No Bias. No Narratives.
Recap: The Tupac bar was mean, but damn if Calicoe didn’t get his point across otherwise, using some finite hustler talk, gritty personals, steely gun bars and an assertive stage presence to beat back an inconsistent Hitman Holla in this one-round battle from Snoop Dogg’s Gladiator School.
Verdict: Calicoe (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Calicoe – “Snoop sent that money, he went on Instagram snapping pictures, Snoop sent MY money, I went up the hill and bought a package with it!”
Recap: In 2014, Snoop Dogg’s “Gladiator School” showcased a battle that often gets forgotten about: T-Rex versus Rum Nitty. Similar battlers in styles and game plans, while in the first round Nitty’s gritty punchlines were a little predictable, they (“Bang! you could jump I gotta bust a K, but with this .45 I’m AC Green…I don’t fucking play!”) more often than not landed. But it’s Rex who shines harder and commands the stage better in round 1 with undeviating (“I’m a gladiator for real, I skipped the school, after Danger, he’ll disappear, like Mystikal!”) braggadocio lines and a more cohesive ethos. And tho Nitty did have some (“It’s all bad if my squad greet you, seen he have on the wrong Colors?, then that Rocket blue [blew], Don Cheadle!”) slept-on lines throughout, in the second round his penchant for guns bars got relatively standard and couldn’t be saved by tiresome personals. On the other hand, while not as grandiose as the first, Rex’s continual virtuosity and flare for the urban (“He acting like [the] type wilding, well fuck it, I’ll stab him, take the knife outta him, then I’ll cold buck it [bucket] on his head, like the Ice challenge!”) dynamics, was enough to edge him the latter round.
Verdict: T-Rex (W) 2-0
Favorite line: T-Rex – “I don’t care if you’re Crip or Blood, you’ll be one bloody Crip or one crippled Blood!”
Recap: Nice amount of witty (“Call me Ms. Hustle, ‘cuz I ain’t start punching yet”) jokes and gritty bars from O’ffcial in this one-rounder against E-Hart. But some weak name flips on top of some ample filler hurts her.when confronted by Hart’s better display of consistently (“Tough if you like me or not, you better ask and fear, 50 bitches jump on you like they smell Axe in here”) hot bars, wordplay and aggressive (“When them nina’s start clapping asses, that’s what I call twerk”) gun lines that gives her the win. Still, these two have put in too much work to just be battling for one round only.
Verdict: E-Hart (W) 1-0
Favorite line: E-Hart – “Funny she from Louisiana, but she ain’t seasoned right”
Recap: Decent battle between Head Ice and Serius Jones, who’s making the right move what with shifting his rap battle career to KOTD. However, Ice’s more esoterical rhymes, performance bars and aggressive (“You be tripping, but staying out of the helicopter route, cuz when we be tripping, we be bringing helicopters out”) wordplay (vs. Jones mostly standard bars and shorter rounds) gets him the first couple of rounds and the win here. A close 3rd round, but Jones (as even Ice acknowledged) spit a couple of the nicest (“See, I never got beat up, I got snuffed, but you give the game a black eye for having Ice around, see I coulda got a lump sum for Blackout, but you know when you put Ice on, the knot goes down”) bar in the round to edge it.
Verdict: Head Ice (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Head Ice – “Now you know that I’m a pet lover, the desert eagle will leave you, but the hawk [swings] will be a step-brother!”
Recap: Confident and concise with his raps, R Streetz impresses with a steady stream of potent gun lines, fiery set-ups and fierce (“I don’t rap with a lisp, so if you catch a little spit…it’s intentional!”) punchlines to beat back a solid overall, but too often pedestrian Skates in the first couple of rounds here for the win, before an elongated and slightly running out of gas Streetz gets edged by a more consistent and hardbody (“Your set can get it too, what you claiming?, red or blue fucka?, it don’t matter, a couple of shots will make him show his true colors!”) Skates in the 3rd.
Verdict: R Streetz (W) 2-1
Favorite line: R Streetz – “Now I checked them game tapes, and it seems these lames think, that you got all these power lines…so I’m a have hang Skates!”
Recap: Nice comeback here from Diesel, who survives a pretty solid 1st round from a punch-heavy XP, to return the favor with an aggressive, gun-savvy and bombastic 2nd round, before completing the conquest with a condensed, but just as fire 3rd that was enhanced by his opponent’s near choke during his turn.
Verdict: Diesel (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Diesel – “Two hands on a .40 to make sure the steel keep straight, so keep a vest, stay protected, ‘cuz like Magic’s wife, one bust of this magnum will end in a tragic night!”
Recap: Don’t let the 3-0 fool you as this was a pretty dope and close battle between Mike P and Aura, especially the latter two rounds. Round one was the only clear round as Mike’s personals and more versatile schemes outshined what was mostly standard braggadocio/gun lines from Aura. A much tighter 2nd round had both dropping an equal amount of haymakers (Mike P: “I bet you think ‘cuz I’m white I prospered, faggot my life was bonkers, you probably pushed coke right?, well I relied on it, you fight the streets, I fight the product!”; Aura – “If I clap you…fine, just know that I pack two .9’s for nigga’s thinking that I’m 30”, “….if Beasley offered you a million views, would you want to take a Smack [smack] again?”), but a slight slip-up and a nonsensical bar (ENJ didn’t get ‘snuffed on camera’, he actually is the one who threw the punch in the infamous “Oh you Mad Cuz I’m Stylin’ On Ya“ video) from Aura gave Mike the edge. And while they both came hard in the 3rd, continuous freshly-dipped wordplay and aggressively nice (“I’ll celebrate your death, hell they all brewing, I’ll shake a champagne bottle and shoot the cork through him!”) punchlines from Mike edged what was an overall solid, but too much filler-spiced 3rd from his opponent.
