Assault and Battling

So if you don’t know what a battle or cypher is the best way to learn (sadly) is watching 8 Mile. Basically a few guys decide host a rap battle, inviting guys from the area and hoping that they’ll arrive.

Well, there’s this white guy Absyrd who puts together a few battles every few weeks to help the hip-hop presence in Central California. A couple of pretty good emcees show up but mostly it’s filled with lame rhymes and jokes. But occasionally you get a good show.

Friday there was one of these said battles. Ab invited a few local kids and rappers to go rap in Orosi (wtf, Orosi, really?). Anyways, my good friend Victor decided to enter. He’s never battled someone and rapped in front of a crowd sober. So of course, he’s pretty nervous because he has a tendency to choke.

A few heads and I finally get to Orosi expecting a big crowd but it’s just a bunch of wack looking crews. After an hour of waiting for everyone to arrive, the battle finally starts. Its Victor’s time to rap against some fat short guy named Cozmo.

In this league, a lot of rappers will write writtens to practice and throw punchlines in their rhymes to win over the crowd. Unfortunately my very nervous friend had forgotten his rhymes so basically everything was freestyled.

First round, PT goes and chokes. It was sad, after about 5 seconds of rapping Victor stops and looks around. Fuck, he’s done. But, he manages to spit out some pretty weak shit. Better than nothing I guess. Cozmo, realizing Vic is a rookie, decides to kick a weaker verse and not directly insult him.

Second round, Victor finally warms up to the crowd and rips a funny verse. I forgot the exact punchlines but they were good enough to finally get some laughs. Besides insulting Cozmo’s height, Vic chooses to target his weight and clothes. Again, Cozmo comes back with some weak shit. I mean it’s consistent, just not that good.

Third round, I forgot. I think Victor spit a couple of punclines but none connected as well as the second round. Cozmo again spits some pretty weak shit.

Winner? After three rounds, the judges decide PT is the winner. Vic finally raps in front of a crowd, wins his first battle, and we get some pretty good laughs. Overall it was a good introduction in the hip-hop scene of Central California. It could have been better but Vic made up for it on his cypher at the end of the battles.

This guy Big Kat started beatboxing and everyone was taking turns to freestyle. Finally Vic manned up and kicked a flow. Once started, he didn’t stop until this wack ass white guy came in and interrupted. That’s just disrespectful, especially in a cypher.

You may not care but this is real hip-hop. Back to the basics; beatboxes, freestyles, laughs. No terrible instrumentals or wack flows.

Videos coming soon.

Michael

If offended easily you probably shouldn't watch these videos. They say a lot of fucked up stuff but that's just how it is.