Beef II (2004)

Directed by

Peter Spirer

Genre

documentary film, musical film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 25m

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 9 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary traces the history of personal and creative clashes in hip-hop and rap from the 1980s onward. It profiles a series of well-known feuds between artists and groups, using both new and archival interviews to show how these conflicts shaped the music scene.

confrontationalnostalgicrawinformativeintenseenergeticstreetwise

What happens

Beef II is a 2004 American documentary film and the sequel to the 2003 documentary Beef, which continued to document the history of rivalries in hip-hop and rap music. Like its prequel, the film was executive produced by Quincy Jones III (QD3), written by Peter Alton and Peter Spirer (who also directed), and was this time narrated by actor Keith David. Beef II shows a chronological look of battles (some friendly, but many personal), dating back to rap music's infancy in the early 1980s. Among the rivalries that were profiled, they include KRS-One vs. Nelly Roxanne Shante and Marley Marl vs. U.T.F.O. (see The Roxanne Wars) LL Cool J vs. Canibus K-Solo vs. DMX Cypress Hill vs. Ice Cube & Westside Connection D12 (minus Eminem) vs. one-time Detroit cross-town ally Royce da 5'9" EPMD partners Erick Sermon vs. Parrish Smith Eminem vs. Benzino. Once again, similar to the first film, Russell Simmons, Snoop Dogg, Kool Moe Dee, Jay-Z, KRS-One, Mack 10, DMX, Big Daddy Kane, Redman, Method Man and Ice-T participated in the film through interviews (new interviews for the film itself), as well as archived interviews from footage of other sources. Beef II also features never-before seen performances of many of the film's participants, plus extended portions of interviews that did not make the final cut of the film. One portion of the extra interviews features Grandmaster Caz discussing his animosity towards Big Bank Hank from the rap group The Sugar Hill Gang for him using Caz's rhymes for the hit song "Rapper's Delight" and then not being properly compensated. Other portions include Violent J from the rap group Insane Clown Posse discussing the birth of the beef between his group and superstar rapper Eminem and KRS-One talking about the incident that occurred between him and the rapper Prince Be from the group P.M. Dawn and include a segment of the well-publicized rivalry with record labels G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath artists 50 Cent, G-Unit, Dr. Dre, Eminem, D12, Obie Trice and XXL magazine squaring off against Ja Rule, Irv Gotti, Murder Inc. Records, Benzino and The Source magazine in an all out battle royal. A bonus disc included with the Beef II DVD contains the uncut interview of D12 and their beef with rapper Royce da 5'9". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Beef (2003)
• Beef III (2005)
• Beef IV (2007)
• And You Don't Stop: 30 Years of Hip-Hop (2004)
• Kill Your Idols (2004)
• Dig! (2004)
• Rhyme & Reason (1997)
• Paper Chasers (2003)