No Bias. No Narratives.
Recap: Sticking with a plethora of hardbody punches, braggadocio zingers and greasy personals that while not too over the top, still made their point, St. Louis’ MVP edges the first two rounds of this URL SM4 matchup for the win over a mostly pedestrian, just-happy-to-be-here Truth Watson before gaining the 30 thanks in part to his opponent choking in the 3rd.
Verdict: MVP (W) 3-0
Favorite line: MVP – “You are nothing, just wasted space…like a frat house!”
Recap: With each battler clearly motivated to alleviate their status in the game, both Truth Watson and Teewhy bring A-game material to this spitfire, URL “One Off” battle. South Carolina’s Truth, confident throughout the match, stays competitive with a wide array of stinging schemes, some intense personals, storied personals and especially during an almost flawless 2nd round, a gang of flexing (“His face on a shirt, soon as I unload the toy, I’ll put ‘T’ on a tee, I’m dressing like the old Soulja Boy!”) punchlines. But even with his opponent’s impressive taunts serving as pretty formidable, Teewhy would be undeterred. The Jersey rapper coming through with 3 consistently gritty rounds of mayhem, potent name flips, frenzied performance bars, standout personals on the battle rap genre, spicy set-ups and roundhouse (“Why battle me?, I’ll make you hold this ‘L’ and spin off like an Allen key!”) punchlines to edge both rounds 1 and 3 and gain the vic.
Verdict: Teewhy (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Teewhy – “What’s up with us?, dedicated years to y’all to get left in the fucking dust, trusted y’all vision and y’all out here booking one-eyed niggers…the fuck is up?!”
Recap: Haze Tha Gift and Truth Watson trade some fire punchlines, fiery personals and gritty gun bars during this one-rounder from RBE. However, while Truth was a little more versatile with his, a slightly more condensed, direct, cleaner and wordplay-heavy Haze edges the win.
Verdict: Haze Tha Gift (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Haze Tha Gift – “I’ll let this True bitch talk to the arm, like a smart watch!”
Recap: Damn. A whole 3rd round directed your opponent’s (alleged) girlfriend? Who just happens to be a battle rapper herself and of course, was right there, in the crowd, to witness it all?!? That’s some (“You ain’t never been eye to eye with a real nigga that stare face, with a nigga like me, ready to bang your ass [points out] out on the staircase!”) different shit. And despite a pretty fire 3rd (that also featured a couple of nice rebuttals) from Truth Watson–who was nice throughout the whole battle, especially during a stupendous (“Nah, gun butt, the magazine to ya nose like cologne samples!”) 1st that he clearly edged–Pep’s way too (“Schoolyard felt like a zoo inside, I grew up playing suicide, with off-the-wall nigga’s that later committed suicide!”) prodigious (which included a fire mid-round freestyle) and scheme-heavy 2nd round along with the aforementioned, personal-drenched 3rd, gets the Golden Squad champ the comeback and the win here.
Verdict: Pep (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Pep – “I’ll put the gun to his mother mouth like ‘Where he at? Only the Truth shall set you free!'”
Recap: A couple of school of thoughts here about this fire, one-round battle between Drugz and Truth Watson. Drugz getting emotional (again) and attempting to leave the stage after Truth goes there with a line about his opponent’s uncle recently killing himself. Did Truth go too far? Was Drugz being hypocritical in light of how often uses (this battle included) soul-gripping personals in his raps? Or is talking about those who have passed on (see: Suge, Shotgun) just a line that goes too far? Even in the world of ‘anything goes’ battle rap? I’m of the feeling that while the deceased and kids should be off-limits, battle rap being battle rap, the idea of any kind of censorship in battle rap, no matter how cutthroat, bothers me. And if you can’t handle it, go fly a kite or something. So while one can sympathize with Drugz (and give hin credit for leaving the stage instead of say, swinging on Truth), within the confines of the stage, a battle rapper should be able to say what he or she wants–that, after all, is the essence of battle rap. That being said, with Truth choosing to end the battle on his own, Drugz, with a slightly more versatile, cleaner, punch/personal-heavier and haymaker-raining turn, gets the win here.
Verdict: Drugz (W) 1-0
Favorite line: Drugz – “I’m supposed to believe that you airing a gun, when half the time your hair is in a bun?!”
Recap: Using a variety of gritty gun bars, potent wordplay and fire punchlines, Truth Watson survives a couple of mild slip-ups to beat back an overall solid, but oft-reaching and inconsistent YaBoyClip in this PG match from URL/Smack.
Verdict: Truth Watson (W) 2-1
Favorite line: Truth Watson – “Laundry day, I place something under ya chin, then I’m folding ya shit, then scratch the serial [cereal] off like ‘What else on the grocery list?'”
Recap: Some hard (“Lame fuck, I should chhhkkk, aim bust!, ‘cuz all I got is these….[points hands like gun at Ryda’s head] and you don’t want me to bring my grades up!”) gun bars spit by Truth Watson keeps things competitive, but overall it’s Ryda’s potent versatility, nice (“…when your tombstone reads ‘where the Truth lies’, it’s not a contradiction!”) name flips and aggressive (“Pinocchio lying in martial arts class, I got something with the long nose kicking!”) punchlines that scores him a 3-0.
Verdict: Ryda (W) 3-0
Favorite line: Ryda – “I’ll put that on Grove Street, only time you can kill Ryda [a rider] is in a Graft Theft Auto mission!”