Verdict: Mike P (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Mike P – “So act tough, you’ll get slept or dizzy, point is just keep a arm up the whole time, you Chess verse Gwitty!”
Recap: Both Glueazy and ZigZag spit a load of hot/braggadocio lines in this fiery one-rounder from Lyrical Gladiators. But a slow start of ZigZag and Glueazy’s more consistent shiners, gets the latter the win.
Verdict: Glueazy (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Glueazy – “The gun will shoot, so I’m asking what you wanna do, ‘cuz it don’t have to be Christmas to see a white man on ya mother’s roof!”
Recap: Bit of a strange matchup here what with Arsonal da Rebel coming all the way to Canada to take on a guy making his return to battle rap after so many years of co-hosting battles. Still, the time away seemed to be well worth it for Bishop Brigante as he spits a consistent multitude of hard bars throughout his rounds while coupling them with some nice (“Fuck, my baby mama look fine as hell, your baby mama look like she done time in jail”) personals to take this one from Arsonal who saved himself from a choke with a last-second freestyle in round 2, spit arguably his best bar for Drake and what with mostly lackluster bars throughout, didn’t seem to take this battle all that seriously from jump.
Verdict: Bishop Brigante (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Bishop Brigante – “Arsonal, bar for bar against me that’s all she wrote, I seen the best of you turn vegetable, now I step to your art of choke [artichoke]”
Recap: Lots of fly shit in this West-coast PG battle between Shi Dog and Profecy. Round one, which would turn out tobee his best, saw Shi Dog’s unique, quasi-theatrical flow get lit with heated schemes, urban street (“I’m from where nigga’s will pop at you just for asking, ‘What’s popping with us!”) dynamics and crazy set-ups, easily turning away a solid, but none-too-spectacular turn from Profecy. However, things would change a bit in the middle round with Shi Dog still dishing fierce wordplay and gritty bars/punches, but unable to turn it up as his previous round what with a mostly unchanging theme, allowing Profecy to even things up, which he did with a load of spitfire punchlines, witty barbs, literally unhurried, but jaunty personals and hitting (“Burner on me, with the snub nose, like a dope lie!”) gun bars. Last, decisive round saw both battlers come with it, with more feisty (Shi-Dog: “I win then win again, see, me and bars go hand-in-hand like repeat felons, you can’t win for losing ‘cuz all you do is repeat and failing!”) wordplay, lofty name flips and braggadocio heaters. Still, it’s Profecy who ends up edging it, what with his opponent faltering a bit towards the end of his round, while in turn coming off more consistently nice with the bars, performance richer (esp. with the doep PG scheme) and a little more versatile with his subject matter.
Verdict: Profecy (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Profecy – “Back to this rapping shit, that’s my bitch, I know we both in love her like savages, but your life and the shit that you write?, don’t match a bit, boy you ain’t that type, you ain’t the man-you-script [manuscript]!”
Recap: All Geechi Gotti here as even some lost 2nd-round footage on Chops Bailey is rendered moot due to him choking. Gotti, finessing smoothly with sturdy name flips/gun bars, flexing punchlines and even a boatload of fiery freestyles in a close round 3, gets an easy 30.
Verdict: Geechi Gotti (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Geechi Gotti – “He a bitch, the type to make duck lips when he taking a selfie!”
Recap: Still rampant with the name flips, but in this case against fellow Jersey-ite Ah Di Boom, also stifling with the gritty punchlines and excelling at times with the wordplay and personals, Jai 400 Block takes the first two rounds for the win, before a solid-throughout-the-battle Boom gets extra nice in the 3rd with a punch-heavy and heat-blazing turn to salvage a round.
Verdict: Jai 400 Block (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Jai 400 Block – “You don’t let tools off, you a fraud, I’ll let two off, remove his soul [sole] from him like tennis shoes when they too small!”
Recap: In this matchup of two of Michigan’s finest, Jay Rell supplies more wit, consistency and haymakers to pull off a win over a solid overall, but too many dated bars and dry spot-having Mackk Myron.
Verdict: Jay Rell (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Jay Rell – “If this battle close, you lose by life standards!”
Recap: As loud and aggressive as D Flamez spits throughout this battle with Young X, for the most part his lyrical acumen just couldn’t keep up and it showed regardless of whether it was a first round choke or too many subpar lines like “If this clip bang, you gonna get your shit stained, like you’re supposed to be in drawers”. On the other hand, whether it was dispensing that real (“What you know about your own mama telling ya ‘Boy ya hot as shit’, what you know about telling ya own mama, ‘Girl, I got this shit’!”) hustler shit or dishing (“You wanna win tonight, I can’t let ya, too many of my peeps in here, even tho you had that shit on last Saturday, that’s your weekend gear!”) funny personals or styling on his opponent with rich (“And don’t you dare to to do that fall back shit, trust me when the bullets hit you…then you could do [falls back while waving arms] all that shit!”) performance bars, for Young X it was just another day at the office.
