We couldn’t make it to King of the Dot’s Alcatraz event ourselves, so we talked to Hollywood’s own “Black Tar Rap Star” Cadalack Ron for the skinny. He spoke to us from the Oakland airport on his way home from the event. Ron’s always colourful and candid in his interviews (see more at the end of this post) and doesn’t disappoint here either.

TOBB: So you’re all through security?

Cadalack Ron: Yeah, I always have a hard time going through. I always get pulled out of line and screened but I tried to wear a polo shirt to blend in but it didn’t work. I’ve been trying to smuggle these energy supplement drinks and I’ve been having a harder and harder time getting them through security.

Are they illegal?

They’re looking to make them illegal. The FDA has actually recalled all products with DMAA in it. They can sell the back stock but it’s tough to get more than three ounces of liquid through security anyways.

Ah… so how was the event?

I thought it was cool. It was the first event in Oakland since [Grind Time's] Massacre of the Bay so I think a lot of people were wondering what level of interest there would be in something like this on the Fresh Coast. I thought it was a decent turnout. I would estimate it was 200-250, probably no more than 300 people. There may have been 500 people there throughout the day. I don’t know.

How does that compare to an event from back in the Grind Time days?

I would say it was a smaller turnout than something like Battle of the Bay 4 or 5, but that was the zenith of the scene. It’s been so long since they’ve done anything up here. I was surprised even that many people showed up. I think this event will be the “show and prove” - people will realize it was hype and the next one will be bigger. People might’ve been skeptical. It wasn’t the all-star, crazy Arsonal/Conceited or Okwerdz/T-Rex battles or anything like that. There were just solid battlers.

What was the crowd like? Were they appreciating the bars?

Absolutely. I feel like the audience has matured a lot and I think that’s in part because of the failure of Grind Time. Especially on the West Coast, the GT battlers had the reputation of having jokes over bars. Fresh Coast battlers were a lot of people’s favourites because they were funny.

When GT went away and everybody started watching Smack, etc. they started appreciating more complicated structure or wordplay schemes or gun bars. Lines that might’ve gone over heads four years ago were actually getting good reaction.

Everybody really stepped it. Nobody had a shitty performance. All the battles were good.

Yeah I heard a lot of chatter online that everything was good [check out our homies over at Battlefix.com, who compiled all the updates]. What was the battle of the night?

For me, it was Topr vs Isaac Knox. Topr has always been one of my favourite battlers and he’s such a good rapper so it’s awesome to watch him kill someone.

You can be a good rapper and make songs but suck at battling or be a slick battler who’s never made a song in your life. But Topr is an example of a well-rounded rapper: the way he writes is on point, he has presence, his performance is so fucking killer. Him battling Isaac Knox was like watching a cat play with a dead mouse.

Did he go in on the religion angle?

Hell yeah. He said some crazy shit. Over the top lines like talking about when Isaac Knox finally gave his girlfriend his virginity, she would give it back to him or like Topr getting a handjob from his girlfriend and cumming on her promise ring. Crazy lines.

Other than those two, who had the most impressive performance?

I think Fredo really snapped on Pariah. He had a solid performance. And Pass really went in on Remy. Pass killed Remy pretty gnarly. Probably one of Pass’ best performances ever.

How was your battle against Reverse Live?

It was a great battle. I definitely think I won. Some people I spoke to thought I edged it 2-1. But Reverse might feel he won too. He did really well.

I wasn’t really happy with my performance against Tantrum although a lot of people liked it because it was funny racist shit. I felt bad because he’d obviously spent so much time writing that battle and I was kind of like, whatever.

I just wanted to make sure that’s not what people were coming to expect from me. I wrote this for me and went back to the essence of how I was battling four years ago: more multis, more schemes, more interesting angles. Just rapping really well versus rapping funny and bringing fat jokes. I think that worked to my advantage.

He was great though. He came at me from angles that I hadn’t been attacked on before. He fused together drug addiction and white supremacy. He went on me for being a white supremacist that is emulating the culture of minorities: I’m a wannabe Mexican who raps, which is traditionally an African-American art form, and I’m a white supremacist.

Then he went on for a round about me being a pedophile. I thought it was kind of a bizarre approach and I don’t think it worked for him either because most people in the audience who know me know that I have two kids. I’m not on the sex offender registry in the U.S. That’s like just doing “your mom” jokes. My third finished really strong and I feel like I got the battle. I’ll be surprised if the Internet doesn’t agree.

The other battle that was highly anticipated was Germ Free vs Bonnie Godiva.

Bonnie Godiva killed it. Bodybag of the night. And Germ Free is my homie. It would’ve been cooler to see a more even matchup but that seems to be the trend with these female battles. It’s hard to find two good female battlers. There’s not a big pool of talent to choose from, so when you match them up it ends up being these horrible bodybags. They need to match up the females more evenly or else no girls will want to battle if they keep seeing people getting destroyed. Watching a bodybag is sometimes fun, but watching people spar is more entertaining.

