Paper Topic Ideas

"BBL Drizzy": A History of Hip Hop Beef

The rap feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake recently took over my social media feeds. From in-depth Tiktok analyses of the lyrics of Kendrick’s most recent diss track to the plethora of new songs you can stream featuring Metroboomin’s “BBL Drizzy” beat, it’s clear that the two rappers’ exchange is feeding our society’s insatiable desire for celebrity gossip and intrigue. And, if the whiteboard in the Sylvania ASPCC office is to be believed, the majority of folks at PCC agree that Kendrick won this one.

This isn’t the first rap feud to make the news in recent history. It seems like Drake is never NOT beefing with someone. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj have been locked in a (mostly) mild feud for years, with occasional outbursts of thrown shoes and tweets. For many old school rap and hip hop fans though, today’s feuds lack the bite of those that unfolded in the 1990s: Dr. Dre vs. Eazy-E, Tupac vs. Biggie, Nas vs. Jay-Z…life or death Shakespeare-level dramas that literally changed the face of the music industry and ended in more than one tragedy. Are today’s feuds made of the same stuff, or are they just another marketing tactic?

Kendrick and Drake’s feud may not initially seem like a great jumping off point for a college research paper, but by digging a little deeper and asking some good questions, it’s possible to look at this topic from many angles. Hip hop beef, one could argue, is a thing of social, cultural, historical, and/or literary importance, and to bolster that argument, the research needs to get a little creative. 

image credit: José L. Soto, Washington Post, May 6, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2024/05/06/drake-kendrick-beef-diss-tracks/.

Gathering Information

Like I said, the main place where I’ve been seeing all this unfold is on social media, particularly on TikTok and Instagram. While social media isn’t usually the first place I go when I’m researching a topic for a paper, it can be a valid and valuable source. Social media has given many people a platform where they can share their important (and sometimes not-so-important) perspectives and experiences. Journalists and news media outlets, celebrities, and politicians increasingly use social media to share information with the public as well. It’s easy to find a whole lot of perspectives on a particular topic by searching hashtags on different sites. As I skimmed through posts about Kendrick and Drake, I started to brainstorm some research questions by reflecting on what I was seeing and looking at the bigger picture:

• What benefits (or consequences) might a musician face if they get involved in a rap feud or beef? 

• What role do beefs and feuds play in the history of hip hop and rap?

• What do rap feuds tell us about confrontation and/or expressing disagreement?

• What common tactics or subjects do rappers use in writing diss tracks?

• Why do people (not just musicians - politicians, scientists, celebrities, gamers, philosophers, etc.) publicly feud?

A look at Wikipedia shows me a lot more background information I could use to further develop and define my topic or use as examples, including a new page on the Drake-Kendrick Lamar feud itself, an overview of the historic East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry, a page on ‘Diss’ which I now know is the term for this genre of hip hop, and the related definition and history of battle rap. Based on what I’ve found, I think I’m going to move forward with my second topic idea (the role of beefs and feuds in rap & hip hop history).

A Deeper Look

Now that I have gathered some background information, I want to find some sources that will allow me to dive into my selected topic. Now is a good time to ask myself what perspectives I want to include. In addition to news articles by music journalists, I’d love to find something from a music historian or critic or two, and of course, I want to know what industry professionals and the artists themselves have said. Some more cultural context would be good too…a source that talks about rap beefs as literature or oral history maybe, or the roots of rap and hip hop music? 

I start with Google, typing in “history of hip hop feuds,” and an article from BET pops up that sounds pretty close to my topic. I then find another article from hip-hop historian Tariq Nashid that includes embedded audio of several historically important diss tracks, and it occurs to me that in addition to the article, I can cite the tracks themselves as sources if I want. There’s also a pretty thorough history from a website called Rock the Bells, which upon further inspection turns out to be all about hip hop culture and is owned by LL Cool J. There are lots of quotes in this article from hip hop artists talking about beefs, which is great for that artist perspective I was looking for. Now that my eyes are getting tired of reading, I find a podcast by two music critics called “Rivals: Music’s Greatest Feuds” with an episode about Dr. Dre and Eazy-E. It should be interesting to hear their feud discussed from a more modern perspective, because I like to think that the blatant homophobia of “Dre Day” and similar tracks is not as accepted as it once was. 

Now I’m on the hunt for some peer-reviewed, scholarly sources. Searching “rap feuds” in EBSCO, one of the library’s databases, gets me a news article from 1996 about Tupac Shakur’s death, which should provide some historical perspective (I note the difference in the tone of this article, compared to this more recent New York Times article about Kendrick and Drake). I’m not finding much in the way of scholarly articles in EBSCO though, so I move my search over to Google Scholar. Searching “hip hop beef,” I find a PDF of a book titled That’s the Joint: The Hip Hop Studies Reader (we also have a couple hard copies at the PCC Libraries). I don’t have time to read the whole thing, but I might pick a relevant chapter from the table of contents. Other interesting sources include an article on the linguistic African roots of battle rap, an article about how hip hop journalism centers violence, including feuds, and an analysis of the lyrics of rap diss songs by women. Now that I’ve found a variety of sources that represent different perspectives on my topic, I’m ready to get started laying out my paper. 

Pop culture topics like this one sometimes require some creative approaches to research, including using sources, like Tiktok, that might not seem very “academic.” A research topic can come from anywhere, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to the research process. By bringing together diverse sources and perspectives, you can paint a well-rounded picture of a topic like this, and demonstrate how moments like this in pop culture can have much deeper, historic and social significance. Your librarians are here to help you brainstorm, find, and connect all kinds of sources to use in your own research! 

image credit: Mark Anthony Neal, "NewBlackMan in Exile" (blog), March 18, 2011, https://www.newblackmaninexile.net/2011/03/cover-art-thats-joint-hip-hop-studies.html.