Nigeria: Music Rivalry - an Ongoing Battle

10 January 2016

Tweets were reeled out on the web. Phones rang as the news of the fall out between Nigeria's top record label owners, Don Jazzy and Olamide at Nigeria's most glamorous music event, Headies made rounds. Whenever music feuds erupt, one reference that usually comes up is that of hip-hop rivals, Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. That's the deadliest music feud in history that started in a studio, fuelled by ugly rumours and ended the lives and career of the two best- selling rap icons of the 90s. It shook the world and for a few years after the murders happened, Tupac is believed to be alive and at large in places such as Cuba. Even if that proves to be true, Tupac's long break from music is as good as dead.

Don Jazzy and Olamide's beef is no way near Tupac and Biggie's which began in 1991 and ended in 1997. Both Tupac and Biggie had strong music clans, gangs and tremendous fan base. It was not just a feud between two rappers but a curious case of rap sovereignty; a tussle born out of the fact that hip-hop was born by the East Coast and bred by the West Coast. So while the East Coast is the biological parent of rap, West Coast watched it grow and even developed what is called gangsta rap. That genre of rap became a music weapon used in making statements about police brutality, gun running, drug dealing and other aspects of street life.

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