Tagged: King of the Dot

Q&A: Arcane’s thoughts after the Pat Stay battle

Screen shot 2024-08-18 at 10.32.19 PMThe title match was supposed to be a cakewalk for Pat Stay. Clearly that wasn’t the case. It’s been about a week since the YouTube footage dropped for King of the Dot’s most recent title match, and the result is more debatable than most expected. Ultimately, Pat Stay used humour to unchain the reigning champ. But even in defeat, Arcane found some level of redemption by taking a no-nonsense, bar-heavy approach against the odds-on favourite. Many fans even think Arcane won the battle, which is remarkable considering the blow to his reputation after BarGate.

We spoke with Arcane the day after the footage dropped about his impressions of the title match, whether it was an unwinnable battle, and whether a battle against Caustic is in his future.

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Q&A: Bender speaks before the Dirt battle

photo(76)Bender is an over-achiever. As far as we can tell, he’s the best battle-rapping artist, as well as the most artistic battle rapper. His fierce aggression and densely-structed writing have made him a fan-favourite in KOTD and netted him invites to Flip Top, Don’t Flop and iBattle. The former KOTD champion won the league’s official “Performance of the Year” awards in both 2010 and 2012. He makes music as part of Flight Distance, whose Bad Information album is arguably the best rap record to ever come out of Ottawa. We also have it on good authority he’d destroy us in The Last of Us multi-player.

Bender was gracious enough to welcome T.O. Battle Blog into his Ottawa home/art studio to talk about his paintings, his upcoming match against long-time rival Dirt and his thoughts on KOTD’s World Domination 4 event.

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Everything you missed at GZGP Round 4 (Toronto)

A lot happened in battle rap this week: Math Hoffa KO’d Serius Jones and the remaining battles on the SM3 card. Daylyt made his URL debut by battling Smack outside the venue. KOTD dropped one of the most epic battles in recent memory. And at the Annex Wreckroom in Toronto, Ground Zero put on a hidden gem of an event for the GZGP semi-finals.

If you want “bars over names,” forget URL. GZ is where it’s at. No gimmicks, no drama, no BS, just four entertaining battles. Even with three battles cancelled, the night managed to be laid-back, relaxed and fun.

The crowd was a good size, especially for an event so soon after WD4, and there were a lot of new faces. The obscure references to the GZ scene were mostly lost on them, so if you’re bringing someone new, tell them to read this post and our recaps of Rounds 1, 2 and 3 before coming to the finals on Nov. 23.

Oh, and the “ladies-free-before-10:00 p.m.” plan worked like a dream.

STEP EASY VS WIZE GUY (Battle of the night)

Wize Guy and Step Easy. Photo by Jen Schenkel Photography via The Annex Wreckroom on Facebook
Wize Guy and Step Easy. Photo by Jen Schenkel Photography via The Annex Wreckroom on Facebook

Step took this on a 3-2 decision and moves on to the GZGP finals in November. We heard a few people loudly calling it a robbery outside the venue, though they were mostly Wize Guy’s boys and the judges who voted for him. There was so much going on in this battle it’s easy to see why opinions were so divided.

Let us break it down two ways:

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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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Final thoughts on KOTD’s World Domination 4

King of the Dot’s World Domination 4 has been done for just over a week, and the debate over the battles has already started turning into hype for Battle of the Bay 6. Now that we’ve got some distance from the event, we wanted to give some final observations before the footage starts to drop.

We also spoke to Organik, Lush One, Drect and Poison Pen for their thoughts on the event. Their interviews are linked at the bottom. Scroll to the bottom for a complete rundown of T.O. Battle Blog’s exclusive WD4 content.

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Theme of the weekend

Shots were fired at Ultimate Rap League, Smack and the league’s battlers. It started on Friday, when Charron called out URL battlers for not doing judged matches and for the league’s marquee event Summer Madness 3 being a flop. On Saturday, it was compounded by disses from Real Deal and Charlie Clips in consecutive battles. Real Deal basically used his entire third round to attack URL rappers who are afraid to battle him (e.g. “Chilla Jones is the biggest mark to come out of Boston since Wahlberg.”). Then Clips used his final round to address Smack’s recent vlog, which he took as “a spit” in his face for suggesting he’s taking money in return for mediocre performances. He also criticized the hypocrisy of putting K-Shine on the SM3 bill when he choked in his Big T battle. It’s possible that all three MCs were hamming it up for a pro-KOTD crowd, but with all the criticism being leveled at the SM3 card, it’s clear that URL is facing scrutiny like never before.

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