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Rap Battles vs UK Hip Hop: Worlds Apart?
Thursday 7th March 2013 | Louise
Rap battling has been around since the inception of hip hop and was even considered an intrinsic force in the genre. Every hip hop legend you know and love today has at one point laid down a battle against another rival. Back in the day battling was purely a freestyle game where two rappers spat insults against one another straight from the top of the dome, with the aim to make their opponent look bad. Battling was another way of artists showing off their free skills, a testament to how good they were at rapping and how much control they had over the crowd.
However 21st Century battling has changed a lot since the days of rappers styling over each other on the side of the street, the scene has evolved in such a way that it’s completely changed the way battles used to be structured. Nowadays battling has a stronger emphasis on pre-written verses instead of freestyling, the events are staged and meticulously planned weeks in advance with an importance on promotions via social networking thus providing the rappers weeks ahead of them to plan their bars. It’s clear to see that rap battles are more of a business venture than a random cypher these days; however some hip hop heads are feeling that this boom in the market for lyrical insults is damaging the neatly formed underground hip hop scene.
Old school style of battling: Biggie Freestyling
This could be partly down to the large market that battles are reaching right now, more and more people are watching battling and possibly believing that this is the new style of hip hop. Many would argue that battling is a less acceptable form of hip hop, partly due to the fact that the rappers aren’t spitting on a beat and that less and less are choosing to freestyle throughout. The UK’s biggest battle league Don’t Flop currently has 32,000 individual likes on Facebook and pushing 30,000 followers on Twitter, this amount of publicity allows rappers involved in the league to get more and more fame than ever before. But is this just another way of shameless self-promotion or a platform for artists to vent their frustrations on another person?
Some would agree that battling is less about the skill of the artists these days and more about the amount of personal information you can dig up on your opponent. In a battle recently dropped by Don’t Flop featuring American battler Caustic against UK based Jefferson Price Caustic revealed the names of the women Price had allegedly had relations with whilst remaining with his current partner. This particularly tense clash highlighted just how much emphasis there is now on crowd performance and ‘getting one over on your opponent’ instead of showcasing the rappers particular finesse and talent for wordplay.
Caustic vs. Jefferson Price - Don't Flop Entertainment
Understandably this is something that irks hip hop heads, particularly seeing as battlers are gaining popularity whilst perhaps not demonstrating the same level of skill shown in other UK artists’ work. However there are still some undoubtedly talented battlers dotted throughout the various leagues in the UK and abroad. Tony D is a good example of a highly talented wordsmith that currently holds the title of Don’t Flop champion, alongside Verb T a veteran rapper who also occasionally participates in battles.
Seeing how much battling has changed in the past 30 years does help to highlight just how different the UK scene is compared to the battle scene at the moment, admittedly both have their place in industry but perhaps one is taken more seriously than the other. Which this is, its up to you to decide.
