Rappers Azealia Banks and Kreayshawn start a Twitter beef

Unlike Nas, I don't believe that hip hop is dead, but I do think it's suffered some ghastly injuries. It's hard to believe otherwise when you live in a world where T.I. has his own reality show, Big Boi openly talks about his love for Words With Friends, and songs like this exist. Thanks to stream of consciousness-supporting platforms like Twitter and Facebook, rappers like Soulja Boy and Kanye West have become modern-day Joyces, peddling too-transparent portraits of rap artists as angsty and dweeby young adults. Where is the rawness? Where is the danger? Where, oh where, is the beef?

Thankfully, up and coming Harlem rapper Azealia Banks has heeded the call to arms, sparking a Twitter feud with the little gremlin known to her followers as Kreayshawn. Banks recently sparked an Internet frenzy due to her explosive debut single "212", a track that has shot her to the top of "Artists to Watch" lists and made her the first artist booked for the upcoming Coachella Festival. Kreayshawn shot to fame with the incredibly irritating "Gucci Gucci" video last year, and has since used oversized glasses, oversized earrings, and calculated cultural appropriation to trick white suburbanites into buying her singles on iTunes and following " the White Girl Mob as they smoke blunts, rock mics, and pump swag across the country." (Yes, that's a real quotation from her website.)

The trouble started when Kreayshawn retweeted a link to Banks' "212" video which originated from the pornographic website PornHub. Banks saw this as a slight, immediately responding with a few tweets of her own:

The human blight on hip hop seemed troubled by Banks' response, unsure as to why her tweet elicited such a volatile response:

Soon after Banks ended the public cat-fight, claiming that she wasn't interested in engaging in anything further: 

I, much like Kreayshawn, am unclear as to why the fight even began (though I guess I wouldn't be flattered if my work was re-tweeted from PornHub), but I'm happy to accept any sparring that has the "Gucci Gucci" singer as its target. If need be, I'll happily offer Banks a thoroughly-researched thesis on why Kreayshawn is everything wrong. With everything.