The blogosphere, and now NPR, have been abuzz recently with analyses of the new beef between Jay-Z and The Game, as expressed in the language of international relations. This is all to the good — the more the blogosphere resembles drunken bullshitting, the happier I am. yet this approach carries problems. The quality and quantity of hip hop feuds is erratic; we can’t count on them to provide a reliable source of rhetorical inspiration. Recognizing this problem, let me humbly suggest a stupider alternative.
You guys should start watching more professional wrestling. Hear me out.
At this point, hip hop beefs are clearly artifice — in fact it seems strange to recall that this wasn’t always obvious. The transparent motivation for this feud, and most, is to increase the relevance of a lesser player like The Game. And this is for the best: like punk rock and heavy metal before it, hip hop seems to have realized that a musical genre can celebrate brutality or authenticity, but not both — not if it wants to be a successful enterprise rather than just self-annihilating performance art. Yet despite this unavoidable choice, the realities of the genre’s history and the demands of its fanbase make a definitive choice between these alternatives impossible.
This merely-half-hearted embrace of fakery places limits on the flamboyance of any conflict. What’s the root of this current beef? The Game insulting Jay-Z’s wife? By any theatrical standard that’s a pretty weak source of motivation. Yet because of the pretense that it was real, even this mild offense was considered by hip hop observers to be beyond the pale.
Professional wrestling does not submit to such arbitrary narrative restrictions. There, the feuds are rooted in more satisfyingly concrete disagreements. Like when Kurt Angle became upset because Stone Cold Steve Austin had sprayed him with a beer truck’s high-pressure discharge hose. Or when the Big Bossman, for reasons known only to him, interrupted The Big Show’s father’s funeral by chaining the coffin to the back of his patrol car and driving haphazardly across the graveyard in which the funeral party had assembled. Or when Triple H drugged and kidnapped his boss’s daughter in order to marry her against her will in Las Vegas (an admittedly troubling arrangement that, feminists will be glad to know, was ultimately vindicated when Stephanie McMahon renounced her ties to her father and asserted her retroactive consent).
I know what you’re thinking: there is no parallel here. None of this has anything to do with feuding rappers. I appreciate that the shift in dramatic scale is somewhat jarring, but I think there are real parallels. In both industries, charisma and braggadocio provide a more compelling set of attributes that supplement a skill-set that is frequently only of nominal importance (wrestling ability; verbal skills). Conflicts are typically resolved through a strangely constrained vocabulary (wrestling moves; assertions about how much cocaine each speaker has sold). Departures from these vocabularies can prompt the audience to dismiss the formal relevance of the associated actions (belts do not change hands if you are only able to pin your opponent after hitting him with a sledge hammer; sales and critical acclaim are often dismissed with appeals to authenticity). Both mediums sustain their vitality through a sort of “farm system” that suffers from fewer commercial constraints (regional promotions; mix tapes). Supporting groups are formed around stars to promote new or marginal talent. The approbation of the fanbase is the ultimate source of political capital, although the development of strategic business relationships allows each industry’s top players to semi-permanently cement their positions as kingmakers. Hell, both industries have even got a guy called The Game.
So take some time. Consider my proposal. Read up on Def Jam: Vendetta, which is something like a Grand Unified Field Theory for the preceding post. And recognize that there’s no reason to resist the narrative ridiculousness that you truly crave. You don’t have to settle for half-assed efforts at thug life improv. Embrace the authentically inauthentic.
I didn’t want you to think that this post went unappreciated, so I thought I’d mention that following your link to Def Jam: Vendetta lead me to the wikipedia article on button mashing. Only, don’t trust the article!, because according to the header, someone has called its factual accuracy into question. I find this hilarious, for some reason.
Anyway – keep up the good work.