Last weekend San Jose became the mecca of West Coast battle rap as fans and battlers congregated for Dirtbag Dan's annual "Battle Of The Zae" event. BattleRap.com caught up with San Jose veteran Joe Cutter over the phone to get the details of what went down.
BattleRap.com: Give me a sense of what it was like at the event.
Joe Cutter: The event was at a place that was formerly, basically our CBGB. Or like San Jose’s Project Blowed, if you will. It used to be the only place where underground hip hop was happening in San Jose. It’s a small atmosphere. The name is Club Beso but it’s been through at least six different owners in the past few years.
How big was the audience?
I’ll say there about 100 people or so. The first battle there were only a few people there but as it went on this little place got pretty packed. There were people from all over the place. Diz showed up. It kind of embedded this cool sense of nostalgia in the place. People were really stoked to see him because of all the TMZ stuff that's happening right now. It was just a really cool time for him to show face. Like, Dizaster’s not this big-headed dude who’s on TMZ. He was rubbing elbows with all of us common little peasants.
Rubbing elbows? Not throwing them?
[Laughs] Nah no throwing elbows. No one got punched. I was filming people and there was a point where he was like ‘You gotta let me know when you’re filming so I can throw up the W.’ And he kinda light-weight, like in an endearing way, kinda scolded me like: ‘You gotta let me know, Joe. You gotta let me know.’ And I started filming without letting him know and there’s this footage I have of him hiding behind some chick and totally being hella playful with me. Dizaster basically played cat-and-mouse with me. It was fucking hilarious.
Caustic, The Saurus, Reverse Live, Smokey Martinez and Dizaster.
Let’s get into your battle with No Shame. What is the proper nomenclature for No Shame? She’s a transgender battle rapper?
There are different levels to transgender. Post-op, pre-op. From what I gather, No Shame is in transition. A male transitioning into a female. She takes hormones so there’s obviously some sort of goal she’s moving towards. Couldn’t have been a cooler fucking opponent. Really just cool-ass, down-to-earth, potty-mouth enough to hang with any of us. Smoked me right under the table too doing dabs. Quite a dab enthusiast.
How did that battle come together?
I’d heard her interview on the Dirtbag Dan Show. I was one of two names that Dan mentioned he would throw at No Shame. Then a couple of months fall off the calendar and I got a call from Dan and I just had a feeling he was gonna throw me at her.
Wasn’t there a Kickstarter to get her out there?
Yeah there was a Kickstarter. She was able to pull that together because she obviously has a good support system from the gay and lesbian community.
Tell me about the battle.
The battle was amazing. There was a clear sense of my home field advantage. I had a slew of one-liners that was just crowd reaction after crowd reaction.
Such as?
“You give me lip with whorish ways, I’ll make you lick The Saurus face” was one. And “Kurt Russell ain’t about to escape this shit, ‘cause he’s looking like Snake Pliskin.” I totally did obvious angles but I weaved in and out of endearing poking fun. I even proclaimed that I have gay people in my family and mentioned that I battled Carter Deems so obviously I’m gay-friendly.
But she was received pretty well. There wasn’t any kind of weirdness. Some of the performances I've seen from her there was a crazy amount of talking in the crowd because they just couldn’t get over the fact that there was a tranny there. The San Jose crowd was pretty receptive to her.
She did the gun bar thing like we expected her to. She had a couple of little self-deprecating angles where she was like ‘Yeah I’m a tranny and you just got served by a tranny. Now you gotta deal with that shit.”
When the battle ended, I basically jumped in her lap. You know when your girlfriend meets you at the airport and she comes up and she does the wrap-the-legs-around-you type thing? I did that. So arms around her neck and legs around her. Someone told me I copped a feel too. Like I think I felt one of his tits.
Your career has taken an interesting turn in the last year or so. You’ve battled Tiger Ty, Carter Deems, now No Shame. Basically everyone as out there as yourself.
Yeah I’ve become the gatekeeper of the weirdos. They have to get through me first. With this battle with Cadalack Ron in October it just kind of keeps the ball rolling. I might be battling the boss of the weirdos now.
How Dirtbag Dan did against Tiger Ty.
Dirtbag Dan did really good. It was like a revamped, updated version of their first match. But unbeknownst to me it was one round. I can’t really remember what was said but Tiger did his usual shit. Dirt was funny and did his usual thing. It was the sideshow that we always expect Tiger Ty to be. Everyone just hanging at his every word.
What was he wearing?
