Feuds between musicians are nothing new. Ranging from the historical such as Mozart and Salieri, to the bizarre like Eminem and Elton John, as long as people have been able to make noise, they have been arguing over who can do it better. While some feuds can be chalked up to marketing gimmicks or basic human ego, they can also be illuminating examples of the power structures that govern pop culture and as a result, society. While feuds between male artists display overt machismo, the tensions that arise between female artists are more nuanced - not to mention more personal, with seemingly more at stake both emotionally and professionally. With a music industry that is largely controlled by men this raises some inherent questions: why do women involve themselves in these feuds? And do they stand to profit off of them?
Perhaps one of the longest feuds in recent memory is the seemingly never ending beef between Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not really a fan of either of these artists. While I won’t throw a fit if their music is played at a party, I’m certainly not saving it to my Spotify and I’m changing the station if it comes on the radio. As such, I was not a member of the fervent mafias firing insults and death threats on Twitter. But the hysteria surrounding these two beacons of white mediocrity was everywhere that I turned. The media ate this feud up. Way back in 2009, the two appeared to be friends, with Swift referring to Perry’s birthday party as “partylicious” and Perry even coming on stage for a surprise performance when Swift played the Staples Center in 2010, (Time). (Yes, Time magazine reported on this feud.)
But Swift’s release of 2015’s “Bad Blood” signals the beginning of their conflict. Let’s dissect that for a minute. It is 4 minutes of Swift and her equally leggy besties parading about with their mad faces on. While Jezebel’s Clover Hope reviews the video as “a squad of kick-ass women kicking ass,” my takeaway was a little different. I actually let out an audible laugh when the questionably skinny Swift knocks a man out cold by swinging a briefcase at him. And therein lies my issues with this music video. I get it: it’s a fantasy. But the video jumps between so many practically emaciated women (only two of whom are women of color; nice save, Swift) that you can’t help but wonder what the point is. It’s as if Swift is just trying to say: hey, look how many hot friends I have. Which is fine… it’s just not at all interesting.
Katy took a similar approach for her rebuttal video, 2017’s “Swish, Swish.” Also featuring a wide cast of characters, Perry seems to be mocking Swift by enlisting the help of obscure choices such as vine stars and a kid from Stranger Things. While the pseudo-Space Jam style is granted, more entertaining than Swift’s narrative of serving face, the song simply isn’t good enough to dedicate six minutes of your life to. Save yourself the time and I’ll cut to the take away: Taylor Swift is a hot bad ass who is no longer taking people’s flack and Katy Perry is a lovable goofball who is innocent in all of this, but not so innocent to not retort. What it all boils down to is branding. Essentially for me, this whole feud felt so pointless because of how obvious its true intentionality was.
Both women released so-so albums but gained massive amounts of free press simply by being mean to each other. You’ll have to excuse my gloating but I cheered for joy when neither woman took home any Grammys for the albums borne out of this feud. While Perry has been nominated for 13 Grammys, she has never managed to win any of them, a la Leo DiCaprio pre-2015. Swift on the other hand, seems to carry an expectation that not only will her albums be nominated, they are also the most deserved to win. For evidence, see her immediate reaction to losing with Red in 2014 and her comments afterward. Perry’s Witness was a resounding flop, with zero number one singles, (Forbes). While Reputation was the highest selling album of 2018, Swift seems to be the type of artist who depends more heavily on critical commendation for legitimacy than monetary gain. In short, neither women achieved their ostensible goals for their respective albums. Which begs the question: what is the point of all this? Sure, free publicity sounds great but if it isn’t translating to music sales or enhanced critical recognition, it seems rather pointless. Granted, artists need a large, internet-based fan following to stay relevant these days, but the Swift-Perry feud came off as so artificial that the general masses were intelligent enough, or annoyed enough, to save their money.
This is contrasted with the feuds between women in the hip hop industry. While feuds in the Pop realm tend to stay vapid, fights in areas of the industry such as hip hop and rock seem to be more emotionally charged and effectively, more genuine. This is evident in the recent feud between female rap artists Cardi B and Nicki Minaj. If I come off as biased towards Cardi B, that is due to the Minaj’s collaboration with admitted pedophile Tekashi 6ix9Ine. But to break it down: Minaj was fresh off a feud with Remy Ma when she and Cardi B began to release songs with lyrics that seemed to indicate some turmoil. While neither addressed each other directly, the underlying issues came to a head during New York Fashion Week when Cardi allegedly threw a shoe at Minaj and was escorted out by security. With the knowledge of their mutual animosity now public, both women have reacted via song, radio shows, etc. to admit to and reveal their reasoning for the feud. Minaj maintains her innocence and claimed to be “embarrassed” by the ordeal, while Cardi B accused Minaj of insulting her abilities as a mother among other jabs.
