Recap: Take out a 2nd round choke and this West-coast PG between Emerson Kennedy and Cali Smoov is straight fire with loads of hot punches, righteous wordplay, fierce personals and stirring mayhem. Round one was close as both (“Nigga’s aiming at light-skin’s, call it shooting the fair one!”) EK and Cali brought plenty of heat, the only difference being Kennedy just happening to go first, allowing (“I never lost a battle and I’m known to clap, get live and I’m inside whaling…Jonah’s back!”) Smoov the opportunity to edge the round with a couple of dope rebuttals to start his round off (tho, as EK would deftly point out next round, Cali did get the ‘nickle in his face like Abraham’ wrong). 2nd round saw the aforementioned choke by Cali, which might’ve been partly due to the crowd, but still nonetheless with EK spitting perhaps his best round, mixing (“Baby, you snitch and giving soundbites, all that jail you bringing, soon as I walk in ‘Shazam!’, that’s not the app, I can tell who singing!”) well with his punches and urban bangers, even if Cali hadn’t choked, that would’ve been a hard round to beat anyway. The deciding 3rd round saw EK stay consistent with a confident flow matched by frenzied setups, workmanlike (“My nigger got Krack covered and he ain’t involved with you dancers, back when [points at Cali] he had the toy, my nigger was really looking at the 8 ball for the answers!”) heaters and stinging personals to win the battle and beat back a very (“The Black panthers by my side like the Puma brand!”) solid, but elongated turn by Cali.
Verdict: Emerson Kennedy (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Emerson Kennedy – “And any boy could make a boy, but it take a man to hold his son, I marched with my mom for gun control, later on learned how to control a gun!”
