Image Credit: BattleRap.com
I waited till Wednesday to write about the Fresh Coast Ether event for personal reasons. This turned out to be a great thing. Due to the untimely passing of Young B the Future who was the top tier prospect of 2014, the news cycle on Ether has been rather slow. It was the biggest battle event ever thrown. A billionaire by the name of Alki David, the owner of Filmon, a streaming television company who specialize in live streaming events, joined forces with Lush One and the Fresh Coast Music Group to present Ether, this past Saturday live on IPPV. The other name of this event was merely the main event, Cassidy vs Dizaster. I watched, as did many, the first and unplanned second night. For the most part battle fans were expecting Dizaster to kill Cass. This is his forum. No one expected the most debatable battle of the year or the biggest upset of all time. Its a matter of opinion and you will know mine. Lets take a look at all the lessons we learned from Ether, the event as a whole. Please keep in mind these are my opinions. If they are yours, great. If not, fuck yourselves.
Lets first talk about the battles themselves. Watching from home was, kind words would be "challenging," frustrating, and depressing at times. In fact there were so many issues with the stream, it was in the end, freeview content. More on that later as that was a win in the end, the free part that is. The stream and the event started late and there were technical issues abound, in house and digitally. The mics didnt work half the time. One of, well seemingly two, lavaleer mics broke which led to Daylyt and Serious Jones trading equipment mid battle...yup. Second to last battle of the night, second biggest battle of the night. This was Total Slaughter, except the battle guys were supposed to get it right, do it better. However blame cant really be placed on Lush. FilmOn produced the event and handled the video and audio, not Lush. Battle Rap and Pro Wrestling are very much alike in the sense of you kinda need the people from within to handle the decision making, not the exec who thinks they know better. Just because you pay for it doesn't mean you know more than the professionals. I have watched talented filmographers ruin great wrestling due to no idea how to shoot it. Ether was watching the same treatment for battle rap. Fact of the matter is there were issues with mics, with the stream, sound cuttin out both live and on stream. This was incredibly depressing as was missing basically a whole Bigg K round and all sorts of Big T goodness and like half of Real Deal vs Illmac, and part of Ars vs Saurus. What makes it even more bittersweet is that when you see the official release, what its supposed to look like, and what the live experience of the stream was. Also pro wrestling has proven many times, live IPPV are the motherfucker of clean streaming.
Each battle had a pro wrestling MMA style entrance. Battlers, please step your entrance game up. Why not hype shit, barely playing to the crowd at all? Use it to your advantage, to display your identity. Make yourself stand out, its a show. Part of the issue was a la TS, this wasn't really a battle crowd. That is a true sign of a movement becoming an industry, giant events full of people who are there to claim they were there. Therefore, crowd reaction most of the time, on cam at least, not what a crowd for an event like this would be expected to sound like. But please...dont just walk down steps swiftly, have some fun.
Cali Smoov is an up and coming battler from LA. He is a member of Krack City alongside Dizaster, Daylyt and Aktive. Smoov also is apparently reponsible for bringing Lush and David together, therefore may have been the spark to all this. He was given the gift of Death By Caustic. I would never, ever want to battle Daniel Stefani. I have never met him in real life, I am a fan of his as a battler and as a member of the Dirtbag Dan Show podcast and believe he may have the most evil intentions any battler alive. He has ruined careers, marriages, minds (see Daley battle) and laughs. Cali brought bars, some very good. Caustic decided to make him pay for his ego with hateful personals about his reputation and sexuality. Remeber a rap battle isnt just a competition to see who raps better or has better indirect wordplay, its about making someone look bad, a verbal altercation, a fight with words. Caustic beat 11 fancy yet light spin kicks with a haymaker to the jaw. That simple. Danny Meyers, fresh off an amazing battle with Aye Verb battled Heartless, fresh off a huge upset over Charlie Clips. Didnt see this, however I'm hearing 2-1 Meyers in what i'm sure was a battle full of wit, wordplay, and Meyers running round screaming like a white woman in a slasher movie after big punches. Two battle vets coming off monsterous 2014 preformances, Real Deal and Illmaculate duked it out in a fantastic back and forth. This was a rare close 3-0 in Illmaculates favor. Real Deal was nearly over agressive while Illmaculate is becoming better nearly each time he hits a Cali stage. Two examples of why tiers exist occurred as well. Billy Boondocks won a freestyle tournament at the previous FC event in early November. However this is the equivalent of a guy winning a touch football tournament and then getting put in the All Pro game. He had the unfortunate task of facing a very on Rum Nitty. Nitty was a breakout star of the new Fresh Coast after an epic battle with Danny Meyers a year ago. Since then, he has had some huge battles, including Arsonal in Nittys home town of Phoenix and B Magic for FC. Nitty is one of the hardest hitters in battle rap, and has shutdown bars every battle, showstoppers. This was watching a tee ball player face Randy Johnson. This was the guy you went to high school with who did karate vs Anderson Silva. It was a bloodbath, plain and simple. The other example of this is Aktive vs Big T. Aktive is also Krack City. He is one of the most legit gangsters in battling and is also very very green. He faced the 600 lb. man with the 600 lb. bars, Big Motherfuckin T. T is a monster who had a classic with Diz the prior month. At Ether, he was razor sharp, with gun sound effects firing everywhere. Aktive got taken to school in a wash. These are top tier battlers for a reason. Dont punish your newcomers that way FC.
