I have always loved rap beefs between big artists (I mean just the rap; nothing physical please), and I will indulge in them and study every single bar when that happens. If you have any access to the internet, you should know, or at the very least briefly heard about, the rap beef of the century that happened just 8 months ago - Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake.
The main meat of this post is not the beef. However, I have to talk about the beef a little before I can move forward and talk about the fish instead. (booo!)
Lecrae, also a rapper, went into the whole context of the situation, but he did a 180-degree flip and spoke about value. You can watch the whole thing here:
The meat of it all starts at 24:11 of the video above. If you're lazy to watch it, let me just paraphrase what I got from it.
Lecrae explained that this is a battle of values between the two artists:
- Kendrick is known to value culture, discipline, doing good to society, teach people to be spiritual, etc. His songs are known to have depth.
- Drake is known for partying, money, girls, etc. Just think celebrity excessive partying I guess. People say his songs are shallow.
At this point, a wide majority of the world agree that Kendrick won the beef. But, what did he win exactly? For now, Kendrick clearly has the super obvious morality high ground, and his songs have depth, and so, people deemed him the winner.
There are two things that struck me:
1. What if one day, Drake suddenly turns away from his partying behavior, starts doing things for the community, write better lyrics, and learns to be a better person? What if he becomes a much better person than Kendrick? Does that mean Kendrick then lose the battle of values?
2. For Drake, who most likely values his assets and what (and who) he can buy, may feel that since he still has all the money, even though people said he lose the battle, he is assured that everything is still great. But what if one day he lose all of his money? What is his value then?
Now, it got me thinking - what is my value, and what do I value?
After watching the video in full, I felt like I've been placing values in things that don't last. The moment I lose these things, it'll cripple me, make me feel defeated, and I'll lose confidence in myself.
Speaking about fish - I've been part of the fish group for the longest time. I should have known where I should place my values. But, at the same time, I feel like either I have totally forgotten about it, or I have never actually lived it.
Maybe, instead of studying bars in depth, I should spend some time studying what my values should be.