Recap: Chess versus Th3 Saga is like an hour long, but worth about every minute, especially if you appreciate not only a dope, competitive rap battle, but in this case the underlying themes of young, intellectual, urban street ethos vs. spiritual-laden Hip-Hop (sorta) elder statesman with a loaded dose of introspection to the bars. Then too, this battle stands out for presenting a rare case of having not just one, but two classic rounds in it. First, there’s Saga’s mega-lit 1st, an explosive turn that was littered with spicy faith-based punches and a load of head-ringing (“Steams, just make sure your man is good, boy my etiquette’s nice!”; “Pound Chess and throw him the deuce…Sammy Sosa!”) haymakers, making it not only a memorable turn, but unfortunately for Saga, a round so spitfire that he would have a hard time repeating as the battle proceeded.
And while, the ever-lyrical Chess came through with an opening round that contained enough (“A clip from these ratchets dumping will fuck you for life, like two girls with one cup!”) heaters to beat most opponent rounds, in this case there was just no way he’d have enough to overtake Saga’s unbridled heat. Round two saw Saga continue to bring it, tossing out real-life (“Talking about I don’t know the struggle when I was raised from it!”) shiners and fire schemes with focused abandon, but also an elongated turn that had a little more filler than his 1st. However, this wouldn’t matter in the long run as Chess would offer his own version of a classic round, actually getting better as the proceeded as proven here via a barrage of wicked (“Get dog-tagged, we’ll see who’s on top of the food chain when this man is neck-less [necklace]!”) wordplay, in-ya-face smack talk, witty barbs, steely (“Saga, why we gotta die to see heaven?”) rebuttals to his opponent’s spiritual-leaning adages and percipient dalliances on the (“Cutting squares out of the towel just to make extra washcloth’s!”) struggles within AnyHood, USA.
A highly competitive and spitfire battle going into the 3rd, while Saga again proved formidable in the final and deciding round with a solid showing of fiery (“Act up, and I’ll black and drag dog in a round like he stole from Martin!”) punchlines and potent darts, the Christian battle rapper would hurt himself a bit when he became too redundant with his themes ane too flagrant with his non sequitur’s (like comparing Chess’ rap style to Steams). On the other hand, Chess consistently stayed on point in round 3, mixing in some fire wit and personals themed around how much he didn’t want this battle, but more importantly, scoring endlessly with potent gun bars, gritty (“Fucking jerk-off, you really feeling yourself too much, you really willing to die for nothing!?!”) set-ups and more of that dope (“Nigga’s always swear they talk to me, but nobody see’s me, I’m an imaginary friend!”) wordplay to earn the win.
Verdict: Chess (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Chess – “Get all 3 of y’all, bury DNA then replace T with K, that’s what I do to a bird, man [Birdman] respek [respect] it!”