Up next we had an intermission which included a beautiful young lady fuckin up her own songs and inspiring a movement. After Ether, #Yaki and the decently hot chick rapping it will forever be ingrained in our memory banks. Arsonal battled The Saurus after the whole Yaki thing. This was a great battle from what the feed didnt fuck up, Ars is the most viewed battler alive, Saurus is the most decorated with possibly the most battles. This was street vs backpack between legends on their A games. Though some may say the whole race card 2nd round by Ars was played, the way in which he did it was not. I gave it 2-1 Ars for more quotables, better presence and the fact that Saurus may or may not have left the er at the end of the word. The next was the battle of the puchline kings, Bigg K vs Concieted. Con is a trailblazer who has influenced battle rap more than nearly everyone and currently appears on MTVs Wild N Out. Bigg K is street battlings great white hope. Con came light, K did not. This was Ortiz vs Shamrock as battle rap. A one sided beatdown of a veteran. Bigg K is a problem and proved it again. The semi main event was the battle of the night. Serius Jones is an icon, uncrowning Jin in the "good ol days," signing with Luda and DTP, and two giant return battles. Last we saw his face, however it was helping Math Hoffas fist shut down SM3. Daylyt is the king of antics and one of the most advanced writers in the game. His major battles since the summer included dressing in a Spawn costume, stripping down and pulling out Mr. Hankey vs Rex, dressing as the headless horseman vs Real Deal and trying to shit onstage 3rd round, battling Krack City teammate Cali Smoov. He twerked on Smoov and simulated head. Two weeks prior vs Pat Stay for the KOTD title, he dressed as a slave, and basically proceeded to do 3 parts of a one man show which happened to take place during a battle. He came into LA and rapped his fuckin ass off. Days bars usually are better on camera due to being so complex. I got Day 2-1 close, as while Serius was more direct Day was on some other shit. Serius did take the one round freestyle battle after the show got shutdown.
That brings us to the nearly crippling debacle that was the main event. It was the highest profile battle in history. Cassidy the self proclaimed founder of modern day battling, mainstream for over a decade, the first platinum rapper to battle vs Dizaster, Eminems favorite battler, arguably the face of modern battling and a killer on stage. $175,000 for that battle alone. This was the most hyped, most promoted, most anticipated battle ever. A bodybag was expected, a debated classic insued and nothing went as planned. It took nearly 20 minutes to clear the stage, as it was being ordered by fire marshalls. On camera it looked like entourage bullshit. In reality it was, according to Dizaster, a stage full of rival gang members, with Diz having a crew consisting mainly members of the notorious Grape St. Crips and Cass hiring members of Comptons Blood set. Chubby Jag has disputed the paying thing, not the gang thing however. Half the stage exited, and Cassidy began to spit, four bars. They were, however, four bars that showed he studied Diz. Then more stage fuckery for twenty minutes. Then Cass spit again. He started hot, Charlie Clips impressions and schemes. Yeah, there was the whole use of "gun got a long nose like an elephant" in 2014. After two minutes of writtens, shit got weird. Cassidy began a series of Ar Ab prebuttles and other freestyles for nine minutes. Lush couldn't stop him, Diz even began a round and was stopped, by Cass rapping over him. Diz was shocked but said let him go. Cass went for 9 minutes to us, or five minutes to Cass. Diz then began to spit, and got about 8 bars out before the boos hit. He blamed Cass people in the pit, they claim it was Diz doing the whole fixate on one topic thing that he lost to Arcane by doing. None of that mattered as it took 40 minutes for one round. The biggest battle ever got shut down, the building and the feed dark. The scene took an L on its biggest night, once again.
