goodlit

Beef It’s What’s for Business
In the late summer of 2005, my Army unit and I listened
as Shirley Bassey’s voice rang out across northern Iraq. The
remix from Kanye West’s Late Registration used a haunting
sample of the theme from the James Bond movie Diamonds Are
Forever. We played it from the ridiculous, loud speakers one
of the guys had in his room, and loud as it was, more people
came over to listen with us than asked us to turn it down.
The music flowed with Bassey, amplifying the melancholy in
her voice and also the melancholy in us. Only, Ye didn’t let us
feel sad for long. The music switched into a rapid, pulsating
beat building a manic energy that made us want to fucking
conquer something.
Much like the protest music of the late sixties and early
seventies serves as the soundtrack for Vietnam, the war on
terror was fought in harmony with our generation’s music of
rebellion: hip-hop. Of course, with hip-hop there are always
battles waging amongst the ranks of rappers. As much as
we depended on them, they gave very little thought to us.
Eminem’s record that year was whack. His protégé 50 Cent
began to distance himself from the Great White Hope-thatwas
and after successfully battling Ja Rule into irrelevance
(thereby doing every hip-hop fan a favor), his sights aimed at
Kanye.
Only, 50 lost that fight. The year I was in the desert, 50
Cent released his sophomore album that didn’t live up to
the promise of his debut. But Kanye’s album hit harder than
the nightly mortar fire. The Rap Beef is a time-honored hiphop
tradition, but in the late 2000s it was the last bastion of
record profitability. Even a rapper with the thug bona fides of
Fiddy, didn’t take it to Kanye on the streets or in the lyrics of
his songs. Their contest was purely based on artistic merit,
represented by record sales. Kanye won handily because he
#GOODLitSwerveAutumn