One thing I almost noted in my end-of-2006 column but didn’t was how much hip-hop fell in love with MySpace last year. We had “MySpace Jumpoff,” we had Raekwon giving shout-outs to his white dudes who put him onto internet social networking, and if this had happened a couple weeks earlier it would’ve been at the top of my list. All of the hip-hop Internet nerds have been waiting for rap beef to go digital, and Jim Jones and the Dipset hacking Tru Life’s MySpace page is exactly the ridiculous “it’s on” moment were hoping for.
I was skeptical that it was an official hit — Jim Jones seems like he’s incapable of dealing with any technology more complicated than, say, shoelaces — but as soon as I saw the screen caps I was convinced. The obvious, completely dumb insults like the, “no, you’re the guy in the Borat bathing suit” response are classic Dipset, and who else would go after Tru Life but the posse behind the weirdly obsessive Jay-Z beef?
Given that competition is the hip-hop’s driving force, I’ll bet that MySpace drive-bys like this are only the beginning of rap war online. Don’t be surprised when some scrawny, basement-pale kid toting around a tricked-out Linux box become the second most ostentatious entourage member next to the jewelry caddy.