No Bias. No Narratives.
Recap: In this 1-rounder from IEvolveTV, another solid punching and aggressive showing from Cali Smoov gets handily beat back by Cortez’s more steady and gritty mix of bold street raps, nasty wordplay, lofty name flips, boastful darts and hitting punchlines/personals.
Verdict: Cortez (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Cortez – “Your motivation, you can’t mirror me, I’m a miracle!”
Recap: Dishing a gang of fiery combo’s mixed with head-ringing personals, metaphors, set-ups, schemes and similes to increase the toxicity of the punches, in this KOTD Season 1, Week 18 3-rounder, Pass gets by a pretty solid, but oft-predictable rounds 1 and 2 from Cali Smoov to get the win before a round 3 debatable.
Verdict: Pass (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Pass – “You see when a fire blazing, high seas make the sky look strange, it was hot when those bullets drop, even in the summer time it rain, now your season short, it’s dark for Cail, this when the climate change!”
Recap: Well, that was surprising. After using a gang of spicy punchlines/personals to take round 1 and utilizing the same aggressive formula to withstand the passionate personals and nifty storytelling rhymes/schemes from opponent Cali Smoov and force a draw in round 2, an early, out-of-nowhere 3rd round choke by The Saurus allows a cleaner-punching Smoov to spout an assortment of mayhem-rich darts, piercing struggle bars and solid punches to score a 10-8 in the final round and get the win in this KOTD Season 1 matchup.
Verdict: Cali Smoove (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Cali Smoov – “I’m battling The Saurus on King of the Dot, wow I’m in heaven, this would’ve been a big deal for my career…in 2007!”
Recap: Season 1, round 1 KOTD battle between Cali Smoov and Reverse Live goes the latter’s way as after the two split a round 1 and 2 that was littered with aggressive personals, an altogether spicier ‘real talk’ turn by Live in the deciding 3rd gets him the win.
Verdict: Reverse Live (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Reverse Live – “I promise you’ll make the Director’s cut when I put you on these extended clips!”
Recap: All the battle rappers with ‘Smoov’ in their names will have to run into each other eventually. But in the meantime credit to Dre Dennis, Zay Smoove and Cali Smoov coming together in ATL and doing it first here in this 1-rounder from GOTG that the gun bar/mayhem-lit and more consistently hard-hitting Zay wins over an opponent who was much nicer with the personals than the righteous talk.
Verdict: Zay Smoov (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Zay Smoov – “I blast the tools right with a 3:15 on the dot…like after school fights!”
Recap: A plethora of gritty punchlines in this spirited, West-coast Riot Network battle between J. Murda and (“The irony, I’m an activist and got murder on the Riot!”) Cali Smoov. But after a debatable round 1 in addition to the ever-passionate Smoov edging the 2nd round with a punch-heavier turn, a dope rebuttal in the 3rd and final round to go along with some fiery wordplay and more hard-hitting punches from Murda, allows the visiting Brooklyn emcee to edge the round and make this bout a draw.
Verdict: Debatable
Favorite line: J. Murda – “I’m not actually to be played with, like game ads on a porn site!”
Recap: Relying on a gang of rigid name flips, well-lit Christian prophecies and a bunch of blistering personals to the point of even exposing the lies surrounding his opponent’s music career, an aggressive and dogmatic Loso handily beats back the ever passionate and righteous, but topsy-turvy yarns of Cali Smoov.
Verdict: Loso (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Loso – “You got beat up in Hawaii, don’t punch me please, but that’s like getting robbed at Disneyworld or stabbed at Chuck E. Cheese!”
Recap: Vet vs. newbie. Lite-skin vs. Lite-skin. Those themes and a boatload of florescent gun bars/residual mayhem/piercing name flips by NXT along with witty (“We supposed to believe little Blake Griffin gets guns involved?!”) personals, some solid wordplay and boastful punchlines by Cali Smoov add up to a dope battle and draw in this 3-rounder from the Riot Network. Give the perfunctory heat-blasting NXT a clear vic in the 1st before Cali came back with a versatile and sublime 2nd to even things going into the deciding 3rd round which we’ll call a draw due to an equal ratio of haymakers.
Verdict: TIE
Favorite line: NXT – “You said Griz work at the call center, I’m all wit’cha…so he gave me the extensions for ya!”
