Beanie Sigel vs. Jay-Z: Scoring Round One

Last week former Roc family member - emphasis on the "former" - Beanie Sigel decided to channel years of building frustration with Jay-Z and the Roc-a-Fella label into the diss track "Average Cat", a seven minute long list or grievances against Hova that has set off a predictable firestorm of controversy. With all the news, rumors and outright lies flying around it can be almost impossible to keep track of the beef's origins and developments. That's where RefinedHype steps in. You're welcome.

The Origin Story
The good folks over TheReal.com have put together a South Park-esque breakdown of the roots of Beanie's discontent that really cuts to the heart of the matter. Because sometimes the only way to deal with adult men acting like children is to tell a children's story.


Beanie's Explanation
As soon as "Average Cat" hit the interwebs Beanie immediately set out to explain what the track meant, even though it's pretty f**king obvious for anyone who managed to listen to the entire tirade. Here's what Beans' latest reasoning behind his questionable-at-best decision to attack the most powerful man in hip-hop:
"Listen, it's not a diss record. It's a real record and it's just me talking to my brother because I still got love for the brother and I told y'all, if y'all listen to the whole record, this ain't the green light for dudes to just start jumping out the booth thinking they can come after Hov and all that. No, I'm far from a hater but it's just me conversating with my brother the only way that I can conversate with him and letting my feelings out...I'm not dissing Jay-Z, I'm not hating on Jay-Z because of the position he's in or where he's going, I'm just saying, when you a team and you a crew and you a squad and you grew from the ground up, you don't just leave your people hanging in the wind."

Man, I haven't seen backpedalling like that since Carmelo threw a punch during the Knicks brawl and then backed up a fast as humanly possible. As the old saying goes, you can't put lipstick on a pig, and just because you say "this was not a diss record" doesn't make it not a diss record. By this line of thinking, peanut butter is not made out of peanuts and Fat Joe is actually skinny. Of course it's a diss record Beans! That's the entire reason you put it out! You've come this far, don't back down now. (Looks like someone's already having some regrets.)

Jay's Response:
Although everyone's clearly desperately awaiting an on-microphone response from Jay, so far he's (wisely) taken the high road and made Beanie generally look like a jackass:
"What people choose to do when they attain that type of success ... at some point, you gotta look in the mirror and look at yourself. Beanie Sigel had a record deal, a record label, and a clothing line. Never went platinum, ever. I don't know in the history of rap, is anyone done so much with so little. What more can you do for a person? A record deal? That's normal. A record label and a clothing line ... if that's not pushing a person, then sh**."

Allow me to translate: "Look, I did everything I could to push Beanie's career, but let's be honest, this dude wasn't going platinum no matter how hard we promoted him. With that said, he was a good soldier and I was only too willing to slide some funds his way, until he started challenging me on it. So sure, I could record a response track and give the man even more free publicity, or I could just go f**k my insanely hot wife on my private jet. Now what would you do? That's what I thought."

In other words, although we certainly haven't heard the last of Beanie v. Jay, it doesn't look like this is going to become one of those epic battles along the lines of Jay vs. Nas, Ja Rule vs. 50 or Charles Hamilton vs. Himself. In a year Beanie's going to regret going out like this, and Jay's going to be f**king his insanely hot wife on his private jet. So yeah, I'm going to go ahead and declare Jay the winner of this one.