Don't Compare Me To Nobody: When Comparisons Get Under A Musician's Skin
Friday, July 31, 2015
Maybe the heat is getting to everybody, but July has been an
especially irritable month in popular music, with several long stewing rivalries
finally boiling over. First, Miguel answered a question about fellow R&B
innovator Frank Ocean by saying, “I genuinely believe that I make better
music.” Then Action Bronson, when asked about frequent comparisons between
himself and Ghostface Killah, said “He’s not rapping like this no more” on
national television, inspiring a 6-minute scorched earth response video from
Ghost. And last week, Meek Mill fired off a Twitter tirade that began with
“Stop comparing Drake to me,” before accusing the Toronto rapper of relying on
ghostwriters.
Those three stories involve very different sets of artists,
who have very different relationships with one another. But the common thread
is that in each situation, two men had been linked together in the public mind
for years, and one or both of them finally got sick of it and snapped. Miguel and Frank Ocean are two very different
artists who’ve individually made enough of an impact on R&B that they don’t
need to be asked about each other in interviews. But since Miguel took the
bait, you’ll never read another review of his albums that doesn’t mention Ocean
for a long time. Frank Ocean hasn’t responded yet, but I think he will – let’s
remember, his other big feud, with Chris Brown, started out when Chris tweeted
that Frank “reminds me of a young James Fauntleroy or Kevin Cossum” and Frank
found the comparisons to be “underhanded.”
Action Bronson spent the last four years diplomatically
deflecting questions about his vocal similarity to Ghostface, and it appears he
finally felt he’d reached a level of success that he didn’t need to play humble
anymore. Within days, he offered a public apology to the furious rap legend. Meek Mill’s tweet came more out of leftfield –
he isn’t really compared to Drake any more than all rappers of his generation
are. And others, like Kendrick Lamar or J. Cole, are far more frequently seen
as direct competition for Drake; Meek Mill was an ally, someone with a very
different image and musical approach who nonetheless featured Drake on his
biggest radio hit, captioned Instagram pictures with Drake lyrics, and released
his own remixes of the Drake songs “Started From The Bottom” and “Energy.”
Perhaps Meek Mill was tired of being one of the rappers living in Drake’s
shadow, but the abrupt and seemingly unprompted nature of his complaint led
many to think that he was upset about some other issue entirely.
In all of these cases, the less successful or established
artist broke the polite silence on the issue, in a way that seemed to let on
more than a little professional jealousy. This is a pop music story as old as
time: every artist wants to be a unique snowflake whose work is taken on its
own terms. But fans and writers can’t help but notice similarities and
parallels with which to group artists together in scenes, rivalries, and critical
narratives. Sometimes this is simply lazy thinking, and sometimes two artists
simply coexist in the public eye in a way that people can’t help but notice an
influence or shared traits. The easiest way to praise (or trash) an artist is
to contrast them with a different artist.
There’s a reason that an endless series of greater-than signs
(“>>>>>>>>>>>>”) is a daily staple of
Twitter discussions about music.
Often, two artists finding major success within the same
genre at the same time provide an elemental binary for listeners to wrestle
with, from the Beatles vs. the Stones to Michael vs. Prince. Which side you
take in these debates helps define your taste, and the artists inevitably have
to reckon with the comparisons, sometimes by feeding into the rivalry, and
sometimes by defusing tensions with friendship or collaboration. Usually, if
both acts are worthy and unique, the public will realize that eventually, and
the comparisons will fade from the conversation. And if they’re not, the public
will declare a victor through record sales – remember when The Wanted was
considered competition for One Direction? Sometimes the goalposts move quickly,
putting the same act in different roles – one year Pearl Jam was the industry
fabrication to Nirvana’s credible punks, the next year Pearl Jam was the real
deal to Stone Temple Pilots’ cheap imitation.
The highly crowded and competitive field of hip hop has
escalated the frequency of these kinds of rivalries. Some of them are simply
beefs between artists who dislike each other personally, but sometimes there’s
a more acute basis of comparison at work: perhaps rappers from the same city
who sound alike or occupy a similar lane. DMX and Ja Rule were friends early
on, when both made similar music with similarly gravelly voices – it was only
after Ja started singing love songs and becoming a major star in his own right
that X started calling him out as a biter. D4L and Dem Franchize Boyz were the
breakout acts of Atlanta’s 2005 explosion of “snap music,” and the groups
beefed with each other about who stole whose sound and dance movies.
Rappers with similar voices or aesthetics are frequently
found within the same crew or label roster, and embrace the . When Rich Homie
Quan scored his first national hit in 2013, he was dogged by comparisons to a
more established Atlanta rapper, Future, and one point things appeared ready to
escalate to a beef. But over the past two years, the two have continued to
thrive while putting the comparisons behind them. Now you can turn on the radio
and hear songs by both of them, but it’s hard to imagine Quan making “Fuck Up
Some Commas” or Future making “Flex.” That doesn’t guarantee that they’ll never
feud, but it certainly seems like they’ve sidestepped the beef and changed the
narrative for the time being.
One of the stranger music rivalries of 2015 came about when a
newer artist actively encouraged comparisons to a legend. Young Thug had always
been openly influenced by Lil Wayne, and collaborated with his idol last year.
But things took a turn when Thug announced that his new albumwould be named
Carter 6, and released it with the blessing of Wayne’s mentor Bryan “Birdman”
Williams, before Weezy’s own Tha Carter 5. The ensuing feud has left a lot of
unanswered questions, but foremost among them is why a rising star like Young
Thug would encourage comparisons to Wayne right when he’d started to establish
himself as a major artist in his own right.
No musician can ever reinvent the wheel or make something so
unique and original that it silences all comparisons. But perhaps it also
behooves fans and critics to respect the individuality of that makes worthwhile
artists who they are, instead of shoving everyone into false binaries that
ignore the differences between musicians and encourage feuds and defensive
interviews.
Another musician who raised eyebrows in July was Paul
McCartney, in an interview with the U.K. edition of Esquire magazine, speaking
on the legacy of John Lennon. The interviewer asked “Does it frustrate you, the
constant comparisons between you two?” And in reply, McCartney spoke more
bluntly than ever about the “revisionism” that “martyred” his fellow Beatle
after his death, and diminished the importance latter half of the
Lennon/McCartney partnership. If Paul McCartney, one of the most revered
musicians in pop history, can get touchy about being compared to somebody else,
then what hope does anyone else have of taking it in stride?
