Hip-hop's beef

Finally, a song you can play at your vegan meet-up group's dance: “Beef” by Boogie Down Productions. This vintage conscious-rap track isn't about a trite ego-driven feud, but rather, emcee KRS-One's issue with the greed of the beef industry, as well as the drugs the cows are given to grow unnaturally fast, the “fear and stress” the animals live in, and how the consumer absorbs it all. The song has a simple, fat, bouncy beat, and its lyrics ring startlingly true—“Tell yourself you're gonna try and stop / Eatin' meat and you'll see you can't compete / It's the number one drug on the street,” even though it's from “1990, suckas.” Hear it at http://tinyurl.com/beefBDP.