Issue 40 - Rap Beefs and Elections

Hey! We made it to issue 40! Only two more to go until we get to the answer. 😍 The answer to what you ask?

Table of Contents

• Is 2024 when democracy dies?

• POTUS candidates are not individuals

• Notable Punk: Kendrick Lamar

• What we can learn from Rap Battles

• We got the energy, we'll tell you all about it

Is 2024 when democracy dies?

No, definitely not, but that’s the spin that drives a lot of attention and concern.

In the US there’s reason to be concerned however, as a growing wealth disparity fuels a shift in focus from republic to empire. SCOTUS envisions a president who is less king and more god emperor. Infallible, all knowing, a shining example of American exceptionalism.

Meanwhile, France and the UK are taking a modest swing to the left, no doubt a response to domestic economic issues and widespread rejection of the status quo.

Part of what makes France and the UK interesting from a narrative perspective is that they can both historically use the phrases left and right wing with coherence. It’s not as clear cut in North America where left wing parties would be centrist in France and conservatives on the French far right.

Instead let’s look at North America (and elsewhere) through a lens of competence versus destruction.

Many people desire competence in their elected leaders, not just because they want things to work, but also because they don’t want to think about it (politics). Generally speaking the status quo is fine for these folks.

Then you’ve got the people who desire destruction. The status quo is intolerable, and they want to support a candidate who shares this view and wants to destroy or radically transform our government and institutions.

While destruction versus competence is a false dichotomy, since a modest amount of competence is required to destroy, it does reflect our contemporary political narratives. And those who support destruction have both momentum and in many respects the moral high ground.

A more desirable alternative to this binary would be a focus on regeneration. Growing amidst decay.

POTUS candidates are not individuals

Regimes, let alone empires, are not ruled by a single person. The patriarchal great man narrative is false. Instead governments are run by groups, often in the form of political parties, but more specifically factions and cliques within those parties or ruling class.

Ageism and ableism aside, the frustrations with Joe Biden are not with him as a leader, but with his administration and the team that manages it. Similarly, the desire or fear of his opponent is not based on that individual, but the crooks, clowns, and extremists riding his wave of anger.

The current narrative that Biden needs to be replaced is both silly and sabotage. Obviously there should have been a different process to pick the Democratic candidate, but the power of incumbency prevented such an exercise or opportunity. Instead they’ve got who they got and should see it to the end, rather than believe probability and spin.

For example, there’s opportunity in framing the candidate as the Long Covid President, and his struggles with cognitive decline could be a model for how we as a society deal with this aspect of ageing?

Similarly, efforts to keep POTUS alive in spite of long covid could trickle down to treatments for the rest of us who will continue to face the consequences of a seemingly perpetual pandemic.

Unless of course getting old is a conspiracy.

The irony is that while the 2024 presidential election is one of the most important in US history, with consequences that will last decades, it remains off the radar of most Americans, as many only tune in once the summer is over.

In contrast, the contest people are paying attention to is an epic rap beef.

Notable Punk: Kendrick Lamar

A top summer jam for 2024 is Not Like Us, the dis anthem from Pulitzer Prize winning rapper Kendrick Lamar that may also mark the death of Drake’s career. The song came out a couple of months ago, and the video has over 35 million views since dropping four days ago.

Kendrick and Drake have been feuding for years, but this year it went to a whole other level. A flurry of dis tracks went back and forth, until Kendrick essentially won the contest in an unprecedented display of power and respect.

Rap battles are inherent to the culture. As long as hip hop has existed there have been beefs and demonstrations of lyrical violence. Artists take each other on both as an expression of skills but also as a means of getting attention.

Yet this has been different. Normally these episodes are like professional wrestling, visible improv, but the show is mostly scripted theatre. For Drake that’s definitely the case, but for Kendrick, this shit is real.

His entire argument against Drake is that he’s fake. An actor. A “colonizer” stealing the culture for his own profit. Others have made this case before, but Kendrick went further and turned it into a live event.

This past Juneteenth, a US holiday on June 19th that marks the delayed end of slavery in Texas, Kendrick staged a pop-up show at the Inglewood Arena in South Central Los Angeles. Not only did he preform “Not Like Us” six times, but one version included people on stage from various LA street gangs that would otherwise be in conflict.

@nineteenclips

#KendrickLamar united the west coast over using a #Drake diss track 😂

The general framing of this event was as Drake’s funeral, with the belief that his career cannot continue from here. While it remains to be seen whether this is the case, it was a seismic moment in hip hop (and North American pop) culture.

As a tangent, the other seismic shift in the music industry is the rise of AI, and no irony, the most popular AI track of 2024 is another Drake dis! BBL Drizzy (which makes fun of Drake for all his plastic surgery) has ridden the attention train surrounding this rap battle, leading the company behind it to get the wrong kind of attention.

This conflict between Kendrick and Drake provides a glaring contrast with the other ongoing contest between two powerful and rich men. While both the election and this rap battle have been subject to intense scrutiny and analysis, they could learn a lot from each other.

What we can learn from Rap Battles

Imagine a world where presidential politics took the form of rap beefs. Picture this: candidates dropping bars instead of banal soundbites, cutting through the noise with lyrical precision, speaking truth to power with the rhythm of revolution. The debates wouldn't be these sterile, lifeless exchanges but battles of wit and wordplay, a dance of dialects that reveal the true essence of a leader.

In this world, there’s no room for lazy lies or meaningless statistics. Every line would be scrutinized, dissected, and played back until the truth emerged, raw and undeniable. The stage would be set not by spin doctors and pollsters but by the raw energy of the crowd, demanding authenticity, demanding substance.

These rap battles would force candidates to be real, to be raw. They’d have to earn respect not through money and manipulation, but through skill and substance. Imagine them standing toe-to-toe, each verse a manifesto, each rhyme a revelation. They couldn’t hide behind empty rhetoric or deceptive data. The truth would be laid bare, line by line, beat by beat.

Think about the creativity it would unleash. Policies would be articulated with passion and precision, the rhythm and rhyme providing a new clarity. Complex issues could be communicated in a way that resonates, that sticks, that stays with people. It would be politics as poetry, governance as groove, leadership as lyricism.

Rap beefs would strip away the pretense, the posturing. You couldn’t fake your way through a freestyle. The true essence of a leader would shine through, their intelligence, their integrity, their insight. It would be a contest of character and creativity, where the best ideas and the most compelling visions would rise to the top.

This would be politics for the people, by the people, with a pulse that matches the heartbeat of the streets. It would be fierce, it would be fiery, it would be full of the kind of raw energy that has the power to ignite real change. This is what presidential politics could be, if we dared to dream a little bolder, if we dared to demand a little more. Let the beat drop, let the truth flow, and let the best rhymes win.

We got the energy, we'll tell you all about it

With due respect to Kendrick, this is the top jam for summer 2024: