Royce Da 5’9 Slaughters Battle Rap Misconception, “Some Of The Best Records Are Born In Beefs”

Written By S. Samuel

Slaughterhouse's Royce Da 5'9 opens up about his perception on rap battles and why beefs have been known to spark some of the best records in hip-hop in the new issue of XXL Magazine.

1.6k Views Comments Off on Royce Da 5’9 Slaughters Battle Rap Misconception, “Some Of The Best Records Are Born In Beefs”

From Royce’s eyes, rappers need to find a way to keep their beefs on wax and avoid violence.

“The battle edge, you gotta understand that a lot of people wanna take it directly to the streets,” Royce explained in an interview.” So it’s like, you got different corporations; they hate each other. You got Bill Gates, and he might hate the CEO of Oracle. But they just do a friendly competition thing. Whereas in hip-hop, it’s so close to the streets that, once somebody has a battle with somebody, it can spill over into the streets and create problems. I think that’s that what the problem is. I mean, back in the day, you didn’t like a dude, you said ‘Boom, that’s a sucker MC.’ Now they got the phrase ‘hater,’ and they, like, ‘He’s a hater: he’s hatin’.’ And I think that kills some of the competition, because some of the best records are born in beefs. ‘Hit Em Up,’ ‘Who Shot Ya?,’ ‘No Vaseline.’ So I think that we, as hip-hop, gotta find a way to get that competitive spirit back without always going straight to the streets and trying to get crews on shoot-outs and sh*t.” (XXL Magazine)

A few weeks ago, Dipset leader Cam’ron said his 2007 beef with 50 Cent was good for the rap game.

“I don’t have no problem with 50. 50 cool with me,” Cam said. “It was good for hip-hop. We had our little hip-hop beef or whatever you wanna call it, but ain’t no problem. Jim [Jones] and Juelz [Santana] do stuff with 50 and they camp all the time. I don’t have a problem with 50 at all. It is what it is. We had our little discrepancy, and we moved on from it.” (RapFix)

Renowned battle rap veteran Kool G Rap recently shared his perspective on beef’s rising popularity.

“They glorify that,” Kool G said about rappers beefing and showing off jewelry in videos. “But, we glorify having jewelry and all that too back in the days. Everybody can remember Run-DMC with the big rope chains and all that. But at the same time, Run-DMC didn’t make their claim to fame promoting gold chains or a Mercedes-Benz. They made their claim to fame by making good music. And so would the other artists that would follow. Like a Rakim, a [Big Daddy] Kane, a G Rap and KRS-One. Our [main] focus focal point was to make good music and to stand out as one of the best lyricists, as one of the best artists, or as one of the best hip-hop groups of the times.” (Vlad TV)

Last fall, Kool G talked to SOHH about hip-hop beefs and battles.

“I think anything in hip-hop as far as battles should be kept in the music. It really shouldn’t go as far as [taking it to] the streets, and when it does start to go into the streets, it turns into an entirely different thing. That’s beef. That’s drama. And rhyming is rhyming. I think people should keep the two separated. If it’s about battle raps, it could be anywhere. Like any outlet for music or visual, we’re in such a technology state where you could go on a website like YouTube and just pull up a bunch of visual material and hip-hop music or whatever you want to put up on there is going to follow suit.” (SOHH Guest Star)

Check out some past Royce Da 5’9 footage below:

Comments Off on Royce Da 5’9 Slaughters Battle Rap Misconception, “Some Of The Best Records Are Born In Beefs”

Written by S. Samuel

Steven Samuel is the co-founder of SOHH.com.

The Game

Game Loses His Big Papa, “Life’s A B*tch & Then You Die”

Hollywood Starlet Hires Waka Flocka Mama, “I Spent $2 Million On My Music Career”