MC Battle Blog

Man, despite several no-shows and a couple of weak performances, I really had a great time at this event. All of the main event battles delivered really hard on both sides and I saw some of these guy’s best performances yet. The atmosphere was really fun and like always, the crowd was really cool down here at GTNW. They usually are really open to laughing at lots of shit, but they don’t overdo it like the KOTD crowd, making for a fairly even mix of cheers.

Continue reading to check the full breakdown.

Warning: The following post contains spoilers of the event, but are blacked out until they are hovered over. You can safely read the results of the event, but if you hover over the blacked out parts you WILL receive the results of the battles.

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(“My suggestion of “Bruvs Getting Slaughtered” was somehow rejected.”)

I won’t lie and say I know who a lot of these guys are because I don’t, but man, Illmaculate Vs. Eurgh is an excellent matchup. After the UK bruvs lost against Zeale & Phranchyze back in 2007 at the NY WRC finals, the chances of them facing off against either Illmaculate or TheSaurus seemed very unlikely. Fortunately, around 3 years later, Eurgh put together the Don’t Flop league which is making these fantasy matchups possible. With Arkaic still slated to battle TheSaurus and now Illmaculate going against Eurgh, the UK scene is contributing loads to the battle community as a whole. Major props to the bruvs across the pond for this.

Eurgh’s performance against Evil was incredibly impressive and definitely hints at the damage he might do to Illmaculate. Illmaculate, fresh off his victory over TheSaurus himself is always a threat and this match will prove to be very competitive.

NoCanDo Vs. Oshea is also going to be amazing, but I personally place NoCan somewhere along the lines of -350/-400 and if the battle were in America it’d be even higher.

I have no clue who Verb T is, but Cruger is probably my favorite of the bruv battle team so I’ll definitely be watching that. Again, props to Eurgh for getting together another slick event and setting up really awesome matches with blokes and yanks.

The first music video from the long awaited album Liar & A Thief from legendary battler Diabolic. The album drops on Viper Records on April 6th so be sure to cop it as it’s going to be absolutely insane.

Yessss… finally. Everybody Knows is the shit and Blacksmith is constantly improving. This was a really entertaining battle. I really wish it would’ve happened on in the crowd and not on stage, but shit happens. A few minor slip-ups from both people, but still a really fun watch and great performances overall from both. I think it would’ve wound up being a closer match if Blacksmith projected his voice better with a stronger delivery. Blacksmith has a lot of really unique concepts in his lines and they’re written really well, something I’d also say in a description about E.K. This was a really great matchup and it definitely delivered.

Look out for new footage of E.K. in his recent GTNW performances which will drop soon, including a 1-on-1 promo against 9DM and two 2-on-2 battles with myself against Vokab & Mic Phenom and Reverse Live & Mic Phenom. Unfortunately his footage against Pariah from the Bridge City Battle 4 was recorded with distorted audio and isn’t salvageable. I am really, really bummed about this because E.K. undoubtedly had his best performance ever, didn’t slip up once, and improved his delivery and emotion in his style by about 10 notches. He freestyled his OT (something he planned, not a slipup, by planned I don’t mean it was all premed) and it came off very well. Pariah also did very well and put on his usual solid performance.

If anyone who was at the event recorded the footage on their personal cameras or cell phones or anything, please contact myself, Illmac or Avocado immediately.

You know the deal. Another sweet little freestyle video of these guys killing it while driving around in Cali.

Major props and thanks to MC Battle Blog field correspondent R.J. for this awesome and extensive breakdown of the recent KOTD Volume 14 event which featured the likes of Hollohan Vs. TheSaurus in a title match, as well as the 2nd round of the KOTD Grand Prix. If you haven’t already done so, make sure to go back and read R.J.s article on played battle concepts and how to execute them better as it’s a great read.

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Alright, first off, the bad news: Chase Moore, who  I was scheduled to battle at the Bridge City Battle 4 event tomorrow in Portland, is almost certainly not showing. He got caught up with some personal issues and had to remain in Sacramento to handle his business and thus could not make the event. It sucks for sure as I was really looking forward to my second attempt at not choking horrendously in a Grind Time battle, but what can you do?

Well, the answer to that question is to prank Reverse Live and leave a ridiculous message on Chase’s voice mail for fun.

Reverse Live Prank:

Explanation: So once I realized that I wasn’t going to get my battle with Chase, I wanted to put together something else, perhaps a 2 on 2 between myself, E.K., Pariah and Evil. Instead of simply asking him that, I somehow decided it’d be funnier to play a joke on him and see how he’d respond. I decided that I’d pretend I forgot all of my lyrics again and try and convince him to help me lie about it and cover it up. Hilarity ensues. I had a difficult time not laughing out loud on a few instances in here, but thankfully didn’t drop the ball.

Chase Moore Voice Mail:

Explanation: So I wasn’t totally satisfied with my successful game with Evil and I decided to fuck with Chase a little bit. I decided I’d talk shit and tell him I heard he’s ducking me cause he heard some of my phenomenal bars and that I wouldn’t battle him at a later date due to bitchassness. And then I recited a ridiculously terrible verse that I wrote in like 8 minutes prior to the phone call.

Well shit, this is absolutely awesome. NoCanDo is on NBC explaining how he began rapping, his battle career, winning Scribble Jam, and his excellent music video Two Track Mind which was directed and edited by our buddy Kyle Gray. NoCanDo is on the verge of blowing up and he definitely deserves it. If you’d like to support someone who’s provided you with years of excellent entertainment then go ahead and check out Jimmy The Lock and see what NoCanDo is all about.

Earlier last year Fresco was kind enough to field questions from the members in our battle forum. And like the trooper that he is, he came through and answered them with that special kind of Fresco pizazz that we’ve all come to know and love.

You can find Fresco on Twitter and be sure to check out the official Fresco MySpace page in order to get your daily Fresco fix. And be on the lookout for The So Clean Mixtape which is dropping March 19th.

Q: If you find that you’re a lot better at freestyling than your friends, how do you improve? Just keep doing it by yourself?

A: I’ve always been an adaptive learner.  They say that babies have an abundance of active mirror neurons, and that’s how they learn to speak at a young age.  I feel like my mirror neurons never turned off.  If i spend a certain amount of time with someone, I will unconsciously master whatever they are good at just by watching or listening.  It could be cards, videogames, computer programming, speaking another language, or in this case freestyling.  I tend to out-do anyone I spend time with.  So I’ve always been a little ahead of the curve on freestyling as compared to those in my area.  I don’t really practice anymore, but when I was really trying to get good I would do a bunch of different games I made up.  I would watch videos of great freestylers like Juice or NoCanDo, and pause the video at random intervals and try to predict their next line and then freestyle off of it for awhile.  When I fell off I’d hit play again until I had something decent.  Also I’d record all of these sessions and listen back to what I could’ve said or done better.  That was one of a bunch of games I had, but I think the best thing that happened was I would just freestyle so much that my brain was on constant freestyle mode.  I’d walk around life just rhyming words to the point where it got annoying to me, but it helped.

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It’s a freestyle video where people are actually freestyling. It’s great to see Okwerdz putting these out so often and if you like ‘em, subscribe to Okwerdz YouTube channel and get them as soon as they drop. Okwerdz has long been one of my favorite freestylers ever and Dizaster is also incredibly entertaining off the top. He puts lots of style into his delivery which is something not enough people do.