Recap: M. Ciddy may not be a top tier battle rapper (yet), but he’s not a mid-tier either, more like somewhere in-between or better yet, a gatekeeper if you will for the top tiers, which should garner him respect wherever he battles. Like here against an able up-n-comer like Showoff, who had to know that he’d better bring his A-game if he was going to stand a chance against the likes of Ciddy. And barring a couple of minor slip-ups, Showoff does just that with fierce wordplay, name flips, performance bars, potent (“Why do you still write? I mean you had a couple of lines, but you don’t kill mics, made me wish I could fast-forward you in real life”) teasers and earnest bully (“You say my squad brought the singer with them, I give a right hook I ain’t trying to feature with him”) lines. Yet for all of his opponents efforts, M. Ciddy still does him one better with crazy (“Push was outshining you like Malice and Clipse”) personals, ill set-ups, a nice rebuttal in round 3, wordplay (“I’m blacking on the web like Eddie Brock”), aggressive punchlines and flat-out wicked (“We wouldn’t see Show guns with Japan leaders”) bars. A victory for M. Ciddy, but overall one of the better battles of 2013.
Verdict: M. Ciddy (W) 2-1
Favorite line: M. Ciddy – “John Heard you got bars and you probably nice, I let a shot go ‘By!’ [bi] like Wanda Sykes, and take herd out the game, Jumanji dykes [dice]”