Verdict: Young X (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Young X – “Talking ’bout I ain’t got shit, dog if I ain’t got nuthin’ I got a gun for you, and if the bullets could talk, my shits would say ‘we coming too!'”
Recap: Good shit here as Grandaddy Purp and T-Top go at it heavy-handed during a one-rounder in Purp’s hometown of Muncie, IN. Purp stood his ground with consistently nice street (“Nigga, your daddy passed you down jeans, my daddy passed me down cargo!”) semantics, but Top did him better with a variety of name flips, storytelling bars, personals and rich (“All my coke come in blocks, boy we need blenders, tree splitters, big-ass scales that hold three niggers”) trap talk that only those who’ve lived that life could possibly understand.
Verdict: T-Top (W) 1-0
Favorite line: T-Top – “For them birds I’m pulling that Hazel, long nose and my back-up will give you the 30, that’s Morse Code”
Recap: A super aggressive Bedaffi Green dishes out some (“I don’t care for these suckers, I want to kill all these niggas like Aryan brothers!”; “Killing any tier, blackened on the top and bottom, this widescreen!”) hot bars and nice punches in this one-rounder against Danja Zone brought to you from Trap House NY, But a little too much filler/nonsensical (‘the bird will come out first…’) bars along with some pedestrian bars mixed in from the Long Island emcee altogether add up to a loss when matched besides Danja Zone’s consistently fiery wordplay and righteous (“Green, it’s too late to come back homes’, you need a ne curfew…all I see ’round him is fear, you need a new circle!”) punches/name flips.
Verdict: Danja Zone (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Danja Zone – “To future up-comers with punches, do not mix with danger [Danja]…I preserve bodies for the future off freeze alone like cryogenic chambers!”
Recap: When you’re consistently dishing hot wordplay and hungry enough to eat soup with a fork off of a paper plate, the mostly straightforward, pedestrian stylings of your opponent won’t faze you much…in other words, Profecy over Denter, easy.
Verdict: Profecy (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Profecy – “The borner got 3 bodies on it…that’s a couch!”
Recap: A couple of Grind Time vets known for their potent bars, jokes and witty punchlines, one couldn’t expect anything less than an entertaining match between the returning Dumbfounded and Conceited. Overall. Dumbfounded focuses on ready-to-order short (“You buy your guns at Baby Gat”) jokes, hitting personals and excellently turned Con’s renowned “Slow-it-Down’s” back on him without repetition. While Con goes for Asian jokes, nice schemes, a couple of Slow-it-Downs and his assortment of wild gun (“I’ll let the weapon give you hell, just like your fortune cookie you could the message from a shell”) bars, some landing, some not-so-much. In the end it’s Con taking the first with more variety along with winning schemes. While Dumbfounded edged the second round with a wider (“You gave imaginary guns, some peopel have mandatory ones”) array of fiery bars. Both scored pretty evenly while leaning heavier on the personals (Con: “You mad cuz my vies are climbing mils? I know that shit was driving him crazy like with you behind the wheel”) in round 3, but with neither really landing a haymaker, call it even.
Verdict: TIE
Favorite line: Dumbfounded – “He got 3 hot tubs at the cirb…all sinks”
Recap: From Casual Conflicts Rap League, Yung Griz uses a gang of gritty punchlines, fire wordplay and some dope name flips to handily beat back am earnest, but mostly pedestrian AD in this 3-rounder.
Verdict: Yung Griz (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Yung Griz – “Get out of pocket, I’ll steal [steel] on ya…metal detectors!”
Recap: “Committed murder in the first degree before I got my first degree, I’m hood smart and book smart, but y’all act like it hurts to be, so y’all praise niggers who only know these guns and cigs, but I’m soft for trying to educate y’all dumb-ass kids?!” With cerebral haymakers like the aforementioned along with wicked (“Y’all niggas piss me off because you so lame, but like space jam water, when I got bottled up could change the whole game”) punchlines and a swarm of ill gun bars that’d make Tay Roc proud, Dre Dennis takes the first couple of rounds against an (“I’ll play Jenga withcha vertebrae”, the Nuborn scheme, etc.) earnest and performance-heavy, but inconsistent (state schemes are always ill-advised and the round 2 choke killed any chance of evening the match) Tink da Demon, to get the dub in this Proving Grounds matchup.
Verdict: Dre Dennis (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Dre Dennis – “My squad is reckless, nigga damn straight, we’ll clap then look the other way…that’s the Fresh Prince handshake!”
Recap: Some battles are not for the sensitive types and this one between Uno Lavoz and Juan certainly fit the category. While both battlers went ham with the jokes (Uno: “And your teeth are big as shit. how much wood could a Juan Juan chuck?”), personals (Juan: “It’s Juan and Uno Lavos, they got this fella to battle me, all we need no wis Carlos and Pedro and we could start our own Mexican battle league”) and punchlines to split the first two rounds, it’s Uno’s over-the-top freestyle (“Wanna know how I know you’re a faggot? That’s your girlfriend…”) taken out on an apparent tranny in the crowd in addition to some downright mean Jewish jokes that gets him a some might say…controversial win.
