Over 4,000 Recaps!

Cassidy

Hitman Holla defeats Cassidy

by

Recap: Not sure that Cassidy versus Hitman Holla the battle ever had a chance of living up to now infamous faceoff these two just had, but the long-awaited matchup was still a good one. With 3,000-plus battles on his resume and having made hits as recording artist, we all know that Cassidy can rap for days. And the Philly legend proved that once again here with 3 lengthy rounds featuring bar after bar after bar. However, since his return to battle rap the problem with Cassidy remains: he continues to live off of moments (“When you bought those fake teeth, you should’ve bought a smaller size!”), jokes and personals. And in an era where most top tier battle rappers can not only punch hard, but are also either lyrical, performance-heavy, name flip/gun bar-lit, intricate, metaphor/simile/wordplay-rich, angle-savvy, witty, can talk that real street shit, a combination of the few or can create their own, unique lane of battle rap aptitude, with only a couple of attributes to work with and with a knack for dropping way too many pedestrian bars, Cassidy still can’t cut it. And that’s why Cass gets shutout here as a more focused, versatile and condensed Hitman’s ability to excellently retort so many of his opponent’s more hard-hitting personals, win the crowd over at times with some pretty solid wordplay, name flips and punches, score with plenty of boastful barbs and of course, cut up the stage with some performance-friendly stunting gives Ballgame the 30.

Verdict: Hitman Holla (W) 3-0

Favorite line: Hitman Holla – “You better watch what you say in your raps, know what I mean Cass?, ‘cuz you could catch a bullet behind those lines like a screen pass!”

Arsonal defeats Cassidy

by

Recap: Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but yunno, maybe if Cassidy broke his 1st round down and split them into 3 instead, he might’ve had a chance here. As this battle versus Arsonal wasn’t necessarily a compete one-sided affair, especially after seeing Cass compete with some fire punchlines and witty personals during a round 1 that while he still lost to Arsonal’s more consistently raucous boasts and righteous mayhem, at the very least gave one hope that this would be a decent battle. But damn if Cassidy didn’t fall off a cliff in the latter rounds. The Philly emcee succumbing to a very wide and basic load of 1995-2005-ish type punchlines when he wasn’t spitting pedestrian shit and corny ‘Da feet’ and ‘Pinnochio’ bars that had his own hometown booing him at random. All the while an always confident Arsonal got into his bag of disrespectful darts, ill breakdown’s of Cassidy’s recording artist career, mocking personals and random gun bars to go along with other fierce punchlines and fiery trap talk. And while to Cassidy’s credit, for all the grief he was getting from the crowd, he never wavered on completing his rounds. But after a loss like this, if Cass plans on battling again on the big stage, he may wanna lock himself in a room for a week, throw on some of the better 2020 battles and to quote Young Gattas ‘Get your bars up!'”

Verdict: Arsonal (W) 3-0

Favorite line: Arsonal – “Long hair don’t care, and I’m feelin’ like Rapunzel wit’ it, you got a new born in ya arms? I hit stick, make you fumble wit’ it, torture you while the children there, I hurt your youngest children yeah, I put the recordin’ of you beggin’ for your life up in his Build A Bear!”

Goodz defeats Cassidy

by

Recap: No debating the result here: Goodz got the 30. But let the record show that in the 1st round Cassidy was kind of nice (that is, except for jacking Danny Myers’ ‘Who in here believe in a parallel universe? (I do!)’ slogan), albeit utilizing a gritty but monotone flow throughout the battle, the ever-boastful Cass was still able to spit some (“I’m too popular, never lost a battle Smack, I made battle rap popular, you got popular off battle rap!”) hard punches here and there to make things competitive and even give you hope that this would turn out to be a dope match. But after the 1st round however, things went south…and fast as Cassidy–already so in love with himself that he’ll rap your head off if you let him–just could never get back in a groove, rarely lighting up the scoreboard with haymakers while spitting mediocre bar after mediocre bar after mediocre bar. Indeed, Cassidy’s 2nd and 3rd were really hard to watch. So hard in fact, that not only could you not wait for this hour long battle to be over with, but anyone choosing to re-watch this much-hyped bout would probably be wise to just skip Cass’ turns after the 1st round and appreciate Goodz’s ultra-smooth, versatile, (“How you The Hustla, but looking like the customer!”) personal-heavy, narrative-crazy and punchline-lit performance.

Verdict: Goodz (W) 3-0

Favorite line: Goodz – “These industry niggas, when they career die, they be looking for a buzz to get hot, now they coming over to battle rap, what the fuck we look like, Love & Hip Hop?!”

Cassidy defeats Dizaster

by

Recap: When Dizaster last faced a professional recording artist, Canibus, his notebook-entrenched opponent was so bad and Diz made it look so easy that the idea of the veteran battle rapper ever battling another rapper was a wash. Unfortunately for Diz, that wasn’t was case here as against former street battler Cassidy (from “I’m A Hustla” fame) Dizaster’s pen game fails him big-time with 90% pedestrian bars and rhymes that even when they did hit, ran the same theme of braggadocio lines, predictable personals and standard verbal assaults. But Cassidy, whose magnanimous battle rap face alone gets him points, showed from jump that he wasn’t going pull a Canibus, dishing enough cocky and hard punchlines, gun-laced shiners and a totally on-point of his loquacious opponent to edge round 1, before both battlers dialed it back to split a pretty underwhelming 2nd round, before Cassidy upped the ante again with hardbody schemes and gritty punches/personals to easily take round 3 from a tedious turn by Diz and up his win-loss record to ‘5001-0’.

Verdict: Cassidy (W) 2-1

Favorite line: Cassidy – “I’ll snap and give you head shots like barber pictures!”