Thug Life Army

If we in hip-hop and hip-hop culture as a whole have learned anything, lets not forget Tupac (2Pac) and Biggie and the ''East Coast - West Coast feud'' that took them from us.

''A double slaying last May that led to the arrest of a rap figure in California stemmed from a feud between Midwest and West Coast music industry groups, authorities said Friday''; reports AP writer Ken Ritter.

Is this really a ''feud'' or is it between ''clicks'' or just an incident between people?

Lets not start this Midwest and West Coast feud or try to turn it into some ''beef'' thing.

The press fueled the East Coast – West Coast thing until we lost major voices that we will never be able to replace.

If hip-hop has learned anything we should just step back and let this whole thing play out before we all go off and 'start something or fuel something'' that may not even exist.

Andre Dow aka Mac Minister has ties to the hip-hop and rap arena ok, and he is from the west coast but to call this a feud or go to the lengths of making it all about feuds and hip-hop and rap is a reduction of the thought process.

The murders of rap artists Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks, 34.; Anthony "Fat Tone" Watkins, 24 and Jermaine "Cowboy" Akins, 22 are tragic incidences, but is it really a ''Midwest - West Coast feud''?

After hip-hop lost rap icons Tupac (2Pac) and Biggie, the press looked back and many felt they may have contributed to the deaths of the rap icons because many news outlets, even the hip-hop and rap news outlets; fed the ''flame'' of this huge feud between East and West until they got the headlines they wanted.

We can not make that mistake again. These were murders that need to be investigated and the suspects will get their day in court and the hip-hop world can go on. We should not let ''the authorities'' or news agencies cloud the facts and fabricate things that may not be there.

Shaheem Reid of MTV has a good informative article on this and even he does not mention a Midwest and West Coast feud. His article is informative and states facts not speculation or any kind of ''beef building''; so maybe some in the news media have learned.

Midwest and West Coast feud – I don''t see it. Senseless killing – yes I see that, but we should wait for the facts to come out before we blow this out of proportion and make ourselves (hip-hop) look worse than we do now already.

With other recent events of murder and the lack of co-operation by some in hip-hop the last thing the culture needs right now is some fabricated beef stories to make us look worse.

All these occurrences are not real hip-hop that is not the way it is suppose to be.

Recently notable hip-hop and rap living icons Nas and Jay-Z put all that ''beef'' aside for the good of hip-hop and the hip-hop culture; and we all have great respect for what they are doing and the maturity they are showing. So they took a step forward for hip-hop and the ''authorities'' and major news agencies try to drag hip-hop back 2 steps.

So when you read about a ''Midwest and West Coast feud'' remember the consequences we are living with from the last big ''hip-hop feud'' that was fueled by the media.

Maybe it is time for hip-hop to go vegetarian.