Uptown Notes

I’ve been thinking recently about “beef” in part as I watch TV, movies, or even as I sit in public places in eat. I’m really feeling Mos’ verse from What’s Beef.

Yo, Beef is not what Jay said to Nas,
Beef is when working niggas can’t find jobs.
So they try to find niggas to rob,
Try to find bigger guns so they can finish the job.
Beef is when a crack-kid can’t find moms,
cause they in a pine box, or locked behind bars.
Beef ain’t the summer Jam on Hot 97.
Beef is the Cocaine and AIDS epidemics.
Beef don’t come with a radio edit.
Beef is when the judge’s callin you defendant.
Beef, it come with a long jail sentence,
Handed down to you in a few short minutes.
Beef is when your girl come through for a visit,
talkin bout she pregnant, by some other nigga.
Beef is high blood pressure, and bad credit;
Need a loan for your home and you’re too broke to get it.
And all your little kids is doin’ is gettin bigger,
You try to not raise them around the wild niggas.
Beef is when a gold-digger got your seed in her,
A manicured hand out, like, “Pay me nigga,
Or I’m tellin your wife,
And startin up some foul rumors that’ll ruin your life.”
Beef is when a gangster ain’t doing it right,
And other gangsters then decide to do with his life.
Beef is not what these famous niggas would do in the mic,
Beef is what George Bush would do in a fight. (that’s right)
Beef is not what Ja said to 50.
Beef is Weldon Irvine not being here with me.
When a soldier ends his life with his own gun,
Beef is trying to figure out what to tell his son.
Beef is oil prices and Geopolitics;
Beef is Iraq, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip.
Some beef is big, and some beef is small,
But what y’all call beef is no beef at all.
Beef is real life, happenin every day,
And its real-er than the songs that you gave to Kayslay.
This has been a Black Star P.S.A.
From Mos Def, Pretty Flaco, Black Dante,
From the Black Star Embassy B to the K!