Recap: Dizaster doesn’t hold back on breaking down Cali Smoov’s entire background in and outside the ring via a boatload of extra hard personals and soul-reaching punchlines. That along with a couple of nice rebuttals by Diz combine to beat back a solid, but nothing over-the-top showing by Smoov in this 1-rounder from AHAT Cali.
Verdict: Dizaster (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Dizaster – “Andre 3000, you the biggest outcast [Outkast] out of anybody out the group, he wanted to ball up with us like Sonic the Hedgehog, but he never got any ring because we kept you out the loop!”
Recap: Consistently dishing his punches to an ill effect and coming nice with a load of Left-coast jargon and fiery name flips, Bedaffi Green’s first appearance on the West coast is a fire one. And tho the always highly strung (and confident) Cali Smoov keeps it close for two rounds with his own spicy punchlines and at times, clever wordplay, one too many so-so bars, gaffes on the personals and spotty sermonizing in the latter two rounds, leaves a far more steady Green with the win.
Verdict: Bedaffi Green (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Bedaffi Green – “I seen that shit versus Emerson, even your man’s was losing hope, I ain’t seen somebody choke on Kennedy that hard since Marilyn Monroe!”
Recap: Yeah ummm, that was interesting. But if JPTheEntertainer (aka Cali Smoov) is really attempting to take on comedy, he should probably do a couple of tune-ups before going against the likes of a battle rapper who uses jokes for like 60% of his rhymes. Feelgood Mexican jokes aside, for Cali there really wasn’t much else there and with his opponent going ham with the Cali impression, fly personals and scintillating ya momma jokes, this one was really no contest.
Verdict: Uno Lavoz (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Uno Lavoz – “Your mom got a face tat on her pussy…her clitoris gotta tear drop and that’s that!”
Recap: Fire 1-round battle between Geechi Gotti and Cali Smoov sees the ever-energetic Smoov switch it up a bit on the braggadocio side with more wit, storytelling bars and some ill (“No jive, after jail I had to talk white like the new Gucci!”) punches/personals that landed hard. However, one too many dry spots by Cali along with Gotti, using an increased dosage of hitting schemes, dope wordplay, flexing personals and wicked (“Boy you a bitch…I’ll beat your granny ass!”) punchlines combine to give Geechi the win in a battle that probably would’ve showed more talent-wise if it went 3 rounds.
Verdict: Geechi Gotti (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Geechi Gotti -“He said he gonna be the same nigga till he dead, you ain’t lie fool, ‘cuz after the shot I seen his soul slide out his body…he even died smooth [Smoov]!”
Recap: Way more condensed with less filler in the 1st during a spitfire round that saw both (“From the bottom to the top of Cali…I guess you should’ve took the 5!”) he and his opponent Cali Smoov bring a load of potent heat, Yung Griz survives a turned-up 2nd from (“I’m a fact-checker, we asked some nigga’s about his rap sheet, he started listing his Smack record!”) Cali to comeback with a barrage of witty personals, fierce performance bars and some sick wordplay to take the deciding 3rd and the win in this Smack/URL PG matchup.
Verdict: Yung Griz (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Yung Griz – “You brought nunchucks to your last battle?!?, did you them nunchucks in this bitch?, fuck a nunchuck, boy I’m off the chain with a stick!”
Recap: Entertaining battle between Cali Smoov and Big T features plenty of jokes, witty personals, startling sound effects and resident gun bars. But tied through two, the moment you saw Big Terrence looking in his phone while Cali rapped in the deciding 3rd, you got a feeling that T was in trouble. And sure, while he dished a pretty solid 3rd, repeating earlier bars in the middle of his turn works against him here considering Cali also spouted a solid 3rd without repeating himself.
Verdict: Cali Smoov (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Cali Smoov – “See? I could dish it to him funny and I would say let that marinate…but the nigga might be hungry!”
Recap: If this 3-round, LABattleGroundz battle was just about jokes, Cali Smoov would’ve had this one easy as those racial angles he took with the quips were often hilarious. Unfortunately for Cali tho, outside of showing off his funny bone there really wasn’t much else he could bring to the table in terms of a robust punch game, leaving opponent Stricc, armed with a shitload of consistently nasty punchlines, some head-ringing wordplay, righteous struggle bars and his own slew of hitting personals, with a working man’s 30.
