MC Battle Blog

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.

KOTD Volume 14 – Grand Prix Summary:

Let me start with a quick word of advice – a seven hour battle event is not a good hangover cure (Sykull: Yeah, so I hear). You probably knew this already, but I wanted to make it clear anyways. Even being armed with this knowledge ahead of time wouldn’t have stopped me though. I woke up Saturday afternoon and dragged my beaten up ass into the shower, out the door, to my local shawarma spot and finally to the Spadina streetcar. The Saurus was in town. Sacrifices needed to be made.

King of the Dot Volume 14 took place last night at Club XS in downtown Toronto, and it easily lived up to its billing as the largest KOTD event yet. Mr. Two Time Everything has made a trip to the great white north to take on Hollohan in by far the biggest challenge the Darkside rep has had in his battle career. Soul Khan, fresh off of bodybagging that super villain from Blade, came to try and perform a similar decapitation on the always-fedora-rocking Aspire. And the quarterfinal matchups of the inaugural Grand Prix would decide which four MCs moved one step closer to $2500 and a shot at the KOTD Title.

I rolled to the event with a buddy of mine who doesn’t really follow battle rap at all. He knew who The Saurus was, but that was the extent of his knowledge. But the dude came, watched every single battle and was buggin’ out just as much as people experienced with the scene. I think that speaks to the KOTD staff and the way they organize and run their events. You don’t need to be a battle head to have a good time, shit’s an enjoyable experience on its own. The event was major and the staff deserve credit for that.

So lets get to the fucking battles. A warning for spoiler conscious people – I’m gonna mention some of the highlight lines that stuck out to me and other specific things about the battles, and I’m gonna talk directly about the poRICH/Young Stitch vs. Nat Select/McNight battle, so you’ll find out the winners of those two if you read on. The analysis is detailed, so I’m saying it now – don’t bitch if you find out something you didn’t want to (Sykull: The quotes R.J. uses are, as always, to the best of his memory and not entirely accurate. So we apologize if they’re not 100% literal and make TheSaurus whine like a girl as a result). Alright then …

Diaz Vs. Speakeasy

The first battle of the event and it was a perfect one to kick off with. I was highly surprised by both dudes in this one. I’ve been watching Speak for a long time and I was mad impressed with his presence and delivery in this one. He was right on point from the beginning. He had a great segment referencing Bruce Willis movies in his second. And he got the first Georgian luger reference of the night in – I told him after the battle he was lucky to be in the first battle before that shit got played out. Which it did, to the tune of three more references. Competed with Sidney Crosby for the most obvious reference everyone and their MCing mother thought up before the event. Diaz had some more original shit in this one than previous battles, including one of the better coat hanger abortion lines I’ve ever heard. His delivery was flawless. Real solid battle, don’t sleep on this one.

Chris Tipsy Vs. Dose

Both dudes came real polished. Dose especially, you could tell he was really well prepared. I thought Tipsy was just styling on him the whole time. He’s a big, animated dude, he sells his lines really well and has a whole performance character he pulls off well. Dose got the first big reaction from me of the night with a “I get your girls pussy wetter than a verse from Syco” bar that had me dying.

Aftershock Vs. Junk

First thing that needs to be said, and I’m sorry to do it, but Perspectivez … step your life game up. You only had one thing to do all night buddy. The internet is gunna have a fun fucking time with this one when it comes out, I’ll leave it at that. I was disappointed by this battle to be honest. I loved the footage of Aftershock I saw in his debut so my expectations were high. His second round completely lived up to them, real focused, real good wordplay, flow and delivery on point. But his first and third rounds just weren’t on the same level. Junk was consistent throughout the whole battle. Clean and polished, and he had some better shit than in his previous efforts. But I still don’t remember a single bar he said. I was surprised at the decision on this, and I think a lot of others were too. But I can honestly say it was the only decision of the entire night that I would question.

Bender Vs. Skelly

Best battle of the undercard, blew my expectations away. Both MCs had minor slip ups but the overall quality of their shit made up for it easily. Skelly was on fire in his first, real heated. He had a bar comparing Toronto and Ottawa MCs that brought out the hometown bias in all of us. Bender had some corny antics in the intro and with a couple props, but when he was focused on spitting, he was lethal. He had the scheme of the night for me, something like “you still eat her vagina/Even though that shit smells like the corner of Queen and Spadina” and flipped a Belly punchline real well. I don’t think I’ll be on my own with this suggestion for the next event – Bender vs. Aftershock. Logical step for both dudes and the style matchup would be perfect. Make it happen.

Loe Pesci Vs. Mischief

People might be disappointed to hear that there were no Penguin tactics from Loe this time around. Just pure, raw, get in that ass bars. He took this battle far more seriously than the Syco one, and in my opinion had one of his better performances to date. He had a fucking GREAT Souls of Mischief/’93 ’til Infinity line that just flew over these youngsters heads, literally no reaction. Come on fellow white people, step your history game up. He had a whole segment about FGM in Africa that was intelligent, uncomfortable and lyrically ill. And some goddamn raw personals referencing the case Mischief caught for stabbing a dude … Hacksaw Jim Duggan’d his ass. One of the top performances of the night. Mischief did his damn thing too though. They did a minute and a half rounds and I felt he was losing steam as he went on, but early in the battle he was locked in. My perspective might have been altered because I was standing next to his crew during the battle; the forced reactions made the forced lines even more cringeworthy for me. But I want to give the kid props, no one thought he was even going to put up a fight and he was SWINGING, especially in the first. Easily the best Grand Prix battle, and all four of them were dope.

