Hip-hop has an incessant need to one-up. Sometimes this becomes frustrating to sit through as it often translates to simply following suit until it becomes overly redundant. A few examples being the Hot Nigga phenomenon that spawned literally a million versions with accompanying videos and Chi-Raq that become old fast as rapper after rapper made odes to their set over the Lil’Herb/Nicki Minaj song of the same name. We can also mention the cypher, made popular by BET as a device to boost ratings for the annual award show. That concept spawned an unbelievable amount of cyphers – filmed in black and white of course.
Every once and a while one of these phenomenons have the potential to shake up and excite the game. Remember when Kendrick Lamar slapped every single NYC rapper in the face then proceeded to call out everyone? That type of challenge to “step up your game” can sometimes be what the industry needs. Something that keeps fans glued to the internet feverishly waiting for responses from their fave emcees. As of last week, it seems as though we may have our next big thing.
As part of the Shady XV, Eminem released Detroit vs Everybody, a Detroit anthem featuring Royce The 5’9, Big Sean and Danny Brown. The outro features D-town bully Trick-Trick telling Marshall he’s taking the beat to the hood to get that “fire remix”. The excitement started to build as Snoop Doggy Dogg posted artwork on his Instagram for Los Angeles vs Everybody – a potential answer to the latter.
Where will this end up? We predict a New York vs Everyone, Chicago vs Everyone, Atlanta vs Everyone – and so on and so on. It’s only a matter of time before it gets out of hand, but for the time being, we’re excited!
What potential line-ups would you like to see? Note we made that NYC line-up ourselves.
