Note: Don't read my quick review below unless you've seen the battle or don't care about being spoiled. ______________________________________________________________________
Well, I think it's safe to say that pretty much everyone expected Bender to crush but Sketch certainly stepped up to the plate here. I don't feel like this was one of Benders performance even discounting the third round choke. His 2nd round rambled on a bit and all three verses seemed packed with a lot more filler than you'll see in his matches versus 24/7 or Miracle. For all that Bender still had quite a few good punches a nice little extension to his 'sorry player' scheme. Sketch came with a career best performance though, even with the minor slip-ups in each round. He went toe to toe with Bender on the rhyme scheme count and out-flowed and out-performed Bender who's choppy and slow delivery leaves a lot to be desired. His 'Chain of Evolution' punch in the third was a great way to take advantage of all the momentum he'd built up throughout his killer third round. Though it would have been closer, I feel Sketch still would have taken it even without Bender's choke.
Considering the circumstances it was a pretty decent battle though obviously it doesn't really compare to what the Dizaster v DNA match would have been like. A bit too much filler from Diz and a few stumbles from QP but it's definately worth a watch.
Great battle. Probably Dirt's best performance to date and probably his best opponent as well. His third was fucking unbelievable. Watch this.
KOTD: 2 v 2 Beatbox Battle
Apparently this was the first of it's kind. Great idea and it was reasonably well executed though it drags on a bit long.
Basementality: Okwerdz & Dizaster v Shazaam & Nils m Skils | Full Review
One of the most enjoyable battles of the year so far. Considering the Swedish duo are rapping in their non-native language they were extremely impressive. Nils m Skils freestyles blew me away. Okwerdz was a bit of a let down, Diz had a decent performance.
Miscellaneous:
DNA Spits His Bars For Dizaster
DNA shows what one of his rounds for Dizaster would have looked like. Judging by the bars we've seen from both of them (Diz's in the QP battle) it would have been a great battle. Shame that it almost certainly won't go down now.
Now that's how you name a song. There is (believe it or not) more to this song than just a nice title. Flight Distance is a group that's probably most recognised for the fact that one of it's members is current KOTD champ and multisyallable extraordinaire, Bender. Patience, the groups other MC, is no slouch either though as is clear from this track.
Sullen and sluggish, 'nuff of us suffered a troubled history but muster some love to crumble up brother, come bun it with me now, them snipers never catch the whites in my eyes staying bloodshot from the bends, holdin' a nitrogen high a knife in my side, spent my februarys in a slump respected as writer, legendary as a drunk
Saids it all really. 'Gritty' and 'raw' are (extremely) overused descriptors when it comes to describing Hip-Hop but they apply to this track so well it's hard not use them.
Continuing on from the Weekly Hip-Hop recap's i'll be posting every Monday I thought I'd post a summary of the week gone by on everything relating to the battle rap scene, including the latest battles (of note), flyers and any others news relating to upcoming events or the scene in general.
Battles:
For a more in-depth look at any of the battles posted click the 'review' link above each battle.
this is gonna get crazy, we got some massive things lined up for the upcoming year, including your favourites like justice/60/dote/purpose aswell as alot of up and comers to definatly look out for....
aswell as bringing alot of unexpected names from ozhiphop aswell as plenty of international matchups
Great look for the Oz battle community and i'm especially hyped to hear Justice will be battling again. Well, i'm about to prepare for the Soul Khan v Fox & Thesaurus v Mac Lethal battles dropping today, probably my two most anticipated battles to be released. It's a good day for rap battle fans.
First things first, that intro song sounds incredible, i’ve gotta get a hold of that ASAP. And lmao at PoRich’s little quip in the intro, that mans got a quick wit. Also, avocado wins in general for capturing the battle in such awesome quality.
General Thoughts:
Po’Rich has been constantly improving with every battle since WRC 07’ and I feel like, after this battle, is worthy of being known as one of the top 5 battle rappers in KOTD. This battle plus his battle with Soul Khan, Sensa and his recent 2v2 were all great performances.
Sadly, this was Illusion Z’s last battle, but he certainly went out on a high note with a pretty decent performance up until the third which he killed, though not in the normal sense. I felt the crowd slept on him as well, though his delivery problems didn’t help that.
The Breakdown:
1st Round: One of the most immediately noticeable features of Illusion’s verse is the ‘iffy’ delivery. It was certainly lacking throughout the battle and Po’Rich’s aggressive commanding delivery only makes it look worse in comparison. Still, Illusion went in on that 1st round and his
‘Dig deep inside yaself’
Was a really clever play on Po’richs ‘dick deep inide ya bitch’ intro/slogan/catch-phrase/whatever the fuck you wanna call it.
Po’Rich came even harder this round though, with a dominating presence combined with an alcohol-inspired (and almost definitely fuelled) torrent of bars.
‘What you call binge drinkin, I call hockey night in Canada’
‘They call me wigger, but I am black on the inside, my liver is fucked!’
‘…employee of the month an I don’t even work there’
Who Took it?: Po’Rich
2nd Round: Some really nice schemes from Illusion during this round with the
‘get rich and die tryin’ one a highlight.
Rich then came straight out of the box with what was probably the best rebuttal I've seen since Fresco’s ‘Mind Body an Soul ’ with,
‘yeah I’m a juggalo, fucking faggots, how do they work?’
Rich continued to kill that second round and finished it off with a great piece of wordplay with the ‘gringo’ ‘grin-go’ line.
Who Took It?: Po’Rich
3rd Round: This saw Illusions spit a really heartfelt verse - looking at his struggle in the recent past with drugs and alcohol – that (regardless of what he said in the verses intro) remained applicable to the battle due to Rich’s drunk persona. It really takes some courage to come out and spit something like that in another country. His
‘Don’t have the human power to beat the illusion’ scheme was great. The round was reminiscent of Defron's 3rd verse against Ilyak over in 'Got Beef?' .Illusions round really took the the momentum away from Rich and his third didn’t hit as hard because of it. That said, it was still full of great lines...
‘air him out in front of his peeps and deflate his ego’
‘your no illusion just a prestige about to drown in a glass case’
Who Took It?: Tie
I thought Teacozy from over at the RapMusic forums summed up the battle nicely:
‘This whole battle felt like an intervention. Illusions' first two rounds being "this is what's the matter with you" and all of Rich's rounds being "so?", with that third being really poetic and explaining the first two verses.’
