Ultimate Comparison - USA-Z vs. Korea's Game

I heard the ultimate comparison, this morning NPR show influenced by Spencer Ackerman's theory international climate infused with the rap community. Two VERY interesting perceptions juxtaposed, putting Jay-Z as a counter-revolutionary actor which placed "D.O.A." at the center of the story (though I like the Game a lot more than he does).


Some of the greatest minds in national security have turned their attention to a classic problem: When there is one dominant power, the rest of the world tries to challenge it. That's what happened to Britain in the 19th century and to the United States today. The same thing is happening in the world of rap. Currently, we're in a uni-polar world with the United States on top. In the rap world, Jay-Z is that guy.

Here the interview here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106857447

See the after thoughts here:
http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/07/22/the_realest_stuff_i_ever_wrote

The clash is between established rapper Jay-Z and and up-and-comer known as The Game. Jay-Z has been attacking other rappers for using Auto-Tune software, which corrects pitch while singers record. Auto-Tune is widely used in the industry, but Jay-Z is making a call for authenticity [….] The Game, sezing his chance to take away from Jay after a controversial, is a erratic wildcard. "He's North Korea; he's Iran," Lynch says. "He might not win, but he can hurt you if he drags you down into this extended occupation, this extended counterinsurgency campaign."



“There's a lot more I could have said -- the Nas vs Jay-Z history lesson, the nature and depth of Jay-Z's hegemony, Game's strategic mistakes like insulting Kanye when he should be wooing him, the difficulty of coding cases (amazingly, some people refuse to admit that Nas won his beef with Jay-Z or that the Game defeated G-Unit and 50 Cent.. it's like coding Russia as a winner of World War One or something) -- but you can only do so much in 8 minutes!”

The one point which I do wish I had developed more in the on-air interview, though, is the reason why rap beefs are about soft power and not hard power. Soft power is the ability to obtain what you want through co-option and attraction. It is in contradistinction to 'hard power', which is the use of coercion and payment. And correlations to Topac and Biggie and WWII.