VS.

Exception to the Rule
written by JusHH

I’m going to put it out there. I don’t like Fight Klub, Smack or any of these other “new aged” battles. Watching three long, drawn out rounds of rappers babbling on for 90 seconds with no apparent focus isn’t my idea of entertaining. The biggest problem is that they took out the fundamental element of a good battle, freestyling. Battles used to be a contest about wit and creativity. Rappers would have to diss people’s clothes, their looks and most of all, used their opponent’s rhymes against them. If you came in with pre-written rhymes, you would get booed off the stage. Today, with everyone having 5 minutes of raps already prepared, they’ll rap to the script regardless of who’s their opponent or what’s going on. So we get a bunch of random threats of violence and how your main chick “will do certain oral things to me” raps. Save for hilarious moments like the “snuff heard round the world” after Nyckz spat “Oh you mad cuz I’m stylin’ on you”, these battles are boring.

Having said all of that, there are a handful battles where this new style actually works. When each rapper knows who they are battling and they take the time to write creative rhymes about him. You get a “live in concert” version of diss records. Now I’m not converting over to the dark side, you can give me my freestyle battles any day of the week but I’ll stop and pay attention if any two emcees can do it as well as Iron Solomon and Math did it.

Peep the best “new” battle ever. Iron Solomon vs. Math (Round 1)