’ve been legit. Miguel was recently asked about Frank Ocean, and then said point blank, “I genuinely believe that I make better music, all the way around.” This wasn’t some subliminal pop prodding that needed to be decoded or Genius’d, this was a very clear power move. You would expect, even hope, that a performer like Miguel has that kind of self-confidence. And his claim wasn’t such a stretch — several critics felt that Kaleidoscope Dream eclipsed Channel Orange. But once Miguel actually said it, it was paradoxically seen as a display of insecurity, and Righteous Critic Twitter lambasted him for daring to blaspheme the Orange God-Singer. So a few hours later, Miguel softened his stance and said there’s “no need to compare apples to oranges,” simultaneously robbing the world of a Frank Ocean response and handing the victory to him.

What’s your stance on all these manufactured feuds? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter.