Forget East Coast Ventriloquists Versus West Coast Ventriloquists: Rappers Vs. Stand-Up Comedians is the Real Stupid Beef of the Moment
Mr. Show once spoofed the East Coast/West Coast 1990s gangsta rap beef by pitting ventriloquists from California and New York against one another in a bloody feud that quickly develops a body count.
The humor came from the incongruity of hack joke slingers pretending to communicate with the hunks of wood in their laps engaging in the same kind of macho posturing as NWA, Notorious B.I.G and 2Pac.
The world has once again become more ridiculous and laughable than comedy, however, because over the past few months or so a decidedly one-sided beef has emerged pitting rappers against people who tell jokes for a living.
Kanye West instigated this weird feud a while back by responding, badly, to the news that Kim Kardashian, his estranged wife and the mother of his four children, had moved on from their toxic and emotionally abusive relationship and was now seeing stand-up comedian, movie star, screenwriter and Saturday Night Live cast-member Pete Davidson.
The boss move would have been for Kanye to wish the new couple well and focus on his career, romantic life and psychological health. That would have doubled as the sane, decent, rational thing to do but Kanye is not behaving in a sane, decent or rational manner these days.
So instead of treating the situation in an adult fashion, Kanye threw one of his trademark public temper tantrum and cynically tried to pass it off as art. In “Easy” Kanye rapped about his children’s future step daddy, “God saved me from that crash/Just so I can beat Pete Davidson's ass.”
In case there was any doubt as to which Pete Davidson he was referring to, Kanye then released a claymation video where he murdered the Saturday Night Live funnyman/lady’s man and cut off his head.
It was Kanye’s way of showing that he wanted to murder and decapitate Pete Davidson because he was going on kissing dates with a woman he was obviously still obsessed with possessing and controlling, if not necessarily loving or supporting.
Kanye might have thought that it was edgy or provocative or brave, a way of transforming the pain of his personal life into audacious public entertainment. But it was really just pathetic and sad.
The troubled rapper-producer thought he was operating from a position or strength when he was really operating from a position of incredible weakness.
When comedians like Trevor Noah, D.L Hughley and Steve Harvey used their platform as social commentators to point out the incontrovertible truth that West was behaving in an irresponsible and dangerous fashion by threatening his soon to be ex-wife’s new gentleman caller, Kanye responded predictably.
Kanye posted semi-coherent insults/threats on Instagram like “DL Hughley is a pawn Yeah I know a king not supposed to address a pawn but I address everything and find addresses DL So don’t speak on me or my children I can afford to hurt u”, “We gone stop letting practicing drug addicts be used by leftist to Willie Lynch our Future Black people with our own opinion are not allowed to speak in public” and finally “I am the glitch DL God does not like you You have no favor Your family hates you I would hate to be related to somebody who used to be famous Now you just known as a broke pawn at least Oprah got billions ‘allegedly’ Come on leftist Y’all gotta do better than DL This Ye Bring the real smoke baby.”
Kanye West has been making a complete ass of himself threatening comedians but Will Smith took this inexplicable beef to a whole new level when he physically assaulted Chris Rock—on stage no less!—for making a bad joke about his wife.
Like Kanye, Smith might have tricked himself into thinking that he was being strong and macho and masculine in defending his wife’s against a comedian’s unkind words but really he was just highlighting his insecurity.
So I implore rappers of the world to stop this idiotic conflict before someone gets really hurt and/or you just make yourselves look even worse.
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