Verdict: Stricc (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Stricc – “Nothing stands out about you squares, I’m color-blind with a Rubik cube!”
Recap: 3-rounder from LABattleGrounz features a boatload of nice, hometown bars and hitting punches from Cali Smoov. But spotty wordplay here and there and generic bars that often failed to match an eccentric performance ends up dooming the West-coast rapper to a witty, more pointed, potent and consistently punch-heavy overall Marvwon, who takes rounds 1 and 3 for the win.
Verdict: Marvwon (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Marvwon – “My shit is so stone cold, that you should hand me a beer…I will literally shoot you up if I could make Cadi appear!”
Recap: Besides the fact that a performance-heavy (“I’m Debo, or think Craig, now put green in the flip, that was backwards, on Friday my connect hit me with a brick!”) Cali Smoov did a great job of overselling a lot of his more pedestrian bars/schemes throughout this battle and Young X’s ‘Who’s more street?/I’m more realer than you’ themes bordered on overkill, with only X’s penchant for witty punches getting in the way of what was overall a pretty average performance, it’s hard to say that either Smoov or X were on their A-game here. Still, a solid on both parts 1st round makes for a tie while a stronger X clearly took the 2nd, before a more fine-tuned Smoov took the 3rd to officially make this one a debatable.
Verdict: TIE
Favorite line: Young X – “Think Cain cousin Harold nigga…that’s a metaphor for reach and get killed!”
Recap: Confidence is one thing, but name-dropping and laughing at your own jokes are another. Still, for all of Cali Smoov’s pompousness throughout this battle, a pretty lackluster Profecy didn’t do much to abate his opponent’s arrogance. Still, after easily losing the 1st round to a more punch-heavy (“You Profecy [prophecy], you should no a [Noah] nigga split with the staff!”) Smoov and waking up during the middle of the 2nd round to force a tie, the condensed, yet usually wordplay and punchline-centric Profecy fully gets his groove back to take the 3rd and gain a draw over an opponent whose bars weren’t as hot as he’d like you to think.
Verdict: TIE
Favorite line: Profecy – “And y’all gonna thank me after, Krack City done got it backwards, Dizaster don’t know who he facing in Cali…Cali don’t know he facing a disaster!”
Recap: Take out a 2nd round choke and this West-coast PG between Emerson Kennedy and Cali Smoov is straight fire with loads of hot punches, righteous wordplay, fierce personals and stirring mayhem. Round one was close as both (“Nigga’s aiming at light-skin’s, call it shooting the fair one!”) EK and Cali brought plenty of heat, the only difference being Kennedy just happening to go first, allowing (“I never lost a battle and I’m known to clap, get live and I’m inside whaling…Jonah’s back!”) Smoov the opportunity to edge the round with a couple of dope rebuttals to start his round off (tho, as EK would deftly point out next round, Cali did get the ‘nickle in his face like Abraham’ wrong). 2nd round saw the aforementioned choke by Cali, which might’ve been partly due to the crowd, but still nonetheless with EK spitting perhaps his best round, mixing (“Baby, you snitch and giving soundbites, all that jail you bringing, soon as I walk in ‘Shazam!’, that’s not the app, I can tell who singing!”) well with his punches and urban bangers, even if Cali hadn’t choked, that would’ve been a hard round to beat anyway. The deciding 3rd round saw EK stay consistent with a confident flow matched by frenzied setups, workmanlike (“My nigger got Krack covered and he ain’t involved with you dancers, back when [points at Cali] he had the toy, my nigger was really looking at the 8 ball for the answers!”) heaters and stinging personals to win the battle and beat back a very (“The Black panthers by my side like the Puma brand!”) solid, but elongated turn by Cali.
Verdict: Emerson Kennedy (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Emerson Kennedy – “And any boy could make a boy, but it take a man to hold his son, I marched with my mom for gun control, later on learned how to control a gun!”
Recap: An unusually funny Danny Myers attaches a gang of witty barbs/personals to his usual assortment of frenetic street missives to beat back a solid, but less consistent showing from fellow West-coast energy capo Cali Smoov in this 1-rounder from KOTD.
Verdict: Danny Myers (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Danny Myers – “I walk into prison I’m the one they flex they grizzle at, he walk into prison he the one nigga’s whistle at!”
