Within each subsection of hiphop culture, there is the prevalent element of “The Battle.” For DJays, it started with who could spin the loudest, and later evolved into a battle of scratching skills. For graffitiers, achieving success was a combination of getting your name out (“Going All City” as Ross calls it) and creating an individual style recognizable to others. BBoying began as little more than a street brawl in terms of competition, and the rivalries were just as real. Emcees used two main techniques to prove supremacy: rap battling and the wax battle. While rap battling is more widespread, wax battles usually gain more publicity, mainly due to the fact that it has to occur between two successful, recognizable, and credible artists.
Ross traces the roots of the wax battle between Nas and Jay-Z back to the time following the death of Biggie Smalls. While both artists tried to keep Big’s legacy alive, they took two conflicting approaches. Jay sought to keep Big alive through his own music, using Big’s life and work to elevate his career (Ross, 312). (What do you think he was doing- elevating his career, honoring Big’s life, or both?) Nas on the other hand saw what Jay was doing as simply capitalizing off his death, first calling him out in his song “We Will Survive”: “Now that you’re gone and these brothas is wrong, using your name in vain and they claim to be New York’s King? (312).” Ross sees Nas’s callout as not just a swipe at Jay, but more so revealing Nas’s idealistic viewpoint.
(Do you think Nas was showing his idealistic viewpoint, simply dissing Jay-Z, or both?)
Moving on Ross details what a typical “dis” record is then specifically details Jays Blueprint II dis of Nas in which Jay talks about Nas’s consciousness credibility with the line, “just cause the nigga wear a kufi it don’t mean that he bright”(313).
Ross then takes the battle back to the dawn of the 20th century paralleling Nas and Jays “matierialst/ idealist feud” to Booker T Washington and WEB DuBois . Ross talks about Nas’ response to “Takeover” as similar in context to Web ‘s response to Booker T’s Biography “Up from slavery” which held views that WEB felt compelled to respond to.
Ross puts the two conflicts together when he says that emphasis on records of Nas and J obscures the real conflict. Real significance within Hip Hop tells much about the dilemma in young marginalized black America at the turn of the 21st century just as the conflict between DuBuis and Washington tells about oppressed America at the turn of the 20th century. Ross basically lays out that Jay followed Booker T’s accomodationist Blueprint (315).
Ross believes that during the late pre-millennium, Nas wasn’t clear about the role he wanted to play in hiphop. This is reflected by Nas’s albums Nastrodamus and I Am, which were released only eight months apart. His first of the two, I Am, carried strong ideas but were backed by weak lyrics. Nastrodamus, says Ross, lacked the ambition found in I Am as well as the lyricism found in earlier albums. Whatever direction Nas was headed in, the events of 9/11 changed his direction entirely.
After 9/11, Jay and Nas went in two very different directions. Jay’s album The Blueprint, which coincidentally was released on 9/11, contained many clubby hits such as “Izzo (HOVA)” and “Girls, Girls, Girls.” A few months later, Nas released Stillmatic which was far more socially critical. While other rappers at the time were keeping their material light, Nas fired lines like “George Bush killer to George Bush kill me” (322). Ross puts much emphasis on Nas’s transformation from commercial artist to socially conscious artist by quoting the lines “Diamond Rings can poison a rap star” and “Metamorphosis, this is what I changed to. God, I’m so thankful” (322). Ross further argues that Nas’s Stillmatic was “An album the culture needed, an album America needed” (323).
(Do you agree with this statement?)
After Stillmatic, Nas continued to fire criticisms. However, he still retained his sense of social responsibility and love of black culture with songs like “I Can”, which gives hope to the Black youth with the lines “Nobody says you have to be gangstas, hoes- read more, learn more, change the globe.” Ross subsequently slams Jay-Z with the line “Jay-Z successfully exported a mainstream Dream that didn’t change social or economic relations for anyone except himself” (328).
(Do you think Jay is only helping himself, and Nas is helping advance the black youth?)
Even recently, Nas retains his social consciousness and idealistic viewpoint with his 2004 album Street’s Disciple. On one track, he criticizes the Russell Simmons’ backed Hiphop voting campaign (333). He critiqued African American entertainers and athletes with the song “These are our heroes” by comparing them to “coons” and “jiggerboos” (331). Ross even draws a connection between Nas and Malcolm X, who at one point called out Martin Luther King Jr. for being “Reverend Dr. Chickenwing” (331). On another track, Nas praises his daughter, something many rappers are afraid to do because it would put them at risk of alienating young listeners (333).
(What do you think are the social responsibilities of black athletes and entertainers?)
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