With just one day to go before the headlining battle between Cassidy and Dizaster at Fresh Coast/FilmOn’s “Ether” card, the Philadelphia lyricist stopped by New York radio station Hot 97 for an interview with hosts Ebro Darden and Peter Rosenberg.
During the newly released conversation, Cassidy spoke at great length about his upcoming return to battle rap and asserted his view that Dizaster is just an appetizer.
“I feel Dizaster is a warm-up,” Cassidy says. “He is a warm-up. He’s a battle rapper, that’s all he ever did. Nobody in this room could name one song that Dizaster ever brought out. So since he just a battle rapper, I feel like I got a crazy advantage over him. Because the things I experienced, the things I been through [and] me being the man that I am, he just can’t talk the talk that I can talk.”
While comparing the traditional and contemporary forms of battling, Cassidy noted that the skill and the quality of material in modern-day battle rap has increased since the culture's earlier years.
“I feel as though it’s a lot easier when you got time to prepare, but the level of bars, wordplay, name flips [and] schemes I think has stepped up,” Cassidy explains. “The average person wouldn’t be having as many punchlines, as many metaphors, as many similes [and] as much wordplay as these dudes do now because the bar was set higher since I did stuff like the Freeway battle. That was a tape that a lot of these dudes could watch to get better.”
Elsewhere, Cassidy revealed his future plans following this Saturday’s match-up and his hopes of inspiring other industry artists to jump into the battle arena.
“I’ma just show up and I’ma cook him,” he says. “And then after I cook him, my numbers is going up and the competition gotta go up. I wanna inspire dudes that got a music history to get back in the ring to show them that big money is in it. I don’t want nobody specifically, just the same way I didn’t want Dizaster. They told me they had a certain amount of money [and] I told them, ‘Cut the check.’ They said, ‘Well who you wanna battle?’ I said, ‘Man, y’all cut the check. I don’t care who y’all get. Y’all could get anybody from any part of the world, any country, big, tall, short [or] small, any race, I don’t care who y’all get. As long as the money right, whoever y’all get [is going to] get cooked the same way. It don’t matter.’ So they decided to get Dizaster. I guess he got a relationship with the people that brought the money to the table.”
Lastly, Cassidy explained the reasons he believes he’s the Floyd Mayweather of battle rap.
“I feel as though I’m the Floyd Mayweather of battle rap. The most money, the most fans, the most anticipated. I talk the craziest but I back it up and if you got a problem with me talking, you gotta beat me,” Cassidy explains. “[If] you beat me, then you can [be] like, ‘Alright, well he can’t talk as crazy as he used to.’ But nobody can beat me! It’s like nobody can mess with me. So I’ma keep talking crazy and I’ma keep putting my foot on these dudes neck whether you battle or you in the industry or whoever you is.”
Fresh Coast/FilmOn’s “Ether” event goes down this Saturday (Dec. 6) at the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles, Calif. BattleRap.com will be in the building for the event so stay tuned for live updates and interviews.
Be sure to check out all of our "Ether" content by clicking here.
Check out Cassidy’s full interview with Hot 97 below:
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