Arcane Vs. knamelis

I’ve seen other people saying they really enjoyed this battle so it might just have been my perspective on it, but I was a little disappointed. Thought it was clearly the weakest GP battle. One of these dudes is a top 5 cat to me on a personal preference tip, and he didn’t bring the kind of performance I was hoping for. Arcane was real consistent. I’ll give him props for the most topical reference of the night with a John Mayer/won’t date a black girl bar. knamelis had some genius angles, came at Arcane for writing back in the day when everyone else was freestyling with a nice scheme I can’t quite remember. Had an awkwardly ironic line about an old Proud 2B battle these two had like 5 years ago, which is a vague thing to say but you’ll understand when you see it. These dudes seemed like they get along pretty well too, lots of joking around before and after the battle. Don’t get me wrong, it was still entertaining and a good battle, but my expectations were high, and it didn’t live up to me.

Charron Vs. OZ

So I got to the venue pretty early, around 2 PM. This battle happened around 6:30 or so. I don’t think I saw Charron standing still for a single second during those four and a half hours. The amount of focus this kid had at the venue was mind boggling to me. Glass of water in one hand, walking in circles, just zoned right in the whole time. My buddy didn’t believe me when I told him the kid was a battler. This battle was right after a smoke break so we were nice and lit too … and holy shit did it come through. One of Triple C’s boys was REAL excited before this battle started … “EAT HIM CHARRON! EAT HIM! EAT HIM CHARRON!” … Organik had to G check him when the cameras started rolling. He had a flip at the start of the second that brought the venue down. Did a whole verse about how OZ’s homo bars he drops when freestyling are an example of Freudian psychology that was stupid good. And his last round of the battle featured some free’ing of his own that was smart and extremely well executed I believe. To his credit, OZ surprised the shit out of me. His second round had me laughing more than any other MC that night. Dude just seems legitimately hilarious even if his technical rap skill is pretty nonexistent, and having that kind of personality is more important anything else sometimes. The crowd was really behind both of these guys. Outside of Saurus and Hollo, this was the closest battle of the night I thought.

poRICH Vs. McNight

This battle was brought to you by the mickey of Wisers I’m guessing Rich was hiding in his jacket pocket. He had some angry, whiskey style drunk rage going on here. This joint was fucking HEATED. Before the battle there was a lot of shit talk exchanged between these two guys. McNight was up there completely alone and Rich had his usual Whitby contingent behind him, Organik even had to ask part of his crew to get out of the pit so it wasn’t too unfair. That energy carried right into the battle when Rich spit his entire first round about 2 inches from McNight’s face … “who’s a faggot now, bitch?” … and to give the kid from out west credit he came right back at him. Lots of decent alcoholism bars from McNight, especially a “the only thing he’s ever dug deep in is his liver” line that gave me the urgh-face. Rich wasn’t just getting close, he he grabbing McNight’s shoulder, gave him a couple pushes and one well placed Bartone kick. I have a ton of respect for McNight staying focused and performing well in spite of all that shit. There was even more shit talk exchanged between the new semi-finalists after this one was done. The winner was yelling up to the balcony from the pit, just going in. Great battle.

Soul Khan Vs. Aspire

Soul Khan is a real cool dude, I chopped it up with him for a couple minutes but even in the ring he was mad personable, talking to fans and saying what up to everyone. FeelGOOD was standing on the balcony and gave him a nice “Mazel tov!” before the shit got started. Nice to see that Jewish unity. These two guys were going at each other for like 10 minutes before the battle started too. I overheard some of the conversation and Aspire seemed mad confident … “what’s the matter, I thought you were gunna vaporize me bro?” … he must not have known what he was in for. Khan. Went. In. No other way to put it. I wasn’t sure if he would have as much focus and preparation for this joint as the Deacon Frost battle, but I was definitely wrong. He was ready to go … “motherfucker I’m the rapper you aspire to be” … easily the best performance of the night for me. And that’s not to take anything away from Aspire because he had some fire. Had a Buddy Holly comparison that was sick, some really, really racist Jewish bars that just warmed my heart, and clearly had the conviction and belief in his material that makes for a good performance. He had a gimmick he tried in his third round that I thought was terrible, but it went over pretty well. Best battle of the night for me, no question.

The Saurus Vs. Hollohan

Right after Khan and Aspire finished the lights went down and a preview for this battle went up that was real sick … the KOTD graphics and editing is on another level right now (yet again the genius work of Avocado), they produce their content in really high quality. This battle was insanely close. Almost impossible to pick a winner for me. I thought the judges made the right decision, my buddy thought it was bullshit. Saurus had some ridiculous schemes … “I’ll be the first dude to body him worse than Kid Twist did” … “the nerdy kid should’ve won admit it/I don’t give a fuck if you can rap 200 words per minute” … “I’m like a combination of Brodeur and Luongo” … beast mode. Hollo tried to integrate a few rebuttals that I thought threw off his verses a little but my god did he have some ridiculous angles. Came at the double time Saurus spit at Storm saying that Saurus is inspired by him, had a fucking great pattern about The Elements League and how Grind Time imitated it’s format, a bunch of shit about Saurus falling off including a third round closer that was retarded. And just to add to the dramatics, before the battle Hollohan said he was putting up his title no matter what. I can’t wait for this footage. Definitely going to cause a buzz.

Just to say it one more time, this was the best KOTD event to date. Bartenders = dayum, beer = affordable, crowd = solid, battles = insane. Much respect to the staff and the MCs for putting on a hell of a show, and hopefully the movement only continues to build from here.

Again, special thanks to R.J. for the trip report. Kid Twist also posted a summary of the event on his blog which can be read here.