King Me
written by Just K
written by Just K
Who’s the King of NY? My personal vote goes to Jay-Z, but that’s just me. In fact, Jay-Z’s personal vote goes to Jay-Z. He’s claimed the title often enough throughout his career. Nas is also a viable candidate. Despite being a bit less prolific than Jay, Nas has actually been in the game longer. And if we’re going to make longevity a factor, Uncle L also has the right to consider himself king, which he has done before. Then there’s the only guy that has had beef with more rappers than LL Cool J: 50 Cent. He came in the game going at rappers with the classic “How to Rob.” Since then he’s been at war with Fat Joe, The Lox, Lil’ Wayne, Ja Rule, fomer G-Unit affiliates Game and Buck, and probably too many other rappers to remember. Of course we can’t speak on the title of K.O.N.Y without mentioning the notorious one himself. The only dude from NY to drop a thorough double album (see: The Challenge by JusHH), many hip-hop heads feel there will never be another MC that does it the way Biggie did it. It’s definitely a debate among fans, but in battles and in claims made in songs and interviews, it’s clearly a debate among the MCs of NY. Because NY pretty much represents hip-hop for the east coast and for the north (Red, Budden, Beans, I’m sorry) the King of NY, by default, is the King of the East and the King of the North. Yeah, I guess I can see why so many people are fighting for that spot.
So how come no one’s fighting to be King of the South?
With representation in the commercial hip-hop scene from Texas, Georgia, Florida and Alabama (shout out to Rich Boy), one would think that the fight for the southern crown would be just as fierce, if not more so, than the fight for the NY top spot. However, that is not the case. T.I. picks up the phone and calls Scarface to pretty much ask if it’s ok to start calling himself the King of the South. Scarface says it’s cool and there you have it. The King of the South is born.
What’s interesting is that nobody else is really vying for that spot. Lil’ Wayne, Bun B, either member of Outkast, and Luda would all make a decent case to be called king. None of them do. I’ve heard them call themselves chaperon of the south, godfather of the south, prince of the south, mouth of the south and anything else but King. Why is that? Should there be more competition for that spot in the south or is the fierce competition for that spot in NY partly to blame for the divisive nature of some of the music that comes out of that area? Really, it might just be indicative of the lifestyles and how things are done in those respective regions. Whatever the case, I know who the south considers its king, but as long as NY has run rap, the hip-hop capital has never been able to award someone its crown.
So that leads me to ask, what does it really take to be king? And even more importantly, does it matter what you call yourself as long as the music is on point?
4 comments:
great post, i honestly think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the divisive and adversarial culture that exists in the north. Dont get me wrong, cats in the south beef too, but I think you saw unity before you saw disunity because southern rappers united around the fact that none of them were being considered King of anything nor even considered as dope rappers for the longest time. So those props to even be noticed were sought after before anything.
Then they realized the lucrative nature of the business and decided that money was much more important than a fictional crown. There is definitely a natural heirarchy as well: Face and UGK are without a doubt the south's forefathers, Kast are Godparents, TI, Luda, Wayne are uncles, and then from there u honestly get a bunch of bullshit for the most part, sans Killer Mike, David Banner, MJG, and Tela among others.
To conclude my long ass comment, TI is "THE KING HOMIE!" Wayne is "the best rapper alive", Luda is pimpin hoes and such, and Bun B eloquently spits hot fire even at the age of 40. As long as everybody is eating, fictional crowns just dont really matter much in the south; its like you said, as long as the music is dope, who cares?
Great points all around (even you too Bars). I do think that the general regional disrespect that Southern rappers did/do face brought many of them together from jump. And the priority was to get the respect from the rest of the country rather than compete to see who was the best amongst them.
But although it may not be a "King of the South" crown, southern rappers are fighting for some type of supremacy. T.I. had battles with both Ludacris and Lil' Flip after announcing that he was the King of the South. And many other rappers engaged in mini-spats against each other (Pimp C/ Jeezy, Mike Jones/ Cham/ Paul Wall, Killer Mike vs everyone).
Rap's aggressiveness and competitiveness isn't just tied to one region. Every rapper thinks that he or she is the best and will step to anyone who dares to challenge it. Hell, since Game came out, he battled several artists out west (Rass Kass, Yukmouth) and that just followed Pac who beefed with Chino XL and Xzibit.
The battle for NY has had nearly 3 decades to materialize. It's got more attention because its been around longest. And in the beginning it was a NY crown because frankly NY was the only game in town. It's like boxing. At first there was only one heavyweight belt but now there's like 3 or 4 once it expanded. It's the same with Hip-Hop only the original belt is called "NY".
They might be on each other's remix and not want to see other's lose paper, but every last one of those southern rappers feel that they are the best in the south.
I agree with JUSHH's boxing analogy....Only I would say there is a heavyweight belt, welterweight, lightweight and so on for NY... how we divide it from there is up for discussion.
I feel what everyone is saying.
Big battles or little battles, at the end of the day there's just ONE king of the south. Whether he's the best rapper or not, that's the title he claims and no one else has attempted to claim it.
I can't say the same about the east coast.
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