Math Hoffa and Dizaster outside of BOLA5. Photo by @IamHBY
Well, KOTD’s Battle of Los Angeles 5 has come and gone. Normally we’d have a recap of all the battles up by now, but what with the fallout from the Dizaster/Math Hoffa fight and the work we did on our Top 5 Battlers of 2014 (So Far) list we didn’t get a chance to do a full breakdown. We’ll give our thoughts on the battles as the footage drops.
We did, however, put together a Top 10 Moments from BOLA 5 for BattleRap.com, where we contribute a couple of pieces each week.
Also we’ve got some photos from @IamHBY and Chris Wynn who were at the event. Make sure to follow HBY on Twitter and Instagram.
Carter Deems after his battle with Joe Cutter at Day 1. Photo by Chris Wynn.
We couldn’t make it to Los Angeles for BOLA5 this weekend, but we did an interview with KOTD’s Aspect One for BattleRap.com to get his thoughts on the best performances from the night as well as to find out exactly what is going on with Carter Deems.
Rosenberg Raw rapping against Skelly at GZ Mississauga
The newly rebranded GZ Battles launched yesterday, with an event that felt like something from the early days of KOTD. The battles were short, in a pit with the crowd surrounding the battlers, and mostly judged. Most importantly, the battlers were hungry and kept the crowd entertained throughout. Not every battle was great, but they all had great moments.
It was the first event in Gully’s hometown of Mississauga and still drew around 250 people (including Gully’s dad) despite being a streetcar, a subway, and two buses away from downtown Toronto. The venue was a club located in a strip mall, divided into a bar with tables and food on one side and a dancefloor that served as the ring on the other.
The new venue, new crowd and some bigger names on the card made for a welcome return of small-scale KOTD events to the city (or at least its suburbs).
**The PPV for this event is now available for $10 on KOTD’s website.**
King of the Dot’s Vendetta 2. Photo by @itsbeenmadreal
King of the Dot’s Vendetta 2 Redemption card mostly lived up to its name in Los Angeles last night. The event was to make up for Blackout 4′s six unexpected cancellations but of the three rescheduled battles, only Bender vs Big T went down. Ill Will backed out against Real Deal, citing contractual obligations to BET, and Shotty Horroh was replaced by Caustic as Aye Verb’s opponent with two weeks’ notice.
Despite those early setbacks, it was a great event with lots of impressive performances from some of the best battle MCs in the world, cheered on by a generous and well-behaved crowd. The venue was much smaller than the massive rooms we’ve seen in Toronto recently, holding around 500 people comfortably. The stage was only a couple of feet high and the battlers were surrounded by people which should result in footage similar to that of Battle of the Bay 6 — which is a good thing.
To a certain extent, this was the URL vs KOTD card that fans have been demanding for years. That no one really noticed shows how much overlap there now is between the leagues and their rosters.
Overall, the tone of the battles gave clear indication that a combination of complex wordplay, rapid-fire punches and dense lyricism is the dominant style in battling today. Our only request for the next card is that we get a bit more comedy to break up the encyclopedia’s worth of bars we’re getting shouted at us in a night.
**You can watch all these battles on PPV now, at KOTD.TV**
KOTD Vancouver’s recent Gastown event was supposed to launch the division. Daylyt, who’s always one performance away from another million views on WorldStarHipHop, was taking on Fingaz, himself coming off a strong performance against Ness Lee at Quarantine. The other main event pitted Uno Lavoz against Sketch Menace, fresh after both of them dominated at Blackout 4. Unfortunately neither of those battles happened, along with Cadalack Ron vs Cody the Catch.
The battles that did go down, however, mostly satisfied the large crowd. Some veterans made successful returns to the ring and some up-and-comers gained momentum.
Ayem
We got the homie Ayem, who made the 17-hour drive up from San Jose with Madflex, to give us a rundown of how things went from his perspective. Ayem’s a Grindtime alum who faced off with DNA in 2009 and who has more recently been putting on some completely slept-on performances against the likes of The Deadman and Megadef in KOTD’s Fresh Coast division.
You might know Mos Prob as a former Don’t Flop rapper (who made our Best of 2013 list) or maybe as half of “that battle rap engagement couple” with his American MC fiancé Rapunsell. What you might not realize about Adam “Mos Prob” Felman is that he’s also a massively entertaining writer. One that you’ll be reading a lot more from now that he’s the newest staff writer for T.O. Battle Blog.
He’ll also be managing our Facebook page, so make sure to add us for more updates and articles.
Here are his thoughts on his first trip to Canada and first KOTD event:
