Continuing consecutive shows featuring Slaughterhouse emcees, the AngryFans Radio Show interviewed Joell Ortiz yesterday to talk about his view on the Battle Rap scene, why he thinks Joe Budden isn't necessarily at a disadvantage against Hollow Da Don, and some of his favorite battle emcees.
Asked directly if he’s considered stepping into the Battle Rap arena, Ortiz said he’d consider the possibility but hinted that it would be a surprise announcement.
“I don’t know, man,” he said. “I’m thinking about it. If I do, I’ll just pop up. I don’t wanna give none of them dudes time to prepare, so I’ll just call’em out...If I do it, I ain’t announcing it months in advance, though. Niggas could write 150 bars, scribble, scrabble. Figure it out. If I call you out, let’s just do it. Let’s both go off the top.”
Addressing the shift away from freestyle battling of yesteryear, Joell hinted at some criticism for rappers that can’t rhyme on call.
“Somebody gotta have something on deck,” he said. “You telling me if the opportunity present itself and somebody that could change your life says, ‘Rhyme.’ You gon’ say, ‘Yo, let me go home. I’ll get right back to you on Tuesday?’”
Speaking on his fellow Slaughterhouse emcee’s planned battle against Hollow Da Don, Joell Ortiz explained feeling like “the event itself means more than everything.”
“I don’t know if it’s doing something for it other than giving it a bigger stage in my opinion,” he said of the possible effects the battle might have on Battle Rap at large. “Not just the battle rappers tuning in now. Now the overall Hip Hopper is trying to see what’s going on. In my opinion now it’s just, alright, who’s gonna be the better emcee? You get what I’m saying? The word ‘battle’ kind of leaves a little bit. It only stays around because it’s a competition between two dudes that are rhyming. It turned into an emcee thing. I’m not saying that battlers have never been emcees. But not it’s shedding light on it. Now someone’s getting in the ring that has kind of shaded more towards making records and being more of an emcee putting out album, doing that sort of work rather than touring the battle circuit. If Joe wins, it means a lot. If Joe loses, it means a lot. The event itself means more than everything.
“The thing that these young kids fail to realize is that the pillars, the pioneers of this culture that they love so much, they still tune in,” he said. “It’s no way in hell KRS-One won’t know what’s going on. He was there. It began with him. If you think he don’t know that Joe is battling Hollow something is wrong with you. If you think Kane ain’t going to be seeing that niggas got bars something is wrong with you...I can’t even express it. I ain’t gon’ be the guy that says, ‘Yo, ya’ll niggas need to do your history’ and shit like that. If you love it, if you love it and everything that comes with it, then wouldn’t you wanna know about it? I’m a Yankees fan. I wanted to see Mickey Mantle’s stats. I didn’t come up with him. I just wanna know who’s the best Yankee. They say Jeter was ill let me see what Gehrig was. I just wanna know what it was.”
Disagreeing with fans and critics who claim that Joe Budden will be at a disadvantage, Ortiz went on to say that “Joe might be able to outwit him on the way he approaches it.”
“There’s a separation thing between dudes who rap and dudes who emcee,” he said. “Emcee dudes, you can throw them in any setting and the party is rocked. That means from the smallest venue in the world with 200 people in an intimate setting and everybody tuned in ‘cause they wanna hear you backpack to the biggest arena...That’s what emcees do. I feel like Joe is an emcee. Now, he’s going up against one of the—[Hollow’s] gotta be Top 3 to everybody on the battle scene right now. This is gonna be epic. I wanna see how someone who sharpens their pen constantly can pick their brain on battles and things that are clever and how to rock crowds which is a form of emceeing—and I’m speaking on Hollow—how that is gonna measure up against somebody who constantly picks themselves and goes at their brain to come up with song concepts and cadences and melodies and flows and choruses. This is gonna be a battle. I see a lot of people they just like, ‘Joe is stepping in Hollow’s ring though.’ I understand, but I don’t think it’s Hollow’s ring. I think it’s an emcee’s ring. It might be Hollow’s stage, but I think that Joe might be able to outwit him on the way he approaches it. There’s too many things you gotta pay attention to in that ring.”
During the interview, Ortiz also listed some of his own favorite battlers.
“Lux and Hollow off the rip you gotta put in there,” he said. “I’m personally a fan of Daylyt. That’s just me, though. I think he hasn’t gotten nowhere near his ceiling. That’s what people fail to realize. He got bars. You gotta read into ’em, but he got bars and I think he’s getting better. Let me see, that’s three. You know who impressed me? T-Rex impressed me. I can’t really say what’s going on. T-Rex impressed me. Ya’ll will see why I threw him in there. I’m just saying, man. For so long, in my opinion, he lived in Mook’s shadow. I feel like during Total Slaughter he gave himself a face. I don’t know, man. I don’t wanna reach. You know who I like, too? That young boy JC.”
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