Verdict: Uno Lavoz (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Uno Lavoz – “He’s racist, don’t fucking believe him, I mean the only black friends he has is the Jewish people that survived the oven treatment”
Verdict: Young Kannon (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Young Kannon – “Have him bleeding on his porch, his mama outside crying, screaming ’cause she hoarse, bullets toru guides with your name on it, lead him to the Lord, the metal twist Fettuccine like I’m eating with a fork!”
Recap: From MeleeTV/URL, Ms Miami’s gritty punches kept things competitive, but in one the best, punch-lit performances we’ve seen from her to date, Viixen The Assassin’s steadily spicy bars (mixed in with some fiery gun bars and dope 4-bar set-ups) over the course of 3 rounds gives the Milwaukee emcee a well-earned 30.
Verdict: Viixen The Assassin (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Viixen The Assassin – “In Milwaukee, you gonna show some respect, everybody wanna be the Queen on the card until they Decked!”
Recap: Props to both Tia. S and Bonnie Godiva for displaying what real emcees are made of and doing this impromptu, One Off battle for Smack/URL. And while word has is that Bonnie free-styled around some bars she already had for O’fficial, as long as the bars are hers, the Yonkers battler more spicy punches and personals handily earned the win over a hardbody, but flow-challenged effort from Tia.
Verdict: Bonnie Godiva (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Bonnie Godiva – “How you fat and Black? from the back we think you a white bitch!”
Recap: Much-anticipated rematch between Harlem legends Loaded Lux and Murda Mook gets the polished and production-lit reception it deserves in front of a packed crowd at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York as the headline to the Total Slaughter card. Too bad the battle itself wouldn’t live up to the hype. As after Lux dished a consistently gripping round 1 loaded with righteous punches, some vivid storytelling and wily personals to beat back a momentous and witty at times, but inconsistent turn by Mook, the “Talk Dirty” emcee’s normally virtuous rhymes would disappear into a pool of pedestrian bars and personals with very little bite, helping him to eventually lose this battle. And while Mook would start to land with more punches as the battle proceeded, continue to call out his opponent for allegedly being a hypocrite when it comes to his more preachy lines, spit a nice rebuttal in the deciding 3rd round and instigate a Lux vs. Busta Rhymes (who was in the audience) beef by playing a tape of Lux sneak-dissing Busta (a ploy that worked out really well when you consider the weak attempt by Lux to use a coat as a prop during the top of the round), it wasn’t like Murda, who was often spotty here, was ever on his A-game either. Although one can agree that the higher-ups could’ve let Mook finish the verse he wasn’t able to deliver in time in a final round that with the many breakdown’s on his opponent, he won pretty decisively.
Verdict: Murda Mook (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Murda Mook – “All of this dressing up like different people, that ain’t for niggas from the block, the only time we in disguise when we fin to get the drop!”
Recap: Judged battle from We Go Hard. Tho I get where the judges were coming from giving the win to Chillean G seeing as Dougy had a less cleaner round. The second half of Chillean G’s round wasn’t quite as nice as the (“Now I’m on your neck like a noose, you can’t hang with me…Dennis Rodman crashing the boards [slams hand on basement wall] you can’t bang with me!”; “With one bullet, through your dome and out his neck…I trick shot him!”) first. And overall (thanks in part to him spitting longer, but also due to a higher bar quotient) Dougy had more harder (“I got the can on the couch, I’m Al Bundy!”; “I been nice since City was bony, nigga!”) punches and lit performance (“…she was looking all sloppy and shit, I told my hitter ‘finish the bitch!‘, he threw the grip, I threw my man the glock, he took the shot…that’s a hockey assist!”) bars. So all things said, make this one debatable.
Verdict: TIE
Favorite line: Dougy – “I ride with a .380 ‘cuz I can load it quicker, but you could still get your head cracked for fucking with that K…he a Lamar Odom nigga!”
Recap: Honestly, it doesn’t get much better than this as Rum Nitty and Steams each put forth one of their best performances in this URL/PG battle on the West coast. Going toe-to-toe with plenty of (Nitty: “Think this one shot Mrs? I doubt fire on Kareem [Cream] face”) haymakers, sharp (Steams: “It might look like it, but you don’t really cook, kid’s ovens”) darts, sizzling metaphorical wordplay, name flips, rich performance (Nitty: “Nigga my whole team will shoot, big shit, let an eagle loose, you gonna pull to the side like da ambulance is comin’ and you gonna need ’em too!”) bars and steady urban theatrics, the shouts in the crowd for ‘Battle of the Year!’ were more than warranted. Still, what with Nitty edging the 2nd and Steams edging the 3rd, it’s Nitty’s comeuppance (“I’ll whoop your ass then whoop your ass, I’m on repeat, you’ll get washed up then dusted off again, I got OCD”), fresh personals and hard gun lines that wrecked havoc on an animated and (“Your girl I peep for free, speaking of in boxes I was whispering in your bae’s [bay’s] area like Keak the Sneak”) potent, but inconsistent and overanxious Steams in round 1 to clearly give Rum that round and earn him the overall dub here. Either way, it’ll be hard to top this one in ’15.
