A Shot of Incilin

So the story goes a little something like this: Tonight, in the San Bernardino leg of the Rock The Bells Tour, Raekwon and his goons from his crew Icewater ran up on Joe Buddens backstage with a camera. According to Joe Buddens, Raekwon asked for an apology and since he was outnumbered 8-1, Joe offered one but was then snuffed by one of Rae’s goons anyway.

Buddens later put up a video detailing the situation and claiming what Rae did was a “faggot move.” Miss Info posted this on her blog about Raekwon’s motives:

“According to sources within the Icewater camp, the motive behind the confrontation was this video that Joe posted right after his talk with Meth…as well as Joe’s “No Comment” record, which Raekwon perceived to include subliminal shots towards him.”

Now I don’t really support violence, but I really don’t condone it either. One hand is a closed fist that says fuck throwing punchlines we throwing punches. Let’s not front, talking shit on the blogs, and on radio, and on Youtube really is the bitch move. Punching someone in the face, well that’s pretty fucking gangsta. Call me shallow, but that’s just how it is.

On the other hand, when rappers punch each other in the face it makes all of hip hop look foolish, uncivilized, and immature. Plus let’s not forget that bad behavior gets in the way of making money; drama like this is the exact reason why venues don’t like to book hip hop shows and why there’s always a extra security presence at rap concerts.

So what to make of this mess? Well, everyone knows Incilin loves beef (||) but I always take it on a case by case basis. This is one of those cases where they should have kept it peaceful. Raekwon has already expressed regret about the situation: “On my children no one was supposed to get touched…that was not my intention.” But that’s too little too late, especially considering how there are unconfirmed reports that Crooked I, Busta Rhymes, and The San Bernardino police are all now getting involved.

Now I’ve been pretty involved with the entire Joe Buddens/Method Man beef myself, and the one thing I learned is that Wu-Tang is totally dysfunctional. There was a time when Wu-Tang would form like Voltron and put on a united front. But nowadays everyone is going in a different direction: Method had no interest in battling Joey, but Inspecta Deck went and made a diss record. Method squashed the beef (Which Rae supposedly arranged) Raekwon went ahead and got Joey snuffed. Meanwhile, most of the other members of the group like Ghostface (whose been doing a lot of interviews lately) have yet to really speak on the whole situation. Come to think of it, this is exactly how the Raekwon/Biggie fued ended up going down.

But the internal conflicts within the Wu aren’t the worst part about this mess. The truth is, I would have much rather seen an epic lyrical battle between Slaughterhouse and Wu-Tang and marveled at their brilliant display of hip hop at it’s most basic than have to sit through hip hop at it’s most barbaric. Wu-Tang/Slaughterhouse duel on wax is this hip hop fan’s wet dream because they’re both groups who put so much emphasis on their lyrics and microphone techniques. In a lot of ways, them making songs together makes more sense than them beefing. This beef isn’t over and maybe we’ll still get to see some positive music out of all this, but I doubt it. At this point, there’s probably just going to be more bickering.

By the way, while I was reading tweets following this beef and writing this post, I decided to play GZA’s classic 1995 LP Liquid Swords. The kung-fu sample at the end of “Duel of The Iron Mic” seems perfectly apt to summarize this situation:

“At the height of their fame and glory, they turned on one another. Each struggling in vein for ultimate supremacy. In the passion and death of their struggle the very art that brings them to such Olympian heights was lost. Their techniques vanished forever.”