Sacha Orenstein at Oh Word gives a little insight into the importance of marketing and rump-shakability in hip hop. Sacha picks apart the marketing strategies of Fishscale from Ghostface Killah and My Ghetto Report Card from E-40, asking:

What the hell happened? And why did the older, fatter and less marketable E-40 outsell Ghost who had the Def Jam machine behind him?

Orenstein then does a pretty good job of giving us an answer.

6 Responses to “Ghostface Killah Vs. E-40: Not a Conventional Beef”

1. On 11/8/06 8:36 PM, david said:

   

   cuz e40 raps better then the whole ny put together

2. On 11/9/06 2:47 PM, David said:

   

   False. Ghost may sometimes string together nonsense words, but atleast you can understand him if you’re from somewhere other than the Bay Area.

3. On 11/9/06 3:51 PM, sammy said:

   

   Black people don’t listen to Ghost…or Outkast or MF Doom.

4. On 11/9/06 4:31 PM, Sean Cannon said:

   

   sammy has a point…or at least to a certain extent. those are the rappers for the pampered upper-middle class suburbanites, or at least for the most part.

5. On 11/10/06 2:14 AM, David said:

   

   Black people do. Ok, not so much MF DOOM.

   Besides, that’s not the point. The point was that lower-case david said that e40 raps better than the whole NY put together. C’mon. Rakim. KRS. Nas. Biggie. Big L. Big Daddy Kane. Special Ed. Talib Kweli. Immortal Technique. Poison Pen. Swann. Jay-Z. Papoose. Cormega. Az. Saigon. Gza. Pharoe Monch. Prodigy of Mobb Deep.
   E40 can outrap all of dipset, G-unit (except buck), and state prop, that’s a given, but put him in a battle or diss track competition with any of these dudes and they’ll kill em. Everytime. As soon as he starts talking bubbles.

6. On 08/13/07 8:53 AM, M.G said:

   

   Well you cant compare E 40’s style with Ghostface’s style because thats like comparing a apple with a orange. But put E 40 up against Ghostface in a rap battle and E 40 would loose because he is not really into the sport of battle rap.

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