Verdict: Rum Nitty (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Rum Nitty – “Cali, Atlanta, Canada now I’m going to Vegas, I’m doing my numbers around the globe, that’s a notification”
Recap: In this 1-rounder from SpitDatHeat, Cannon ThaBeast’s love for gun bars allows him to score some shiners here and there in this, But a repetitive display of mayhem from ThaBeast along with a more diverse pen from Young Kannon–who not only scores with his own set of gun theatrics, but also some fierce schemes, soldi wordplay, name flips and airy punchlines–gets the kid from the Southside of Chicago another win.
Verdict: Young Kannon (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Young Kannon – “Why the fuck they got your man amped?, what you put in ink is barely above ass, you a tramp stamp!”
Recap: SMH at this one. Some weirdo interrupts the match during Hitman Holla’s round one (and apparently got his just due when he got knocked off stage), both Shotty Horror and Hitman suffer from slip-ups and the battle is frequently interrupted by silly time limits (really, esp. if it’s the last battle of the night, just let ’em rap). That being said, Shotty’s too-frequent filler and brief first two rounds didn’t pack enough punch against Hitman’s aggressive (“Drake let me get something straight, I’m um-fucking set, y’all threw me in a dunk contest with a nigga who can’t touch the net?!”) bars, hometown crowd pleasers and fiery performance. Close 3rd round, but Shotty had the best line (“Split personalities, persona disorder, you see how quick man flip?, aye lets just say it’s JFK, there’s still questions of who that Hitman is”) to edge it.
Verdict: Hitman Holla (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Hitman Holla – “If Show swing, you’ll land in the crowd, that’s the shit starter”
Recap: From Spittaz League, 1-rounder features strong, punch-heavy and boastful/mayhem-laced performances from both Hollaluyah Jones and Amazing D Boy. But it’s the more versatile, witty, metaphor-rich and consistently hitting Jones who gets the win.
Verdict: Hollaluyah Jones (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Hollaluyah Jones – “Amazing delivery boy, you drive pizza’s, so why you claim you banging them tek’s?, get the order there in under 30 minutes or else it’s coming outta your check!”
Recap: J Murda uses some flagrant schemes and hot performance (“You can lose your life exactly where you stand…BYE! [standby]”) bars to take out a poor man’s Tech 9 in Phrank Rizo. Indeed, with Rizo spitting consistently underwhelming lines like “Shells burn baby, shit will get hotter than Africa”, this one was over pretty much before it started.
Verdict: J. Murda (W) 1-0
Favorite line: J. Murda – “This BODY gonna be hard for you to watch, like your sister stripping”
Recap: Hell hath no fury like a Christian scorned. Accusations of hypocrisy, or the real life anguish that comes with walking a thin line while serving God? Th3 Saga addresses all issues with a righteous display of speakeasy bars, Smack battle rap proficiency, outrageous name flips, dope schemes and hard-hitting (“Speaking of grammar, your last PG almost got you shot in the face, run-on sentence you had a hard time putting D.O.T. in his place!”) personals. There’s even a moment of revealing self-examination: “Before I wrote this round, I had to reexamine my own life, see after that Blac Muqua and T-Top battle, Man, I was feeding into my own hype, yunno counting the new followers, and reading into what blogs say, focusing in on the views instead of listening to what God say…”. Indeed, one could argue that this battle was kind of therapeutic for the Christian battle rapper. By the way, Prep did really good here: crazy wordplay, rich (“I’m sure you stole from a collection plate once or twice, now let’s see if you can [points hands in air like a gun at Th3 Saga’s head] take a BUCK!”) gun bars and bullish rebuttals. But a too short 2nd round and Th3 Saga’s workmanship, variety, aggression and preparation was just too much to overcome.
Verdict: Th3 Saga (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Th3 Saga – “Won’t be swindled by the limelight, covered in His blood, but came to kill every one in my class, I’m Carrie, on prom night”
Recap: With a style and flow reminiscent of Rum Nitty, Long Island’s Reepah definitely came with it in this one-round matchup against Shotgun Suge–delivering a litany of flavorful (“So what, you big and fat, whoopee, nigga I will still hurt you, I throw beats like Harpo, Suge been singing like a bitch, not cuz his Color Purple”) punchlines, name flips and working (“You a bully but got spazzed on by a white kid, soccer mom”) jabs handmade with consistent aggression. Indeed, what with Reepah spitting heat for more than half the battle, a minor upset was ready for the taking. Too bad on this day Suge clearly wasn’t having that as Jersey’s favorite bully worked his 3 minutes to startling effect: rambunctious (” You ain’t on my level, I don’t get battles because they think I’m a terrorist”) shit-talking, potent gun bars, grimy street (“He brown skin now, he gonna be laying in his casket looking like Gucci man”) chatter and groundbreaking haymakers with nary a slip-up to pull out a close one.
Verdict: Shotgun Suge (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Shotgun Suge – “I’m the type to hook a nigga if he slap box”
Recap: From NOBL, dope one-round battle for the ‘Jay’ between Casey and Taylor gets pretty lit when it comes to blistering punchlines, residual mayhem, raunchy chatter, fierce gun bars, sizzling 4-bar setups, wit and piercing personals. A close one till the end, a slightly more condensed and cleaner Casey edges the win here.
