East End and West End Rap Beef Becoming Heated

RICHMOND, Va. — An upcoming rap battle in Richmond has captured the attention of the music world. This battle, between the East End and the West End, is the latest development in the long-lingering beef between the two groups.

The feud between the two Henrico County neighborhoods dates back to the early 1990s and has been primarily characterized by flow and lyrical content.

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East End rap, for example, commonly uses techniques such as multi-syllabic rhymes and complex wordplay during a continuous free-flowing delivery about growing up near the airport in Sandston. West End rap, in contrast, emphasizes living a gangsta rap lifestyle while cruising around Short Pump Town Center and still living at your parents’ house in Wyndham.

A source of debate for rap fans for years, the East End/West End beef has produced impassioned pleas and prolific performers from both sides of the disagreement, and both sides announced today plans for a proper battle, after which one side will finally be crowned “The King of the County.”

The event is scheduled to take place at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Glen Allen later this year. Representing West End rap in the battle will be DJ Jazzy Deep Run, who said that the rivalry with East End rap has informed and inspired his music.

“There’s real differences in our performance and what we’re trying to say,” DJ Jazzy Deep Run (real name J. Connor Cooley IV) said in an exclusive interview with The Peedmont. “I think the East Enders will complain and go ‘what does this privileged white kid have to complain about,’ but it isn’t about that, it’s about the music. Eminem sure proved a lot of people wrong in that ending scene of ‘8 Mile,’ and I intend to do the same.”

He faces stiff competition from the well-established, well-respected East End rap team, made up of rappers with names like X-pert Bandit, E-ratic Worlock, Dynamic Samurai and a performer answering only to the name of “Steve.”

When asked about performing solo against a team of the East End’s best rappers, DJ Jazzy Deep Run opened his arms and said “It’s David and Goliath, baby. Well, I guess that was technically a one-on-one fight, so it’s more like Custer’s Last Stand. That turned out well for Custer, right?”

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