Joey Bada$$’ late weed carrier hands Troy Ave an easy win

Troy Ave and Joey Bada$$ have been going at it since at least as far back as when Troy Ave’s album only sold 30 copies its first week out.

At the time, Joey Bada$$ took to Twitter to point out that he’s much more successful by comparison. His first album sold 57,000 copies its first week out. Supposedly, his label gets $10 per album sold, and he gets 85% of that (which according to my calculations is $8.50), which makes him the most successful independent artist in the game.

That’s probably not true, but he’s definitely more successful than Troy Ave. But what does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China? Troy Ave took advantage of Joey Bada$$ remarks to draw attention from the fact that his album somehow sold fewer copies than it had featured artists. Did he give them all free copies? Would they have bought copies if he didn’t?

Fast forward to going on a year later. It seems that Joey Bada$$ is still concerned with how unsuccessful Troy Ave’s album was, though it’s not clear why he gave a shit in the first place. In a new single that I didn’t even know existed, because I’m no longer in the coveted 18–34 demographic, he reiterates the same claims he made last summer on Twitter about how many albums he sells and how much money he makes from them, and he jokes that some kid no one ever heard of sold more albums than Troy Ave (which is probably true).

Troy Ave is not the kind of person to take this kind of insult lying down, figuratively speaking, and it’s not like he has shit else better to do. He found himself in a situation similar to the one Jay Electronica was in when the “Exhibit C” singer saw that Kendrick Lamar was nominated for more Grammys than Elvis and the Beatles combined. He had plenty of reasons to feel salty, and now he had an excuse to strike.

I’d like to think that Troy Ave read about Capital Steez’s suicide in Kanye West Superstar (which has sold more than 30 copies, I’ll have you know — at $10 a copy, and I get 70% of that, which makes me the top independent artist in the game), but he may have just googled it.

Anyway, Capital Steez was nucking futs, as they used to say back in the ’90s. He looks obviously crazy in the few pictures that were taken of him. He was posting all kinds of weird shit on his Facebook — the kind of shit that would have landed him in Malcolm Bliss, back before Reagan let all of the crazy people out of the nuthouse. That was before Capital Steez was even born. The kid didn’t stand a chance.

The lines about Capital Steez in Troy Ave’s new song “Badass” are hilariously cruel.

And I quote:

Cause I’m a savage, this gon leave you sad bitch
Don’t get suicidal like ya friend, here’s a casket
Steez burning in Hell, my burner’s in my belt
I’m really killing shit, you niggas killing yourself
Fucking weirdos, off the roof, “Steer clear yo!”
This niggas tryna fly, he think he a superhero
Splat man! Fuck you and that man

Damn.

Troy Ave expanded on those lines in an interview with Sway in the Morning, calling Capital Steez a dickhead and a bozo, and going so far as to compare people who kill themselves to rapist. It’s not right to take a woman’s pussy, he explained, and therefore it’s not right to take your own life.

It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.

As inappropriate as what Troy Ave said was, Joey Bada$$ ceded the moral high ground when he made fun of Troy Ave’s album sales, and then mentioned it again, a year later, in a song.

What did Troy Ave ever do to Joey Bada$$? I know he took a few shots at Kendrick Lamar for wearing shorts that cut off above the knee. I can’t imagine that he would have had anything to say about Joey Bada$$, if only because not enough people know Joey Bada$$ to make him a worthwhile target for an insult. Troy Ave was facing an uphill battle as it was.

In the artwork for the “Badass” single, Troy Ave is wearing what appears to be expensive jewelry, clean new tennis shoes and a designer sweatshirt. Where is he getting the money to buy all of this shit, if he only sold 30 copies of his album its first week out. He shouldn’t even be able to afford those tennis shoes.

Law enforcement can’t tell one black guy from another. They see Troy Ave riding around in an expensive car and probably just think he’s Fabolous. But if he continues to draw attention to the fact that hardly anyone bought his album, it’s only a matter of time before 5–0 puts one and two together. They’re dumb, but they’re not that dumb. This beef could cost Troy Ave.

It just goes to show the importance, in the black community, of appearing to be successful, when everyone knows good and well that you aren’t. We spend money we can’t afford to spend on things that are only impressive to people who don’t know any better, because we can’t stand to have people think that we don’t have a shedload of money.

Arguably, it’s more offensive to make fun of someone who’s not doing well financially than it is to make fun of someone who killed himself. Someone who killed himself can’t be hurt by a cruel joke, because he’s already dead, but someone who doesn’t have a lot of money has to live with the fact that he doesn’t have a lot of money, while someone who does have a lot of money rubs it in his face. Nullus.

Joking about people who killed themselves could offend their friends and family, but in this case, Joey Bada$$ brought it on himself by mocking Troy Ave’s album sales. He knew good and well that his nutjob weed carrier leaped to his death from the Complex building (which is just precious), and that if he beefed with someone ignorant enough it could be used against him.

You know what they say about people who live in glass houses.