Verdict: Casey Jay (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Casey Jay – “I’d kill her with twin Nina’s, but those old bitches jam…Salt-n-Pepa!”
Verdict: Aye Verb (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Aye Verb -“I ride up, Jerri-curl, bumping that Soul-Glo music, shotty out the window, that bitch long, look like Rebecca Lobo shooting!”
Recap: More serious of a battle than a jocular, punch-fest that you might’ve expected to see, KOTD champion Pat Stay does enough in the 1st and 3rd rounds with his rugged bully bars, righteous personals/schemes, solid rebuttals, fiery braggadocio lines and spicy flashes of mocking wit to keep his title after beating back a pretty committed, but overall less potent with his 4-bar set-ups, too pressing at times and not as consistent Charron.
Verdict: Pat Stay (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Pat Stay – “Dog, you can’t fuck with me, I’m Sucker-free, you gluten-free!”
Recap: Nice, competitive and spirited battle between Xcel and Sicarii stays close throughout, but the difference are mostly the haymakers. And while Sicarii dropped some real heat and funny (“You got that homeless odor, that I’m broke aroma”) quips at times, his quantity of over-the-top bombs, consistency along with wordplay didn’t quite match (“Body after body flooded the net, my name proven for those dope caskets, I’m battle raps Frank Lucas”) Xcel’s. So I have Xcel edging the first couple of rounds and Sicarii taking the 3rd.
Verdict: Xcel (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Xcel -“Take me in vain [vein] and get drugged, I’ll relapse this dude”
Recap: An aggressive and confident Kee Kasino uses steely name flips, gritty street chatter and some wicked/witty punchlines to take the first two rounds over a mostly pedestrian Dre Vishiss, before Vishiss steps it up and shows enough versatility to salvage the final round and avoid getting 30’d.
Verdict: Kee Kasino (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Kee Kasino – “You think that you could intimidate me boy?, you must be crazy boy, you got that same frame like Snoop and that wife-beater on Baby Boy!”
Recap: Dope battle between Gutta (who easily makes up for his earlier poor PG against Blacksmif here) and Gjonga, a Michigan cat whose style and pedigree is like a flat-out combination of Dizaster and Uno Lavos. Close throughout with plenty of haymakers, crazy (Gutta: “I’ll chew a nigga while he hot, I can’t stand to eat my dinner cold”) punchlines, steady jokes, preachy (Gjonja: “Well honestly, save your fucking apology, I been down paths so fucking dark my shadow wouldn’t follow me”) wordplay and stellar performances on both sides. But Gutta takes it in the end for being a little more consistent overall with the flow while producing more heat with his stage time. All the while Gjonaj’s wordplay didn’t always match his aggression, tho his all-world first (“If by now you’re not a fan, I got holy punches that I promise land”) round should still be viewed as a classic.
Verdict: Gutta (W0 2-1
Favorite line: Gjonga – “Well now I’m mad and I can’t get past it so I’mma catch you leaving Summer Madness, talking to your fucking ratchet, knife you at a red light, tell your bitch you got stuck in traffic!”
Recap: Tink da Demon had some nice braggadocio lines and funny (“This mission suicide, they got me battling a half-white, black, German, Jewish guy!”) barbs, but a couple of slip-ups along with Rosenberg Raw’s variety what with rap battle tutorials, spirited gun bars and wicked personals were so hot that the damn ring broke.
Verdict: Rosenberg Raw (W) 2-0
Favorite line: Rosenberg Raw – “Head shot, simple, that’s how I’m getting busy, bullets will go in one ear and out the other, be like ‘Nigga, you should’ve listened to me'”
Recap: Punchline-heavy until he regresses a bit in the 3rd, Troy Brown edges a solid and performance-heavy Franchise in the 1st round with a nice rebuttal and then again in the 2nd with a more condensed turn when placed side-by-side with his opponent’s mostly one-note themed drenched round. That’s enough for a win from Brown, even if you think the final round could be edged to Franchise for struggling less with his flow as well as his bar quotient.
Verdict: Troy Brown (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Troy Brown – “If I lose, I’m clapping it up…that’s good sportsmanship!”
Recap: Always good to see two battle rappers with so much confidence in themselves. But as far as output goes, a way more consistent, set-up fiending and punch-heavy Whosane easily gets the one-up on an eccentric July Streets here.
Verdict: Whosane (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Whosane – “My right-hand man, told me he a realer, stone gangster till he rot in a box, but I could still give him the signal and have that .8 lift you like Simba at the top of the rock!”
Recap: Despite all the loud and distracting crowd noise that went down throughout the battle, a more comfortable in his element, set-up and (“I came in armed the blade, you’ll get a baraacka slice”) punchline-heavy Ryda still manages to make quick work of a struggling Top Class.
Verdict: Ryda (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Ryda – “As soon as I pull out [reaches for guns with both hands] Kid and Play, we gonna see how Class act!”
Recap: In what one could guess is one of the lamest angles ever attempted in battle rap history, Billy Bars decided that it would be ‘bright’ to build his round around Chess’ moniker with literal (“…and we’re running late to the next class”) schoolyard rhymes that were elementary at best, that he somehow thought were hype and had to leave your head shaking on how he got this battle in the first place. And yeah, he used ‘Leave it to Beaver’ in a bar…ummm yeah, this was just bad. Or better yet, only watch it for Chess’ steely (“My machete turns 6-feet nigga’s to 4’4″!”) urban dynamics–thank goodness he went first.
