BY DAN GARCIA

The beef between Atlanta’s Migos and Chicago’s GBE (Chief Keef, Fredo Santana) has reached a new and alarming level.

Competition and rivalries can be fun and healthy, for both those involved directly and for those watching at home. On February 6, 1988 Chicago’s Michael Jordan faced off against the Atlanta Hawk’s Dominique Wilkins during the 1988 NBA Slam Dunk Competition.  To add to the rivalry, three years earlier MJ and Dominique faced off in the competition, with Dominique taking home his first dunk title against the Bulls’ rookie. This time things were different, as the competition was held on Michael’s home court in Chicago. The two faced off for a crowd of over 18,000 and combined for four out of six perfect scores throughout the final round. Although Dominique, the “Human Highlight Film”, took a lead heading into final dunk, MJ (needing nearly a perfect score to win) took off from the free throw line to take home the title and throw down one of most iconic dunks of all time. This time at least, Chicago got the win.

Today, in the world of rap and hip-hop, another rivalry between Chicago and Atlanta has surfaced (although it has been lingering around for awhile). While in Chicago for their performance at WGCI’s Big Jam, rap group Migos (‘Versace’, ‘Fight Night’) confronted Chicago rapper (and member of Chief Keef’s Glory Boyz Entertainment label) Capo at a Chicago restaurant on Saturday. The interaction was recorded and posted on Migos member Takeoff’s Instagram.

http://instagram.com/p/vJse05tIix/

To those who don’t know, things have been hostile between Migos and GBE for some time.  Things may have first started when Chicago’s Chief Keef (‘I Don’t Like’) accused the rappers of dissing him on their song ‘Brokanese’ (released in December of 2013).

“Not often it’s everyday payday, my diamonds looking like K-K” – Offset (Migos)

Keef, perceiving the “K-K” lyric to be a reference to his daughter Kay Kay, Keef responded via song, on a track titled ‘Mando’ (a play on Migos’ track ‘Bando’), rapping “Mando, b*tch getting money Mando. N*ggas shooting up your bando. Mando, b*tch I need my money pronto.” The two sides also shared words on Twitter.

Migos did not wait long to post another track, this time with little question as to whether the group was referring to the GBE rapper. In their December 2013 track ‘Jealousy’ (soon after the Twitter exchange). “I ain’t never did a sneak diss. Call my hitman quick to put you on the hit list. I guess they mad cause we young and rich. I guess they mad cause we f*cked they b*tch.” As they sat down with MTV to discuss the track, the rappers would not confirm that they thought Chief Keef was jealous of them, but gave the ole ‘if the shoe fits’ line as to the song’s true meaning.

Next, Keef responded to the track and to Migos posting a video of the group walking through Chicago’s South Side (home to Keef), by calling out the group on Twitter. “So I heard n*ggas Came to a n*gga City and Knew I was in rehab! How you didn’t know And da whole world Know where da judge sent me,” Keef tweeted. When a fan tweeted at Keef, writing “soon as I seen the video I was like “Sosas clearly in rehab but iight”, Keef responded, calling Migos “fake as f*ck”.

Fast forward months later, comes Migos’ performance for WGCI’s Big Jam in Chicago. The performance went great, and the show went on without incident, but the next morning came Migos confrontation of Chief Keef’s friend and GBE member Capo.

https://twitter.com/Capo_GBE300/status/531039966789652480

https://twitter.com/Capo_GBE300/status/531188742984581120

According to Capo, the group (and over a dozen of their friends) approached the rapper while he was by himself. While Capo had plenty to say on Twitter, GBE’s Fredo Santana took to Twitter to show that he didn’t take lightly to the incident.

Threatening to kill Migos, Fredo showed that this beef is far from friendly competition (not that anyone would have reason to think otherwise).

They may be expressing their threats through social media, but these tweets are alarming to say the least. Unless we have good reason to think otherwise, we will take Fredo’s words as ‘law’, as he says. Chicago and Atlanta are certainly two cities for great music, but they are two of the nation’s deadliest cities. Competition is great… until someone is killed over it. At the end of the day, Atlanta and Chicago rappers alike should focus on the music and their money, and there is enough money to be had for everyone. The Fader recently reported that Migos makes thousands daily, just from music streaming programs alone. Chief Keef may have been recently dropped by his label, but that just means he can go the indie route and keep a bigger cut of the sales. I hate to sound cheesy and say “why can’t we just all be friends”, but why can’t we just all be friends? I don’t want to pick between listening to ‘I Don’t Like’ and ‘Versace’, they are both great tracks and Migos and GBE are both young and talented groups. Leave the competition in the studio, make it so everyone comes out on top. With Jordan and Wilkins in the 80s, both got to take home the title and the fans won every single year, no reason things can’t be the same for rap.