Germ Free had done a painting of Bonnie Godiva having sex with all the Innuendo crew and people were talking about the “Germ Free painting.” People were confused thinking it was a painting of Germ Free. Actually it was a painting of QP performing cunnilingus on Bonnie Godiva while 100 Bulletz was watching from the window. It was kind of bizarre. Maybe she should’ve been practicing her rounds instead of painting.

I think she was also fucked up psychologically for the shit around the porno she did. She actually came up to me and addressed that. Dirtbag Dan told her that I was the one that spread the porno link, which is not true. I was on tour and somebody texted me the link and I showed my tourmates. It’s not hard to find. It exists on the Interwebz. I never posted the link anywhere. I have more respect for people than to do anything like that. But it’s public domain so I can talk about it freely. I apologized to her.

She’s been owning it for the last few weeks.

Yeah, I’m telling you when she came up to me she had that kind of look in her eye I could tell she was affected by it. She was letting it roll off her back leading up to the battle, but probably wasn’t pleased about all that shit coming out. It is what it is, but you can’t let that get at you in a battle. If I was in that situation, I would’ve gone in on myself. I would’ve covered that first round - clown on myself so much that Bonnie Godiva wouldn’t have been able to.

And QP was a no-show?

QP is always a no-show.

I don’t think he actually exists.

There’s something going on with the man. I’m not spreading rumours, but we all know he parties. The last two times I seen him he didn’t look very healthy. He just seemed generally aloof. Not making eye contact when we spoke, just off on his own thing. I’ve seen him out in severe weather not wearing a shirt, just shivering. I was like “Yo man, what are you doing? Put on a sweatshirt.” and he was like “Yeah you’re right. It’s cold out here, man.” He looked like a little black chihuahua lost outside shivering on the street.

And another time I was giving him a huge compliment, I was saying he ruined battle rap because now everyone does the wordplay thing. There’s so many trying to emulate his style. But he couldn’t even take the compliment he was so lost in his own world.

I’ve no-showed at events so I’m not anybody to say “Fuck QP, he no-showed.” I guess KOTD is taking a stronger stance because he has a history of it. He tends to be a little more dramatic as far as making threats and saying nobody from his crew will ever battle in KOTD. It’s kind of ridiculous. I don’t know how much is true on either side. I just hope he’s okay. I love QP’s battles and I hope he battles in KOTD again.

Yeah, the world needs more QP battles. What about Caustic and JC?

I wouldn’t say it was Caustic’s best performance ever. I think he knows he could’ve prepared better. JC might’ve come off more polished and better prepared, but ultimately Caustic’s performance was more memorable to me. He had a couple of lines that shut shit down, where the reaction was so big that the battle had to stop for a second. I look at that like if you’re judging with a boxing style, that’s a knockout. It doesn’t matter if someone fought better every round, if you get knocked out… And I’m not saying JC didn’t get back up from the knockout but I can’t remember any of his lines. Later in the night I was thinking about the battle and the only lines that got in my head were Caustic’s.

How was 100 Bulletz in his Fresh Coast debut?

I don’t think he was as good as people expected. To me, he’s an interesting dude. I don’t really get the hype. I like the guy as a person, he’s actually very nice. The gun-line wordplay shit, there are a lot of people doing it well but he doesn’t have the personality on top of that. I think it’s a lack of charisma. This is just my opinion. I’d never seen JC battle, but when I saw him, he was an entertaining person. And that’s what we’re doing, we’re entertaining the crowd. It’s not just about being able to write well or come up with interesting schemes. That’s a part of it, but the people that I notice the most are the ones who have a charismatic, memorable quality. 100 Bulletz, I just haven’t seen that from him yet. And I’m not saying he’s not going to evolve into that for me. I think he has potential, but I think that Dirtbag Dan killed him. He stumbled a lot in one of his rounds. Battling in Oakland, it’s an uphill battle and he didn’t really take care of business.

Anything else go down?

Not really. Doseone from Anticon was there. It was a good event. No violence, no tension, everybody was chilling.

Anything else you want to mention?

Definitely want to include a huge thanks to KOTD and all the WC division staff, namely Lush One, J-Pro, Aspect and Malathion. And Lush is the greatest battle mogul of all time and best host ever, hands down. And shoutout to Mantix and Caustic.

Ok I’ve got to run to catch this plane.

-

For more interviews with Cadalack Ron, check his appearances on the Dirtbag Dan Show and Kinda Neat.

Or listen to his music, which is great by rap standards, not just battle rap standards.

Find out more about this Machina Muerte collective everybody’s always talking about.

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