[Laughs] Ah you saw the pictures. I don’t know what he was wearing but his shirt was tucked in and he had an Oscar the Grouch belt buckle.
Tiger Ty holding a tiger tie.
You’ve been around the scene for a long time with Tiger Ty. What can you tell me about him as a person? Who is for people who don’t really understand the mystique around him.
He obviously has a couple health ailments. From my understanding he had a stroke and then he had brain surgery. You can Google all this shit. In real life he’s just a cool-ass fuckin’ dude. If you judge him off just his battles and think that’s who he is you’re gravely mistaken. He’s a normal fuckin’ dude. Yeah he’s kinda odd but he can sit there and carry a normal conversation with you. He’s just a humble, encouraging dude. He’ll make it a point to validate you if he likes something that he heard in a battle. He definitely retains shit. You wouldn’t think so, but he’s kinda fuckin’ normal, dude. He’s not a retard, that’s for sure.
He's one of my biggest influences. I tell him that every time I see him… He’s a social butterfly and an active fuckin’ guy. Tiger Ty is a sweetheart.
Joe Cutter and Tiger Ty.
Let’s get into the Madflex vs. Emerson Kennedy battle.
Dope battle. Cleanest performance I’ve seen from Madflex. He kind of 3-0’ed him in my opinion. Emerson’s first round was the only one I saw as debatable and then he kind of put his dick in a noose in his third round. He was bringing up Ferguson and was bringing up this self-righteous shit that wasn’t directed to Madflex at all. It was a cool round and he was talking about points his mom made raising him and about racism. His point was that we're all the same color. It was a risky move and I think he solidified Madflex’s win with it.
What about Pariah vs. Lex D?
It was good. Everyone in the room was saying Lex D 3-0. Lex has some really funny shit. He said when Pariah goes to the barber shop he asks for the ‘cancer cut.’ If you watch Lex’s last two battles you see him where he’s just being the Lex we know. There wasn’t too much progression. And in this battle against Pariah there is clear progression. Pariah held his own. I was sitting there waiting to be mentioned because Pariah has yet to respond to me dissing him in battles but once again we’re letting bygones be bygones. I squashed my beef with Pariah over the weekend.
I didn’t realize you guys had beef.
Yeah it’s an ongoing thing. I’ve booked this guy battles before and single-handedly gotten us sponsorship. We had a bit of a drug history there so the lines got blurred a little bit. Pariah’s cool in my book now.
Pariah, Lex D and Krazy K.
Also on the card was Reverse Live. He battled Luck Loosh?
Luck Loosh kinda used to be Dirtbag Dan’s right-hand man. He went to Philippines with Dirt. He’s most known for that. He’s a bouncer at a local spot here so everyone knows Luck in San Jose. Everyone seemed to think that this was a suicide battle. But he held his own against Reverse. He surprised a lot of us.
But Reverse was just barring him, bro. Reverse was doing that shit where he just raps. But he did it really fuckin’ good. He had a lot of sick-ass relentless patterns at the end of his third round. Reverse was just rapping his ass off. Reverse even proclaimed his bars were throwaways for Troy Brown. Definitely not what we’re gonna see him do to Jonny Storm.
There were a bunch of battles on the undercard with names I don’t know as much about. You’re the guy with the podcast that focuses on up-and-comers. Who impressed you on the undercard?
Tino’s one of my most-invested-in fuckin’ nephews, bro. He always does good. He’s from 209. He has a battle with Loonie Divine which is his most viewed. He’s just one of these up-and-comer kids who affiliate with the Power and Respect league. I didn’t catch a lot of the battles though.
Ok, tell me about the Fresh Coast cypher they did.
They had Fredo, Caustic, Lush, Pass, The Saurus and Diz. It was dope. It was over a Skylar G beat. It was sampled from the Nirvana cover of “Lake of Fire.” Fredo went up there and did what Fredo does. Pass went up there and killed it. Caustic did his thing. The standout was The Saurus ‘cause he actually rapped relevant to the Nirvana thing. The Saurus killed the fuckin’ cypher. He was there co-hosting and hanging out. It was really humble The Saurus. I had a really good time with him this weekend actually.
It was just one of those feel good weekends where we embraced the shit out of hip hop. And my battle with No Shame, bro. No bias but that was definitely the battle of the event. I couldn’t see anyone denying it.
Pass in the cypher.
And the battles will come out on Dirtbag Dan’s channel?
Yeah definitely.
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Want more Joe Cutter? Check out his battle with Carter Deems, or one of his songs in our Music Of The Week feature.
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