Category: Battles to watch

Battles of the month: October

Remember October? Neither do we. Here’s our (late) take on the best battles to watch.

RONE VS REAL DEAL

This battle was our personal favourite from the WD4 event. The footage… less so. The audio isn’t great, but it is representative of how the battle went down in the venue. It happened around the time the crowd was at its worst, and it speaks to the quality of the performances and content that both battlers were able to reignite the energy in the venue.

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Battles of the month: September

TOBB logoMost of this month’s best battles came out of KOTD’s World Domination 4. We expect it’ll be the same for next month too. Here are our picks for the battles to watch from September. If you’re a KOTD fan, you’ve likely already seen most of them, so share this with a friend who should watch more battles.

DNA VS CHARRON

Charron has two things going for him right now:

1. He just had a(nother) breakout performance that caught the attention of URL fans. We’ve seen dozens of people calling this a contender for battle of the year.

2. BET just robbed him of his cypher appearance.

In battle rap, sometimes robberies are better than wins. Just look at Pigsty since Cody or Lex D since Cobalt45. Yes, a cypher appearance would’ve been great exposure for Charron, but all of a sudden he’s got a whole movement behind him screaming for justice and revenge. This story has potential to break nationally and internationally too.

Charron has become the perfect example of the “advantaged underdog” and should roll with it rather than hitting the gym and getting tatted up.

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Battles of the month: August

After a busy month of World Domination 4 prep and recapping, we return with another installment of the five battles you shouldn’t miss from August.

MOS PROB VS SOUL

Both of these Don’t Flop MCs dig deep into battle rap culture and the pop/literary canon, referencing: Andy Murray, Loaded Lux, manna from heaven, the Shroud of Turin, Tolstoy, Game of Thrones’ house sigils, Tay Roc and Mike Tyson (and that’s just for starters) - all while being funny, cutting and direct. Hell, Prob even tears Soul up for making obscure references. And his “Loch Ness Lee” line just became frontrunner for Rebuttal of the Year. Watch this battle. You might just learn something.

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Battles of the month: July

After a brief hiatus, we return with another installment of battles of the week, which will now be called battles of the month. Better battles for you + less work for us = everybody wins.

OGMIOS VS MATTER

This is the kind of battle that Don’t Flop does better than anyone else in the game. The clash, between two of the most cerebral MCs out right now, is a highlight reel of creative angles, comedy and lyrical dynamism.

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Battles of the week: June 9 - 15

This week the West Coast steps to the forefront with three entertaining matchups, URL puts out a battle of the sexes, and Bonnie Godiva almost falls off the stage.

AYEM VS MEGADEF

The last battle to go down from Round 2 of the Ground Zero Grand Prix was well worth the wait. The showdown was delayed by two weeks because of a miscommunication between Ayem and the KOTD staff. Megadef seems to have used the extra time to hone his usually loud, aggressive style into a focused beam of white hot rage. Either that or he spent the two weeks binging on Xanax.

We expect this loss will still get Ayem a bigger name for his next battle. Just look how Lex D went from losing to Cobalt 45 to battling Cadalack Ron.

For a full breakdown of the entire second round check our GZGP recap.

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Battles of the week: June 2 - 8

In this week’s battles: new talent gets some shine, a rapper is interrupted by a crackhead, and TOBattleBlog gets its first reference.

B-MAGIC VS TAY ROC

This is a master’s class in street battle rap. Both guys draw deep on references from all over the world of sports, movies, history, geography, hip hop and battling and somehow manage to bring all of it back to shooting each other.

We’ll break down just one of B-Magic’s bars so you get a sense:

“I’m hella sick, boy/you get turned down the wrong road/I bet these 3 16s will leave him Stone Cold/So try again like you typed in the wrong code/I’m Shock G/I’ll leave you underground with this long nose.”

Both rappers get 14 “Don Demarcos,” tying Lotta Zay’s record against Tone Montana.

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