Where's The Beef?: Common vs. Drake - "Stay Schemin'" (Aubrey Diss Remix)
Hip-Hop "Beef" is essentially a long-forgotten art form/promotional exercise. Infamous beefs of the per-Internet Golden Boom-Bap Era (1980-90's) include: 2pac-Biggie, Nas-Jay-Z, "The Bridge Wars," LL Cool J-Kool Moe Dee, and "The Roxanne Saga." A carefully designed marketing tool, beef is usually kick-started when one rapper does/says something that the other doesn't exactly agree with. Beefs are usually all in good fun and most times, end in a truce... One exception however, is the tragic deaths of former friends, 2pac & Biggie. Recent Internet-based beefs have included: Kanye-50 Cent, Nicki Minaj-Lil Kim, [The] Game-everyone, Eminem-Canibus (Mariah Carey).
In what may very well be the first size-able Hip-Hop beef of 2012, Common released a diss track aimed @ Drake just yesterday afternoon. Common-Drake's feud stems back to Nov. 2011 when Common released "Sweet." The third single from The Dreamer/The Believer notoriously contained the not-so subtle rapped couplet, "Some hoe-ass nig-as. Singing all around me man, la la la. You ain't muthafuc-ing Frank Sinatra." While Common soon thereafter clarified the true identity of his "soft" target to Sway, Drake seemingly failed to respond... until this past Friday, adding a quick diss verse onto Rick Ross' pre-album mixtape track, "Stay Schemin.'" A verse which, by nearly all accounts feels pretty uninspired, lackluster, and vague.
Never one to bow out early, Common eagerly fired back with an appended version of "Stay Schemin'" (Remix), which was premiered over @ MTV Monday afternoon. Drake has [again] yet to respond and I really hope he decides against it... because honestly, that Common verse BURIED him, Drake doesn't even realize how "out of his league" he actually is, and Common's a modern Hip-Hop legend who's credibility shouldn't even be questioned in the first place. Whichever side your on, Common/Drake's new albums -- The Dreamer/The Believer & Take Care -- are now available @ your friendly neighborhood record store.