Verdict: Chess (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Chess – “I’m a send your silly ass down Gwitty path…Paper trail!”
Recap: Sometimes a comedy (Swave: “Nigga you look like every picture you take should have a caption that say ‘Dark Skin Niggas Be Like…'”) roast and other times an actual rap (Ness Lee: “….you let him Jaden Smith ya, nigga you was sounding crazy nigga, on the spot looking uncomfortable like you played your sister in a game of Twister”) battle, thanks in part to his opponent’s round 1 choke, Swave Sevah outlasts Atlanta battle rap veteran Ness Less with better consistency on the bars, higher quality (“Respect me, I’m deadly, I’ll dead Lee, I’m the one they unleash when it’s war, you will probably Jet Lee [Li]”) wordplay and a nicer overall performance to get a win here.
Verdict: Swave Sevah (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Ness Lee – “You’ll be the first to get it like we had an inside joke”
Recap: After getting edged in round 1 thanks to a shortened turn that even a so-so and elongated, but punch-heavy at times Conceited was able to sneak past, Bigg K turns it up in the latter rounds of this 3-round Ether battle (which btw had some fire visuals) with a gang of mocking personals, some killer schemes (most notably, the MTV show’s roundhouse in round 2) and flexing punchlines for the win against an opponent who by the middle of round 3 was so surprisingly pedestrian with the bars that even the booing crowd wasn’t having it.
Verdict: Bigg K (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Bigg K – “Stop lying about how you fire tools and your hammer tucked, pussy, you short enough to tie ya shoes while ya standing up!”
Recap: Feet planted on a polished Belasco Theater stage in Los Angeles, Big T still brings the raw and gritty theatrics, rocking the crowd (and opponent Aktive) with a barrage of sizzling gun blasts, plenty of righteous mayhem, piercing wordplay and graphic punchlines/personals to easily catch a 30 over his mostly pedestrian adversary.
Verdict: Big T (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Big T – “Nigga, we leaving bigger spagetti in they lap, I’ll have my dog split they noodle like Lady and the Tramp!”
Recap: When a battle rapper spouts a ‘thank you for having me’ speech before he begins his 1st round, dishes an entire round of nursery school lines that each end in his opponent’s last name, drops microphone on the floor in a lame attempt at machismo and spits horrible bars like “You gonna get stuck, chewed the fuck up, left under these boots like gum Nitty!” with the sheer intensity (I’m guess that he thought that “Dope!” when he first wrote it tho) of a dude who clearly thinks he’s nice, not only do you know that you’re in for a long night, but one can only hope the crowd doesn’t throw stuff at him while they boo him off the stage. Yeah, this was that bad, to the point that you got the feeling that even Rum Nitty felt kind of sorry for the guy. Speaking, thankfully for the crowd in attendance and anyone who dares to watch this mismatch, he did his thing with consistently fire gun bars, steely punches and fiery wordplay that allowed for a battle where the fast forward button will certainly be needed.
Verdict: Rum Nitty (W) 2-0 (couldn’t hear Nitty’s 2nd round due to bad audio)
Favorite line: Rum Nitty -“If a nigga get to fighting, I don’t lift no fist, you’ll see me squeezing in a brawl…that’s O’fficial’s tits!”
Recap: A resilient Thoota overcomes a tough start as well as Joe’s fervent punches in the opening round to edge the 2nd round with a couple of haymakers and easily take the deciding 3rd, after a choke from his lax opponent.
Verdict: Thoota (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Thoota – “Everybody talking like Joe is so major, and Joe got more flavor, since he wanna be black, after I knock his ass out, Lil Joe could be Joe Frazier!”
Recap: A nice showing by Daewoo, who started off a little slow before turning (“You better have a Plan B ‘cuz I ain’t kidding!”) it up towards the middle of his round, still can’t push back the delicious gun (“Under ya chin [bloowww!], look like I’m opening up a pizza box”!) sounds and body-prepping skills of Mack Mel, who for all his ill sonic execution, still had the courtesy to call the funeral home at the end.
Verdict: Mack Mel (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Mack Mel – “I’ll pull a strap from under the arm like I’m done checking my blood count!”
Recap: Even against a well-equipped (“How you 50 years old making tracks that are garbage?, you gonna be the first rapper to die from natural causes”) jokester like Caustic, Head Ice’s repeated tales on urban theatrics, introspective machismo bars and (yes, he has a funny side) dope (“How ya sister call her slippers house shoes if she got ’em on at the corner store?”) one-liners along with fanged lines dipped in personals and an eccentric (“I keep the peace like I’m Sharif brother, I bang, but ain’t no set gonna find these colors”) thug life are too much for those obsessed with racial semantics versus the simple thesis of who rapped better. Indeed, much as Caustic’s collective witticism garnered plenty of guffaws, too much filler and average bars against Ice’s quantitative heat and variety also did him in.
