Beef in Hip Hop tends to be segregated, with black emcees going against black emcees and white ones going against whites.
In an interview with Vlad TV, Caucasian rapper R.A. The Rugged Man gave a some behind-the-scenes insights into why that is. According to R.A., when Eminem started getting big all the record labels began calling up R.A. to request that he go after Shady with bars.
"When Em blew up, I had every label on the planet calling me to 'Do a diss record for us. Do a diss record. Diss Eminem. I’m telling you.' Why? Cause he’s a white boy? You’re calling white boy to diss white boy. You know how the industry works ... they would reach out to white boy rappers."R.A. also implied Em's late nineties feud with white rapper Cage had more to do with that than any kind of real animosity between the two.
It's no big surprise to learn that Hip Hop beef can be manufactured marketing. But it's still interesting to hear how race gets injected into the sausage making.
Check out R.A.'s entire interview below, including more about the racial politics of Hip Hop, and an anecdote about finally meeting Eminem and being disappointed that he wasn't the model-banging wild-man he expected.