This exemplifies some major differences between the Swift-Perry feud and the Cardi-Minaj feud. First, the fight came to physical blows and second, the women dropped the coy act and simply stated their feelings outright. This lends their dispute both tangibility and emotional weight. While I am not advocating violence, the admittance of their disagreement and the reasoning behind it makes this feud feel truly genuine and not like some elaborate branding scheme developed in a conference room, even if that very well may be the reality. While some criticized Cardi’s behavior as reinforcing negative stereotypes, both Minaj and Cardi have managed to succeed where Swift and Perry failed: money making and even making history. Minaj even took the time to (albeit sarcastically) thank Cardi for boosting her album sales, (Herald Sun). In this case, white privilege seemingly worked against Perry and Swift. In the music industry (barring a few notable examples such as Pink and Lady Gaga) white womanhood connotes a certain degree of demureness that both Swift and Perry certainly buy into, but the stereotype of the “angry black female” paid off for Cardi B and Nicki Minaj. The question remains as to whether this was due to the masses buying into harmful stereotypes, or if their raw and candid reactions granted the two women a verisimilitude that Perry and Swift lacked. Regardless of the reason: Minaj and Cardi were able to bankroll their feud into serious cash and notoriety. Cardi even became the first woman to win a Best Rap Album Grammy for Invasion of Privacy. As bell hooks stated: “commodities, irrespective of their subject matter, are made, produced, and marketed to entice any and all consumers… [the] world of business and money-making has no color.”
So I guess this begs the question: who is the real winner in all of this? I would love to say Cardi B for making huge strides for women in hip-hop with her Grammy win, but doing so would be ignorant of the power structures at play that seemingly require marginalized artists (notably women and people of color) to sell headlines in addition to their music. Both sets of women have fallen prey to the toxic yet undying trend of society pitting women against each other. Headlines like these are why my brothers don’t believe in genuine female friendships. But on the other hand, however marginally, all four of these women have made more money off of these disputes than I will probably ever see in my life. In a world where money talks, are headlines louder? I would love to say that women (especially marginalized women) asserting and gaining power is positive no matter the means, but deep down I know that’s not true. As Sesali Bowen of Refinery 29 asserts: “we must remember that the interpersonal beef between two women, famous or not, is just that: extremely personal, and therefore completely unmoved by our opinions.” While I can respect that these women are all humans with the right to their privacy, especially when it comes to their feelings, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that every celebrity must sacrifice a portion of their humanity in exchange for the spotlight. For all of the temptation that fame dangles, there comes a certain dark responsibility to not live solely as a human or artist but as a cultural symbol. If these are the symbols we subject the masses to, then all money, notoriety and even personal feelings aside, there is an innate responsibility to drive humanity forward. I’m not saying that I expect Taylor Swift to be a perfect person (HA) but at least keep your bickering behind closed doors so that myself and more impressionable minds don’t have to see it on our timelines.
Works Cited
Bowen, Sesali, and Riccardo Giordano/IPA/REX. Trap Glazed: What You Probably Don't Get About Nicki Minaj & Cardi B's Beef. Refinery29, www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/10/215657/nicki-minaj-cardi-b-beef-street-code-trap-glazed.
Hope, Clover. “Watch Taylor Swift's Femme Fatale 'Bad Blood' Video (Finally).” The Muse, The Muse, 18 May 2015, themuse.jezebel.com/watch-taylor-swifts-femme-fatale-bad-blood-video-final-1705132515.
Lang, Cady. “Taylor Swift Katy Perry Feud: A Comprehensive Timeline.” Time, Time, 25 Aug. 2017, time.com/4914066/taylor-swift-katy-perry-feud-timeline/.
McIntyre, Hugh. “The Biggest Musical Flops Of 2017: Katy Perry, Fergie, Nelly Furtado And More.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 1 Jan. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2018/01/01/the-biggest-musical-flops-of-2017-katy-perry-fergie-nelly-furtado-and-more/#2a535fc251bf.
“Moving Beyond Pain.” Bell Hooks Institute, 9 May 2016, www.bellhooksinstitute.com/blog/2016/5/9/moving-beyond-pain.
Trust, Gary. “Ask Billboard: Taylor Swift's Career Album & Song Sales.” Billboard, Billboard, 27 Nov. 2017, www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8046939/taylor-swift-career-album-song-sales-ask-billboard.
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