Recap: Thanks in part to Cali Smoov ending what was a pretty (“…that’s why I’m confused, like why do I hear a Mark all throughout John’s verses?!”) solid round early, John John da Don survives a 2nd round choke with some hard personals in the deciding 3rd to edge this one on the road.
Verdict: John John da Don (W) 2-1
Favorite line: John John da Don – “I should leave him alone, ‘cuz he ain’t got no money, but I’d rather give him bucks on sight, like GoFundMe!”
Recap: A lot of loud chatter in the room for this intense battle between Cali Smoov and Young B (RIP). However, even with all the interruptions and side talk, a good battle was produced nonetheless with the braggadocios, name-flip savvy and oft-gritty punches/wordplay of Smoov spazzing enough to easily beat back an inconsistent turn by Young B, before a debatable 2nd that saw a less potent Smoov hit hard with a flexing (“It’s true, my wardrobe do show a nigger rose to the occasion!”) rebuttal that was arguably his best line on the night, altogether enough to match the aggressive and heated (“Get drugged and put that red dot on his head, that’s what the Hen do [Hindu]!”) punchlines of Young B. 3rd round featured another solid turn by Cali, who also showed off his versatile side with some nice freestyles, hitting personals and fire set-ups. However, Young B, hellbent on dishing personals throughout his turn, while witty at times, overall just couldn’t match his opponent’s lyrical potency or versatility.
Verdict: Cali Smoov (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Cali Smoov – “That glock with me, trust, if we beef in my hood, you’ll get a one-on-one with Blood like that scene in The Wood!”
Recap: One of the best Cali Smoov’s you’ll ever see as the West-coast rapper visits Philadelphia to battle Jenezyz Da Hitman and uses an uber-confident, aggressive and consistently fire flow of wicked punchlines, systematic name flips, stinging wordplay and ringing personal to easily beat back his mostly subpar opponent and take this 1-roudner from AHAT.
Verdict: Cali Smoov (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Cali Smoov – “Nigga, test me, it’ll be Pepsi how the can blew [blue], it’s like sign language I don’t talk to these niggers…my hands do!”
Recap: Using infinite wordplay and backing up his mettle with a host of nice 4-bar set-ups and spice-minted, triple entendre’s…against a dry spot heavy Rum Nitty on his B-game, Cali Smoov (“I don’t write battle rap bars, I write poetry”) proves to not only be a competent battle rapper, but a guy you might not to face in a game of Scrabble either.
Verdict: Cali Smoov (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Cali Smoov – “Man, I been in L.A. County, Twin Towers, fighting a pen charge, I was riding alone, been locked in dorms with more Rolling 60s than retirement homes!”
Recap: How Hollow said it vs. Big T?: ‘Cause how you gon’ battle me with a style that I made up?!’ Yeah, in spite of a lackluster 2nd round by QP that helped Cali Smoov edge that round, why Cali (who when his punch & wit game are on point, can compete against almost anyone) thought going into this battle he could get away with a lame Conceited impression and on top of that try to outdo his opponent’s unique, drawn-out, wordplay-heavy style that QP and his SONS crew created is beyond me and probably any other serious battle head who watched this battle. Good thing QP (who despite his immense talent can sometimes seem disinterested in battling) had enough gumption to own his shit, take the 1st and 3rd rounds and get the win here.
Verdict: QP (W) 2-1
Favorite line: QP – “Your performance?, VMA award show, that untimely crisis, ‘cuz your performance is flat but [butt]…you ain’t Miley Cyrus!”
Recap: A spitfire beverage scheme in the 2nd round by Cali Smoov is the highlight of this 3-round AHAT battle. But overall, against the mostly subpar raps of Juice, Smoov really didn’t need much more than the aggressive heaters and the earnest, but daunting punchlines that he rolled up with to make his brief hiatus from battle rap a successful one.
Verdict: Cali Smoov (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Cali Smoov – “All my heaters like shell-toe Adidas…a shell in the front!”
Recap: Out-punching his speed-rapping, but much less potent opponent with a topic du jour of braggadocios shiners, fiery gun bars, some solid wordplay and witty personals, Cali Smoov doesn’t break a sweat while taking all 3 rounds of this Jungle battle versus Sonic Soundwaveous.
Verdict: Cali Smoov (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Cali Smoov – “Go head, talk about your battles and your experience, like you ahead of a nigga, but I could give one fuck…I’m celibate nigger!”