Verdict: Head Ice (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Head Ice – “Fucking bird, when you go sniff coke your nose hit the table first”
Recap: Hot at times, but mostly dishing pedestrian bars, Streetz Me gives himself little chance to keep up with the vibrant performance, effervescent flow and lofty (“These punches hitting like Tyson messiah, you called that, T.I. son, Messiah?!”) wordplay of Ha Style.
Verdict: Ha Style (W) 3-0
Favorite Line: Ha Style – “So you a Blood, whatever this Blood sport, I got something kicking out the Van…damn!”
Recap: Next Rap Battles 1-rounder between Jey The Nitewing and Formz is pretty one-sided as Jey’s crispy wordplay, piercing sports bars and hitting punchlines/personals beats back the mostly pedestrian bars from his opponent.
Verdict: Jey The Nitewing (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Jey The Nitewing – “Your bars lipo-suck, I don’t know how you got so many views, when your round’s finished, the crowd clapping ‘cuz they don’t want to be rude!”
Recap: In this 3-rounder from Trap New York, Jimz brought the humor but not much else in terms of bar efficiency, leaving a gritty when needed and personal-spazzing Squeako with enough heat to edge each round and score a 30.
Verdict: Squeako (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Squeako – “Nigga, you ain’t never bagged up dummies and made a sale on the stoop, or lost your your legs ‘cuz shot dice and fell to the Duke!”
Recap: Shortened name. A couple of super short rounds. Leads me to guess that Un is more of a battle rap hobbyist than a guy seeking to gain a name in the game. Thus, an easy win for a much more polemic and versatile Stuey Newton in this 3-rounder from Alliance Battle League.
Verdict: Stuey Newton (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Stuey Newton – “Of course you been through it all…you the oldest muthafucka around!”
Recap: As expected, a close, competitive and entertaining battle between underrated vet Lotta Zay and rising up-n-comer Rum Nitty. Both dropped plenty of hot bars, added a few haymakers here and there and put on a dope performance for the crowd. Still, while Zay had a little more variety with the bars and stayed consistent throughout, Nitty’s wordplay and punches (“Get close up on him, with a snub and a black denims, i grab the nose get back and wet him, that’s a baptism!”) seemed to get better with each round. I got Zay taking the 1st, Nitty edging the 2nd and you can go either way on the 3rd.
Verdict: TIE
Favorite line: Lotta Zay – “You don’t believe I got gun powder on my hands?, Smell My Finger like Suga Free”
Recap: Plenty of antics, jokes (Uno Lavoz: “Why doesn’t Daylyt like knock-knock jokes? because his father never came home”), hecklers, donations, rebuttals, antics, dance steps, racist lines, wrestling moves on the host, pushing, shoving, steady interruptions and even some (Daylyt: “Me? I’m Mr. Hanky with a spine problem, aww shit he back spazzing!”) bars mixed in–what else would you expect from a matchup between two of battle rap’s funniest and wildest characters? Uno wins round 1 with more variety, while Daylyt takes the second round with better (“You be at the bottom at the ocean like blue whale dookie”) bars, crowd-pleasing lines and less filler. Tied going into the 3rd, it’s Uno’s from jump, imitating Daylyt’s past performances with delightful effect, while Daylyt pretty much wastes the round to deal with personal hardship and past tribulations. Indeed, usually a Stone Cold stunner makes for an automatic win, but not in this case.
Verdict: Uno Lavos (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Uno Lavos – “To fuck Diddy or T.I., you like to choose!”
Recap: Nothing like getting in some practice before a battle on the main stage as Tink Tha Demon eschews formalities and tosses out a fierce litany of ‘throwaway’ (“Soon as I blast the shot, it’ll open your fucking earth to the point that an astronaut can feel the aftershock!”) bars at opponent Monstar, who had his (“Buck 50 nah this shit is getting old…give this nigga a hashtag!”) moments of crowd-pleasing theatrics, but spouted too much filler to have any chance of withstanding Tink’s barrage of demonic wordplay and rueful (“Twin .40s, life on the line, peep how I’m squeezing ’em!”) gun lines.
Verdict: Tink Tha Demon (W) 1-0
Favorite line: “I’m war-bred, a war vet, your mother will get th efeeling that you dead, but she ain’t for sure yet….till I ring the doorbell and throw the whole left arm on the doorstep!”
Recap: “These rounds we going 6 minutes” says host Sway. How funny and ironic was that during a way-too-long battle between Arsonal and industry rapper Mistah F.A.B.? Arsonal, who managed to drop some disrespectful (“I call her Big Drawers Backpin, the bitch all action”) shiners here and there. was so caught up in his raps, he doesn’t realize just how much filler he spits. But even worse, nonwithstanding all his hometown bars and lackluster elementary rhymes. speech-rap, fast-rap, impressions in addition to Batman drawers, you not know it’s really bad when F.A.B.’s crew can’t even get hype to his bars, much less when he calls Arsonal a ‘fake-ass Wale’ and acts like he spit something dope. Indeed, for all the battle rap fans who complain about industry rappers trying to infiltrate the battle world, besides the God-awful Canibus vs. Dizaster match, this is the second best way to make their case.
Verdict: Arsonal (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Arsonal – “Now I ain’t gonna compare you to the mainstream ‘cuz underground is where Fabby is, he just ain’t as underground as his mama and his daddy is”
