Topic: How to Battle
- Feb 19, 2005 01:06pm by NRG - livin the art that is life !
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from Davey D's
How to Battle
By: Hadji Williams
Let’s face it: The emcee battle format is rotted out. The circle-square is busted and needs to be overhauled. But in order to do that, we need to rewind—take it back to the foundation of emcee battling and ciphers and learn from the architects.
Emcee battling is actually rooted in the old “cutting contests†in which black jazz and blues musicians would gather after-hours and trade licks and riffs. It was part of the culture—it was how the old passed on tricks and often passed the baton to the young lions… It was also a nice way to show the young folks that you still had it. (Folks like Jelly Roll Morton and Scott Joplin and even Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were notorious cutters.) Also old black tap dancers used to gather in ciphers and trade dance steps in juke joints. In each case, the competition was healthy, based on respect, learning and communing with each other. It wasn’t about insults, slurs and making ridiculous threats. It was about growing as an artist and as an artist community.
But somehow, we lost track of all of that. Somehow, we’ve lost track of the artistry and the community. Somehow, we’ve turned battles into “who can ‘out-nigger’ who†contests. We’ve gotta fix this, for real.
Battles can be competitive without being degrading. Emcees can battle without insulting each other. The notion that the only way to prove my mettle is to tear down the next man or woman for 16 bars/30 second clips, etc. is some crabs-in-the-barrel/cockfighting nonsense. Think about it: How many songs did Billie Holiday waste trashing Bessie Smith? Did Duke Ellington waste compositions destroying Count Basie or the Dorsey Brothers? Did Charlie Parker waste songs bashing Miles Davis or Buddy Rich? Do we ask Toby Keith to bash Alan Jackson or Tim McGraw? Do we ask Justin Timberlake to bash Avril Lavrigne? In fact, do we ask up and coming artists in any other genre or community to dedicate energy to insulting and degrading each other? No. So why do accept and expect this from hiphop? Word is life and today’s battles are just dances with death.
So going forward, I recommend that emcee battles take on a new format—one comprised of 4 stages: Dome Shots, Pen vs. Pen, Beat Riding and Crowd Rocking.
In the freestyle stage each contestant would pick a topic out of a hat or be assigned topics by the judges/crowd and then rip it. Dome Shots (a.k.a. Freestyling) isn’t about just coming off the top, but doing so with intelligence, articulation and purpose. By assigning topics and parameters, you bring out the best in artists and prevent them from relying on cursing and easy insults. In “Pen vs. Pen†emcees would spit their best written verses. Again, part of being a truly dope emcee is being able to write and craft lyrics. Next, “Beat Ridingâ€: Emcees would be judged by their ability to ride beats of varying degrees of difficulty. (How many emcees have you heard who had nice lyrics but couldn’t ride a beat with a saddle and a seatbelt?) And finally, “Crowd Rockingâ€. This stage is all about moving the crowd—stage presence, crowd interaction, etc. Anyone can sound hot in the booth, but when you have a mic a stage and a crowd of people challenging you to connect with them… that combined with great lyrics is the mark of a true emcee. If you can’t do move the crowd, then you’re just a rapper— and probably not a very good one.
Now granted, this proposed format would require battles to run longer and be more sophisticated than the trifling “playin’-the-dozens-to-a-beat†I’ve been stuck watching for the last 10 years plus, but so what. We need to step our game up. We need to demand more of each other and start teaching younger emcees that emceeing is about more than clowning somebody’s gear, name-checking or ripping your competition for bring written rhymes into a battle or a cipher.
In the end, battling should be a small but healthy and productive aspect of the culture, one that helps shape and strengthen our lyrical warriors for the real fight—the battle to uplift our culture and humanity at large, the fight to document our communities and heritage, and of course, the struggle to make beautiful music on our own terms. To allow battling to be used for anything else is to be stuck half-steppin’…
And Kane already told y’all how that goes.
Hadji Williams is author of the new book, KNOCK THE HUSTLE: HOW TO SAVE YOUR JOB AND YOUR LIFE FROM CORPORATE AMERICA, hiphop’s first success guide for business, culture and life. Email him: [email protected] and get free excerpts, order info, etc. at: www.knockthehustle.com.
- Feb 21, 2005 12:01am by Reach. - Peace and oneness,
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While topical battles can be interesting I'm not sure they'd be as entertaining.
The Rap genre is hardly comparable to Jazz.
Jazz required more musicianship than does Rap.
In that genre the instrumentation and vocal execution can be picked apart. In Rap, all there is the criterion associated with rhyme.
With Rap the emphasis is placed on the emcee and his abilities.
So making a battle confrontational makes more sense.
It's about being wittier and quicker on the draw than the next man.
I'm not sure that it has to comprise the lowest common denominator dis, but certainly the insults are central to the battle (as we know it).
