What Happened To Rap Battles? Total Slaughter Review, Battle Rap History, and more...

photo credit HipHopDX.com

WHAT happened to Battle Rap?

In music, progression is necessary for the betterment of the industry. Artists in every genre must adapt with the times or they will never be able to reach the pinnacle of their craft. Keeping up with the times is fun, it’s necessary, and it’s lucrative. If an artist can keep making money by tapping into new fans on a regular basis then they will have a long and fruitful career. But one thing must remain a constant in order for the genre to thrive, and the one thing is the essence of what brought the music about to begin with must remain the foundation. Without the foundation or the original concept that made the artist and the fans appreciate the music, nothing happens. One genre that has lost a lot of its luster is battle rap. This version of battle rap that I’ve been seeing over the last few years has its heart in the right place, but it’s mind has misguided sense of direction. In recent times the battle scene has went away from the low-key phenomenon that made it must see TV. The rappers that battle are still supremely talented, but the entire battle rap productions and extravagant shows look like something Broadway musical or an episode of 106 & Park’s Freestyle Friday. After watching the recent Total Slaughter pay-per-view, it seems like these are sad times for battle rap.

Total Slaughter Equals Total Letdown… 

For two weeks leading up to Total Slaughter all the talk was about how amazing the battle production put on by Eminem would be. Eminem got his start as a battle rapper and of course he made an entire movie (8 Mile) about it. If anyone could take the battle rap genre and turn it into a huge pay-per-view event that I would enjoy watching, it would be Eminem. I knew most of the guys in the line up including Arsonal, Joe Buddens, T-Rex, Murda Mook and Loaded Lux. I had heard Daylyt was really talented and the Hollow Da Don kid from Queens had insanely good bars. So I couldn’t wait to watch this and have it spark my interest for battle rap again. By the end of the night I was shocked and disappointed by what I had just witnessed. Was this what battle rap had come to? The California rapper Daylyt battled in a Spawn costume then stripped down to his boxers and just laid on the floor until his round was over? Really? I knew the show was going to go down hill from there and I was correct.

The aspect that sold me on the show to begin with was watching Loaded Lux battle Murda Mook. My first battle experience was watching smack DVD’s of guys like Mook and Lux making their bones in the streets of Harlem battling in clothing shops and rooftops battling in front of local crowds. Mook was always a monster whose punch lines were so devastating that it sometimes took the crowd a second or two to realize how sick his lines actually were. Mook’s style was always more direct, more disrespectful in a sense but in the battle way of disrespect. Mook wanted to make a mockery of the idea that you challenged him to begin with. Then he went about breaking you down punch line by punch line.

Then there was the style Lux brought to the battle game. Lux seemed more methodical with his approach. Every line was leading to something, a bigger picture of how you were going to meet your demise. Lux would use huge words just to make his dumbfounded opponent feel like an idiot, then he would go back to being the kid from Harlem and hitting his opponent with bars about why his opponents clothes were terrible or why his opponent was a nobody in the neighborhood. The best way to sum up Lux would be using the Lauryn Hill line, “And even after all my logic and my theory/ I add a motherfucker so you ignant niggas hear me.” For me that epitomized Lux’s style and he pulled it off very well. It had been quite a while since I heard either man battle so I was hyped going into their match. Two Harlem battle legends coming back to battle each other like old days.

Unfortunately, times have changed. The Loaded Lux is saw on that stage was not the same Lux from the Smack DVD’s. This Lux was still just as intelligent with his word play, but he was more preacher than battle rapper. He went on for long stretches not attacking Mook and I have no idea what he was even talking about half the time. He was just on stage rambling. Is this what fame and money does to the greats in battle rap? If so it was sad to watch.

