Yonkers, NY rapper John John Da Don recently spoke with BattleRapNews.com about his upcoming battle with returning veteran Reed Dollaz at URL’s NOME 4 on June 7. In the interview, John John establishes why he thinks his experience on the big stage is more important than Reed’s legacy as a street battler.
“He thinks he ready just because he’s Reed Dollaz. No my nigga. You got millions of views but it wasn’t millions of people in front of you as you was doing it, it was the camera.”
Philadelphia’s Reed Dollaz was one of the first street battling stars and his head-to-head with Trigga is considered by many as a hood classic. Footage from the battle even made an appearance in the background of Eminem’s “Rap God” music video in November 2013.
In the interview, John John explains that modern battling is a different beast than back in the day.
“I watched him then, he’s watching me now. Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve watched battles … You can’t learn from just watching. That’s like an NBA fan growing up thinking they can just go in there and drop 50.”
John John also predicts the crowd will show Reed love, but that it will only last for so long.
“When he gets called to the stage he’s going to feel the love," he said. "The people that do know Reed are going to be happy to see him. I give him that. He’s gonna have some people in there. He’s going to feel the love but he’s not gonna feel the real impact until he says something that doesn’t go over well with the crowd. It’s not when his name gets called to the stage, it’s when he says something that he thought is crazy that the crowd is not gonna fuck with. Because that’s what fucks people up 90% of the time.”
John John also addressed the added pressure battle rappers have over industry rappers when they hit the stage.
“Once they say your name and you hit that stage and you see all them people and them lights it’s like you got this one chance to not fuck up," John John explains. "It’s not like a major artist performing at a concert [doing] the one song they been performing for years that everybody already knows. They singing along with you so it doesn’t matter what kind of performance you put on. But when you battling, they don’t know what you got but they’re waiting for it. And you got this one time to do it. It’s a lot of fucking pressure.”
Watch the full interview here:
Photo credit: @Lemme_Kno
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