Hip-hop artists are some of the most scrutinized celebrities and are held to high standards, and expected to act as role models to their younger audience. However, these artists are human, too, and have their own disputes amongst each other. This past summer, things got particularly ‘heated’ between some of CHS students’ favorite rappers.

As fans have seen in the past, when rappers have some differences to settle, it can get serious. Unfortunately, ‘rap beef’ has proven to be fatal, as two of what many consider to be the greatest rappers of all time, Tupac and Notorious B.I.G, both were victims of unsolved murders, which were thought to have been linked to their feud during the mid 90’s. For one reason or another, this summer saw lots of feuds similar to this nature go down.

“It’s strange seeing some of my favorite artists fight with each other in front of millions of people,” junior Mateo Noguera said. “I’m used to only hearing them in the news when they drop a new album or something.”

The first two artists to catch the ‘beef bug’ this summer were the king of modern-day hip-hop –Drake, and Pusha-T, savior of the streets. The beef has existed for years, but was reignited in May when Pusha dropped a subtle diss in one of the lines in the song “Infrared” off his new album for not writing his own lyrics.

Drake responded within days with the release of “Duppy Freestyle,” a diss track where the Toronto native questioned Pusha-T’s legitimacy as a drug-lord rap persona, and mentioned his fiancé. This set Pusha-T off, resulting in the beef escalating to a whole new level. Pusha T fired back with a diss track titled “The Story of Adidon.” After receiving some inside information on Drake, Pusha exposed Drake for having a son that he was keeping a secret from the world and not being around for him. Drake had planned on revealing this secret to the world by releasing a new Adidas sneaker line in which he would name after his son. However, this plan was sabotaged by Pusha-T, resulting in Drake eventually switching his endorsement deal to Nike.

“Drake is probably one of the ‘nice guys’ in rap,” Noguera said. “His image completely changed after the Pusha-T beef.”

Another recent feud is between the colorful internet troll/rapper Tekashi69 and Chicago’s street icon, Chief Keef. There was not much intellectual substance to this feud, but a handful of altercations over Twitter and Instagram eventually lead to a drive-by shooting by Tekashi’s crew on Chief Keef at a New York hotel. Fortunately, no one was hit, but seeing a few interactions over the internet result in a real life shooting surprised the internet and opened up people’s eyes to what can happen through what people may have thought were just simple online feuds.

“I think that the younger generation needs realize that running your mouth on the internet can result in real life consequences,” Anatomy teacher James Fishman said.

Later on that summer, the long awaited Travis Scott album, Astroworld, finally dropped and immediately sent fans head-over-heels. It soared to the top of the charts and was receiving great reviews from music critics. The only person who seemed to have a problem with the album’s success was rap’s queen, Nicki Minaj.

Nicki Minaj released her new album a week after Travis Scott, but claimed the sales were being inflated by merchandise and tour pass bundles that Scott was selling on his website. However, twitter did some investigating and found that Nicki was doing the same sales tactic on her website. Nicki Minaj called Travis Scott out on Twitter, radio shows, and talk shows, while he never made any comments.

“Nicki Minaj was really out of line and really ruined her image,” senior Halle Pogorelc said.

While most of these feuds may have served as a form of entertainment to the public, there are lessons to be learned, as we now know what can happen when two people fight over social media.

“I think some of these rappers need to stop running their mouth on social media and save it for the microphone,” Noguera said.