When it was Mook’s turn, he seemed a lot like the Mook I enjoyed watching in the early 2000’s.  But there was one difference, this Mook was far less ruthless. Mook was spitting bars and getting after Lux, but it wasn’t the vicious Mook I remember from before. Old Mook would have dismantled Lux for such a poor showing. But this Mook was just battling to battle, not because he wanted to prove he was the best at his craft. Rather he was battling like he already made it in life and was just doing it for the money and TV exposure.

Go back and watch this battle between the two battle rap legends and you’ll see what I miss about those two, here.

Maybe it was just an off night for Lux, and maybe because Lux was off that threw Mook off as well. If Total Slaughter was any indication of what I’ve missed from these two in recent times, I’m glad I stopped following them when I did.

Last and definitely least was the battle between Joe Buddens and Hollow Da Don. I knew this was going to be bad for the simple fact that I’ve watched dozens of battles in my life, and I’ve never see a rapper that’s established come into the ring and battle an established battle rapper. The closest I’ve seen is Cassidy battle Freeway years ago but both were known rappers and barring some people saying Cassidy was a huge battle rapper in Philly, both were mainstream guys. I heard Hollow was talented and I know Buddens music so I figured both would bring their A games. I thought Hollow wanted to prove a point and show that battle rappers are just as talented as guys who’ve made it in the rap game, and Buddens would so up big to prove to battle rappers that mainstream rappers are great at anything they set their minds to. What I witnessed was Hollow being clever and talented, but not focused on the battle, and Buddens was blatantly reciting raps he wrote prior to the battle. It was embarrassing. At one point hollow stopped rapping to tell Buddens if he ever hit another woman again in his life that Hollow would beat him to the ground. What? And during the 3^rd round Buddens kept stopping to complain about the crowd booing. The crowd was booing him because not only was it apparent he was spitting written material, but also he wasn’t even winning by basically cheating. I’m a fan of Budden, but his showing at the rap event was a joke. He was basically booed off stage and he quit. This is the event the battle world was waiting for? The microphones didn’t work properly half the time, the crowd was booing and cheering at the most confusing moments as if they were doing it on cue,  and most of the rappers seemed like they were only there for a paycheck. I was shocked that Eminem was the person that put this together. This was not what I was expecting form a Marshall Mathers production, and from the tweets and I articles I read that night, most of the viewers felt the same. The Battle rap game has moved away from what made it great, and it will have to go back to the beginning in order for it to be fun again. 

Battle Rap Is A Gladiators Sport, Not Broadway…

Battle rap has become a great revenue stream for rappers, promoters, television networks and everyone in between. And when money is involved, things change. Go back and watch some of the greatest rap battle in history, and see what they all have in common: Two hungry battle rappers, not battling for money, battling simply for respect and to build their reputations. But in the beginning of the battle rap phenomenon the rappers weren’t the only reason battle rap was great. The spectators were almost as big in the battles as the rappers were. People that come from the hoods across America know how to amp a situation up. When battles were held in clothing shops and roofs in Harlem and the Bronx, the people from those neighborhoods who knew the landscape were packed into those places to root on their local rappers. The laughs at punch lines were what spurred rappers to continue tearing an opponent apart. If a rapper could get the crowd going, then that would go a long way into swaying the decision of who won the battle. It was not about winning money; it was about winning the crowd. Once a rapper swayed the crowd, his confidence grew, and with it so did his swagger and the cleverness of the lines he was delivering. Conversely, the rapper hearing the crowd growing against him knew when his turn was up, he would have to step it up in a major way and do what was necessary to win them back. That was the essence of the competition. No microphones, no large-scale productions, no fans paying money to watch at home or in person; none of the non-sense. But with money being thrown left and right, no one can or should fault rappers for joining battle leagues and doing paper-view events. The money is too good to pass up. But if Total Slaughter is what the world is to expect from rap battles from this point on, then I’ll go back to my battle rap hiatus. Sometimes change is great, but other than rappers making money now, battle rap isn’t as fun for me anymore, and that’s a shame. 

by:: Frantz Paul