The Sunday News
Arts Focus with Raisedon Baya
PEOPLE love drama, they say. And we agree. Serve people drama anytime and you have them eating from your fingers. Quite a number of celebrities rose to fame because they dished nothing but drama, some of the drama was too personal to even mention here.
Creative beefs are common, they have been around for long, especially in the music industry. I think Hip Hop took it to another level. In America the East Coast Vs West Coast stuff is legendary and it claimed the lives of some of the world’s most illustrious artists in the likes of Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. And the question still remains, did this beef take music to another level? Of course, it did. And with it came this gangster culture of using music to settle scores or ‘diss’ other artists in the hope of winning music lovers over.
Yes, the beef got the attention of the people and in the end music was sold and artists made money. But there was a prize to pay. Many precious lives were lost.
Recently, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche took to social media platforms to rant against a young writer who had slowly built some tension with her in order to milk the beef to sell her own books. I didn’t even know about this young woman and her works but after the Chimamanda Ngozi rant I went looking for her and now looking for her books.
My interest was aroused. Who is this young woman who could piss off the great Chimamanda and get her to rant like she did? No holds barred. Of course the rant received mixed emotions. There were those who felt Chimamanda had stooped too low to rant. They felt she should have ignored the young woman and continued with her work –which didn’t need a beef to sell.
There were also those who just took the young writer’s defence, calling Chimamanda all sorts of names. Quite a number called her a bully. But one interesting thing about the whole saga was the growing number of Chimamanda haters.
Talking to a writer friend about this he attributed this to her success. “She is too successful and so a lot of people are beginning to see her as a different person from the Chimamanda they all loved and claimed was representing Africa well in literary matters.”
Just the past week there was something similar in Harare. A beef between Hip Hop artists Enzo Ishal and Holy Ten.
Both composed songs that apparently dissed each other, with one even claiming to be the King of Hip Hop.
This fight generated a lot of attention with the videos generating over 100 000 views. Even comic pastor jumped in, added his humour, and almost ran away with the button stick and garnering over 70 000 views in less than week.
There is nothing wrong with beef that leaves no one bleeding or dead but brings views and dollars to the artist’s table. I noticed a couple of Bulawayo artists also tried to get into the beef but the interest had fizzled out. Well, beef is now an old trick used to sell music.
It reminded us of how many years back people try to push Tuku into the ring with Thomas Mapfumo and fortunately the two were mature enough to ignore it and let their music do the talking and sell itself. Anyway, if the beef does kill anyone and does bring in the numbers and money then let there be beef every day.
