Celebrity feuds are the best kind of feuds and the Meek Mill/Drake feud of 2015 will go down as one of the most memorable in recent history. Trying to keep up with the back-and-forth disses is like watching a really intense tennis match. Even President Obama’s former senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, weighed in on the feud. He called it “brilliant marketing.”
I am ambivalent on Meek Mill as a rapper, but baiting Drake into a week long feud just as his album dropped is brilliant marketing
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) July 29, 2015
But while the clash of big egos and airing of dirty laundry has certainly made for entertaining gossip, the bigotry behind the disses is depressing. The first diss, the diss that kicked off the feud, happened back in July when Meek Mill took to Twitter to call out Drake for using a ghostwriter.
Stop comparing drake to me too…. He don’t write his own raps! That’s why he ain’t tweet my album because we found out! 😁
— Meek Mill (@MeekMill) July 22, 2015
Drake hit back with a song called “Charged Up.” But then things took an uncomfortable turn when Drake dropped “Back to Back.” Many people called the line, “Is that a world tour or your girl’s tour?” a mic drop moment for Drake. Meek Mill’s girlfriend, Nicki Minaj, is currently on a world tour (called the Pinkprint Tour) and Meek Mill is a supporting act.
But in trying to insult Meek Mill for having a girlfriend who’s more popular, Drake exposed his own sexist bias. In the past I’ve written about why the assumption that real men should be wealthier and more powerful than the women they date is harmful. You can read more about that here.
It’s not just the fact that it’s insulting, mocking relationships where women are the primary breadwinners is problematic because it somehow implies that men should earn more than women at a time when many women are fighting for equal pay.
After “Back to Back” was released Meek Mill finally hit back with a much anticipated diss track called “Wanna Know.” It was a critical flop. But in addition to embarrassing himself with a diss track many thought was weak, Meek Mill decided to get straight up misogynistic with the line, “We the type of niggas to tie your mother up. Fuck your sister in the ass and hit your brother up, pussy.”
Meek Mill’s sister, Nasheema Williams, also decided to get in on the feud and released her own diss song which included the homophobic line, “I heard you started from the tip of the dick, ‘cause you’s a queer.”
But it seems like hypermasculine clichés, misogyny and homophobia wasn’t hateful enough. During an awkward freestyle at a concert in Philadelphia on Aug. 6, Meek Mill decided to serve up some transphobia when he rapped ““Niggas turn to hos, Caitlyn Jenners turn to Drizzy Drakes.”
So far most people seemed to have declared Drake the clear victor in this hot mess of a feud. That would make Meek Mill the loser, but he’s not the only one. Rap fans who are tired of giving a pass to bigotry and blatant glorification of violence against women have also lost.