An Education on Battle Rap for the Uneducated

Photo: Slaughterhouse (Joe Budden, Royce da 5'9, and Joell Ortiz) at SOBs in New York City.

by: Ashe Samuels

Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here today to talk about the pro wrestling of hip hop, that is battle rap. Now half of you reading this may have no knowledge of this beyond 8 Mile, so lets break it down for a second. Battle rap in the form in which it exists now is written, not freestyle, and takes place acapella or without a beat. It has evolved from cracks on peoples attire and mom jokes, to the place to hear bars in hip hop. In fact, your favorite rappers are huge battle rap aficinado. Drake has hosted and currently sponsers King Of the Dot based out of Toronto. Method Man has hosted multiple battles. Diddy and Busta Rhymes have showed up at URL. Eminem & Slaughterhouse had Total Slaughter this summer, and the Fuse series Road to Total Slaughter.  Joe Budden battled Hollow Da Don, Ab-Soul ended his major label debut by battling Daylyt, and Canibus battle Dizaster and Cassidy is about to. YouTube is filled with thousands of battles and they have amassed 10s of millions of combined views. However, it has remained relativley underground, but even that is now changing.

I mentioned mainstream rappers battling. What i did not mention is that they get fuckin roasted. Ab Soul had by far the best preformance. His bars were great actually, but then Day spit and it was clear whos realm they were in. Joe Budden got booed, dropped the mic and walked off stage in the third round. He tried but Hollows stage presence and battle savy style took that battle for him. Canibus....well Canibus acted like a total fuckin nutjob and pulled out a binder in his third round. This is not because they arent talented MCs, but because this is not their realm. Budden is one of my favorite rappers to be honest. Its not just about your words but your projection, your movement, your performance as a whole. There is no beat to rock over and a crowd that is not there to hear a song but to watch a battle and will boo the fuck out of you for not coming correct.

We live in an age where lyrics are no longer what makes or breaks an MC in hip hop. For every Budden, Royce, Ortiz, and Crooked, there are 6 Young Thugs. So where do you go to hear bars, to hear that aggression and wordplay that hip hop was raised on? Battle rap. There is a reason why your favorite rapper and there people watch battles in the studio, because that is the new place to hear bars. Fans rewatch battles and hear something that went over their heads the first time. Bringing it back or repeating a bar became the live version of rewinding because it was so damn nice. Concieted slows it down so the crowd and his opponent can hear the double meaning. Loaded Lux repeats things not because he thinks it wasnt heard but because he wants you to listen. That is the beauty of battle rap, its not something you hear, but you listen to.

It is something you listen to, but you watch as well. A Daylyt battle needs to be seen. Where else can you see a Crip dressing like a Klan member for 2 rounds only to reveal he was Black Jesus in the third round. Days battle with B Magic had a Matrix theme to his rounds but a 3rd round told as much through visuals as it was with words, complete with bullet time twerking. That is just the tip of the Daylyt iceberg but thats for another article. From hand gestures to pantomime, props to facial reactions, Battle rap isnt just something you listen to, but also something you watch. How else would you know what Caustic meant when he battled Aye Verb and told Verb he, "showed up looking like Goldust."

Just like pro wrestling there is lead up, the only form of spoken word anything where people cut promos on each other before the event. There are rivalries, Lux vs Hollow made UW into a much larger entity and was almost a decade in the making. Math Hoffa put himself on the map by punching out Dose onstage, and a few years and much shit talk later, a rematch occured. Dizaster and Math had a rivalry based on Maths penchant for throwing hands in a battle that ironically ended with Diz punching out Math in the third round of a fantastic battle. There are stables that rise and fall; Dot Mob, Innuendo, S.O.N.S., Krack City and many more. Worked shoots, those are called personals. You want a prime example watch Pat Stay vs Hollohan from KOTD as two former best friends air each others dirty laundry for the world to see. Shit there are even tag teams which can be amazing if done right. Dirtbag Dan and Caustic battled Shuffle T and Marlo from England in an amazing 2 vs 2. Illmac and The Saurus both champion battlers by themselves are also legends as a team.

So there we go, my dearly beloved readers, an introduction to battle rap. Wanna know why Jay-Z was sayin "you gonna get this work?" Watch Lux vs Calicoe. Wanna hear aggression, and raw raps? Watch battles. Backpacker? Watch The Saurus, Illmac, Charron, A Class and a number of underground inspired battlers. Want guns and street shit? Watch Hitman Holla, Hollow Da Don, Arsonal, Big T, B Magic, shit just watch URLs big battles. Like weird shit, watch Daylyt, shit like backpack or street shit watch Daylyt too. Watch Dizaster to see Eminems favorite battler, Pat Stay to see why hip hop lives in the North. The list of names goes on and on and as time goes on Ill expose you, the fair readers to more. But for now, as they say, TIME!!!!