You don't have to know much about rap to be riveted by last week's epic battle of diss tracks between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. It was like watching a steamroller slowly crush a Matchbox car. Drake made a few snide remarks, and then Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Lamar came back and just pulverized him. Lamar dissected Drake's insecurities about being insufficiently Black and too, well, Canadian to be a real rapper. Then he went nuclear, tearing apart Drake's family and accusing him of preying on teenage girls. And then he did the whole thing again, but to a fun dance beat, crafting a song that will probably be played at clubs all summer. The audience was repelled and delighted by this public cruelty — the last track soared to the top of the charts. Despite myself, I was one of those who listened to Lamar's' tracks over and over, awed by his multilayered poetry but also impressed by his willingness to be so profoundly mean.
Going negative works. It grabs our attention. That's why negative political ads are more effective than positive ones, and why they now make up more than half of all campaign advertising. Allegations that the other guy is a terrible person shift more votes than noble declarations of how to improve American lives. In this current election cycle, we are already being bombarded by attack ads, not just from the presidential campaigns but from congressional and local races as well. The effect of this tsunami of negativity is to make Americans angrier at one another, more isolated, more unhappy. And all of it can lead to violence. Rappers have been killed over diss tracks in the past, while in the present, we've seen a five-fold rise in violent right-wing political attacks since 2016. We should listen to hip-hop veteran Questlove, who condemned both Drake and Lamar — and their fans. "Nobody won the war," he wrote. This was just about an "audience wanting blood."
This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Wake Up Dead Man: ‘arch and witty’ Knives Out sequelThe Week Recommends Daniel Craig returns for the ‘excellent’ third instalment of the murder mystery film series
-
Zootropolis 2: a ‘perky and amusing’ movieThe Week Recommends The talking animals return in a family-friendly sequel
-
Storyteller: a ‘fitting tribute’ to Robert Louis StevensonThe Week Recommends Leo Damrosch’s ‘valuable’ biography of the man behind Treasure Island
-
The rapid-fire brilliance of Tom StoppardIn the Spotlight The 88-year-old was a playwright of dazzling wit and complex ideas
-
‘Mexico: A 500-Year History’ by Paul Gillingham and ‘When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented American Comedy’ by David Margolickfeature A chronicle of Mexico’s shifts in power and how Sid Caesar shaped the early days of television
-
Homes by renowned architectsFeature Featuring a Leonard Willeke Tudor Revival in Detroit and modern John Storyk design in Woodstock
-
Film reviews: ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ and ‘Eternity’Feature Grief inspires Shakespeare’s greatest play, a flamboyant sleuth heads to church and a long-married couple faces a postmortem quandary
-
We Did OK, Kid: Anthony Hopkins’ candid memoir is a ‘page-turner’The Week Recommends The 87-year-old recounts his journey from ‘hopeless’ student to Oscar-winning actor
