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Jay-Z’s New Song Disses … DeShawn Stevenson?
There’s a new Jay-Z track up at America’s No. 1 source of news about today’s hottest hip-hop and R&B (Kanye West’s blog). Apparently a freestyle, it’s recorded over the beat from Too Short’s “Blow the Whistle.†Though no target is named, the track is clearly aimed at Washington Wizards shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson and rapper Soulja Boy. What? Yes. It all started when Stevenson started talking jive about Jay-Z’s main man LeBron James, whose Cavaliers are currently taking on the Wizards in a first-round playoff series. LeBron responded that such a move was like Soulja Boy taking on Jay-Z, which prompted Stevenson to invite Mr. Boy himself to game three of the series in D.C. Jay then responded with the track, which was played Friday in a D.C. club and hit the Internet yesterday.
As a track, it’s not much; there are some decent if vague lines — “We [that’s Jay and LeBron] let the money do the talkin’ / And as you see, we talk rather often†— but since Jay refuses to actually mention whom he’s talking about because he thinks he’s above it, there’s none of the hilariously personal cutting-down that makes a dis track a dis track. It’s too generic to be memorable, but we nonetheless appreciate it if simply for the fact that Jay-Z’s catalogue now includes an entire song about a semi-obscure player for the Washington Wizards. It’s an entirely new category of music: the Novelty Beef. —Ben Mathis-Lilley