The Bridge Wars - Legacy

Legacy

During the nineties, the beef was not forgotten by fans or the participants, but rather fondly remembered as a classic hip hop rivalry. It has since been referenced in hip hop lyrics by the likes of Cormega, Das EFX, Nas, Cunninlynguists, Big Punisher, Supernatural, Chino XL, Mars ILL, and 2Pac. MC Shan and KRS-One themselves acknowledged the rivalry's important place in hip hop history when they appeared together in a commercial for the Sprite soft drink in the mid-nineties, in which they exchanged battle rhymes inside a boxing ring. However, the respective fortunes of the pair in the nineties were very different; MC Shan, widely seen by hip hop listeners as the loser of the conflict (should there have been one), never really recovered his reputation and later effectively retired, while KRS forged out a successful solo career and remained an important figure in hip hop.

Meanwhile, Poet had gone on, eventually rechristening himself as "Blaq Poet", later went on to be a part of the groups PHD (Poet + DJ Hot Day), and Screwball; and some of the records released over the years, took numerous pot shots at KRS.

In particular, Screwball's "The Bio" and "You Love To Hear The Stories" (a followup to the original "The Bridge", and which featured MC Shan) recounted the story of him entering the battle, and being basically ignored, and that it thankfully never escalated into physical violence; and the latter pointed to the Nas album Illmatic (1994) as proof that "the Bridge is still live". Key lines from both:

Back when I first laced the wax with rhymes

It was eighty sa'en, I was a crazy sa'en

Niggas tried to diss the Bridge I came bustin'

Even quoted Doug E Fresh sayin we was nothin'

You don't believe that, you know I called his bluffin'

Made 'em go buy a click and put 'em on patrol

You know P-O-E-T stayed in war mode

My gats stayed unlocked ready to unload

Loungin' waitin for the drama to unfold

But luckily we never had to go there