Quarterback That Glock Cam Newton You Catch a Hot One

     I just love rapper beef. Pac and Big, Ye and Wiz, and of course Meek and Drake. I appreciate watching these disgustingly rich entertainers go at it on twitter, and the impending backlash by supporters and opposers alike. It's an excuse for me to argue with people about who won and I can laugh at the funny memes generated around Kanye West's apparent love for things in his butt. What I really appreciate about these happenings though, is the incredible timing and delivery of these brilliantly executed marketing devices. That's right, and I'm going out on a limb by saying I'm one of few millennials that sees through the hype for what it is. But I'm writing this today in order to enlighten you so stay tuned!

     Let's take it back to Wiz Khalifa and Kanye West's recent debacle on Twitter. Kanye, whose activity on twitter had spiked significantly in the past couple of weeks, saw a tweet on his feed from Mr. Khalifa. Khalifa posted, "Hit this KK and become yourself," and I
know what you're thinking, what does that even mean? Well I'll tell you...what he was referring to when he says "KK" because the actual tweet makes no sense regardless. "KK" or "Khalifa Kush" is Wiz's own strain of Marijuana, which he was talking about smoking and then metaphysically becoming oneself as a symptom of it. To probably no one's surprise, Kanye "I ran up and stole the mic out of Taylor Swift's hand at the VMAs" West thought Wiz was somehow referring to his wife, Kim Kardashian; and nobody disrespects Kanye's woman. So Yeezus, in the way Yeezus would, started tweeting up a storm about how Wiz is inferior to him and should not disrespect the greatest man in rap. Well Wiz Khalifa corrected him, Amber Rose tweeted about Kanye liking butt stuff, and the man himself effectively lost the battle. Effectively, Mr. West apologized publicly an deleted his outrageous posts, Amber Rose uploaded a picture with Kim Kardashian, and they all lived happily ever after.

     When you look at underlying factors of the recent beef though, you begin to see why this might as well have been an elaborate scripted commercial. As I mentioned earlier, Kanye had recently been tweeting more often. This is because he's been hyping his album up before its release on February 11th. Is it just by happenstance that Wiz was also set to drop an album one week before the fight happened? What these two men just did was bring themselves back in to the public eye in an engaging way. And by doing so they got to "inadvertently" advertise their upcoming albums on twitter by bringing them up in the middle of the argument. Not only that, but Wiz Khalifa came out on top. Makes sense strategically since his album dropped a week before Kanye's, and you don't want everyone to think you're a loser right before your album drops. Isn't it brilliant? I didn't even know Wiz Khalifa was dropping a new album until this happened. Imagine if one out of every thousand people who saw the argument found out about Wiz's album through it and bought it. That's a six figure increase in sales at the least, and they didn't even have to pay for the advertising! Rapper beef is just indirect marketing at its finest, and it shows how proper timing and execution can play a huge role in it.

Written by: Maxamilian Tarpey

Sources:

https://twitter.com/wizkhalifa/status/692334374759616512

https://twitter.com/DaRealAmberRose/status/692445698160091136

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/01/27/kanye-west-wiz-khalifa-twitter