Other Leagues

Black Ice Returns to Brooklyn While many leagues try to build up hype for their events over the course of weeks or even months prior to the events taking place, I was recently caught off guard to see that Black Ice Cartel dropped the trailer for its upcoming War Season event a mere five days before the event is set to go down. The event will take place on Saturday, July 30, 2016, and will be the second time that the Milwaukee-based Cartel will hold an event in Brooklyn, after its Format 2 event, went down there at the end of last year. As War Season was announced so unexpectedly with little time to build up hype around the matches, I assumed the card wouldn’t have many (if any matches) worth looking out for, but it seems that the suddenness was likely in part due to the fact that there ...

Team Homi vs. Writers Bloque - Over the last few years, there has been a major shift to where the vast majority of battles are no longer judged, so when RBE recently announced that its upcoming event, Starting 5 (going down Saturday, February 27, 2016), will feature five matches which will all be judged, it seems like that should be enough to already catch the attention of fans. In addition to the matches being judged though, all of the battles at Starting 5 will be made up of battlers from two groups: Team Homi and Writers Bloque. Personally, I think this looks like a very interesting idea as it elevates the competitive aspect of the battles as the battlers are not only putting their own reputation on the line, but also that of their crew. For the most part, I actually do think that it’s a good thing that most ...

RBE Validation Vol. 1 - Until recently, I wasn’t really familiar with either J Murda or Mr. Mills, but lately, I’ve started to see their names come up in a lot of people’s lists for top up-and-coming battlers. With all the hype that has been building around these two, when Rare Breed Ent. (RBE) dropped a battle with Mr. Mills facing off against J Murda, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to see what they have to offer to the battle scene and why they’re starting to be ranked so highly. While it can often be disappointing to watch a matchup between two battlers that you don’t know much about and have never seen before, this battle was definitely worth the watch. The battlers’ strengths J Murda and Mr. Mills have very different styles, but one commonality I picked out between the two of them is that they seem to ...

Black Ice Comes to NY: The Format 2 - On this Sunday, December 10, 2015, one of the best up-and-coming battle leagues, Black Ice Cartel (based in  Milwaukee), will host The Format 2 event, the league’s first event in New York. This event has some great potential for some classic small room battles, with the headlining matchup of the night featuring Charlie Clips and Danny Myers. In a promotional video for their matchup (SEEN HERE) Charlie stated that this will likely be one of only two matches that he will take throughout the course of 2016, which seems a bit unlikely given how much he overbooked himself with big matchups back to back to back in 2015, but then again, perhaps it’s because of this overbooking that Charlie needs to take a break for a while and focus on some other things besides battling. Assuming that what he says is ...

The Crown 2: 2015’s Biggest Midwest Battle Event Despite the fact that the Midwest has produced a number of top tier battle rappers over the years, the battle scene in the Midwest is often overshadowed by the more prominent presence of battle events that take place on the east and west coasts. Still, while the coasts have hold some memorable battles and host some entertaining events over the year, there have been a large number of events, albeit on a much larger scale, that have continued to go down in the Midwest. Now, this weekend, on November 21, 2015, Go-Rilla Warfare will host The Crown 2 event, which will not only be the biggest Midwest event of the year, but it will also be packed with some of the promising matches of the year, regardless of location. It’s showtime for Tsu Surf Aye Verb is looked at by many battle ...

Shredder vs. Raphael - For anyone who hasn’t heard, Dizaster recently hosted a Halloween themed battle event titled “Virus” where all of the participants wore costumes and took on alter egos for the battles. While the initial feedback from most of the people involved has been mostly positive, after the event, there has been a bit of controversy which has brought into question how much (if any) of the footage would be made available to the public. The first incident involved Daylyt and Cadalack Ron (you can hear Ron’s side of the story in his Angry Fan Radio INTERVIEW HERE), while the second issue stems from questions regarding how FilmOn was associated with the event and who knew about the company’s involvement. Although some of the controversy has not been fully resolved, thankfully, it looks like (at least some of) the battles will be released, as the first battle of ...

Showdown Between Friends at BOTZ - When two friends decide to battle one another, things can sometimes get way out of hand when one or both of them try to get the upper hand in the battle by utilizing some very personal information that they have acquired about their opponent through their friendship. However, in some cases, a battle between two friends can also lead to some good laughs and great entertainment if the battlers choose to focus less on attacking their friend on a personal level and instead opt to tease, poke fun at, and roast one another. A perfect example of this is the battle that went down between Caustic and Marvwon at the Battle of the Zae (BOTZ) 4 event hosted by Dirtbag Dan. As Marvwon and Caustic state during the battle, the idea for them to battle one another actually came up at the KOTD Back ...

The Return of Gjonaj - Prior to his PG battle in the URL, not many people were familiar with Gjonaj, but after his aggressive and amazingly lyrical performance against the Texan Gutta (BATTLE HERE), Gjonaj started to create a buzz for himself. Unfortunately, while many fans and fellow battlers were quite impressed with Gjonaj’s ability, URL went on to wait about eight more months after the battle took place before releasing it to the public in March of this year, which meant much of the buzz had died down prior to its release. Since the battle dropped though, Gjonaj has managed to gain more adoration and hype, but has remained inactive in the battle scene. As he has since explained, he had difficulty coming to an agreement to agree to any new battles, at least in part, due to an exclusivity contract he had with the URL. All of that ...