2014 has, in a lot of ways, been a great year for battle rap. Heaps of mainstream interest and an increased focus on nurturing newcomers has seen some healthy growth, and it feels like at least a couple of watchable battles drop every day. Still, battle rap is still very much a soap opera, and this year has seen fans left with more than enough controversy to debate. From attempts at onstage defecation to creepy catfishing, here is a rundown, in no particular order, of the most scandalous moments of the year.
Dizaster Punching Math Hoffa
Keeping the tradition of mid-battle punches alive in match-ups featuring Math Hoffa, Diz pulled a fast one at the end of their headline clash at KOTD's “Battle of Los Angeles 5*.” After suggesting in his bars that he should punch Math Hoffa in the face, Dizaster then took the initiative of actually doing it before a full-scale brawl unfolded in the pit.
The fallout from this one was pretty considerable. Dizaster was banned from King of the Dot, and in the days and weeks after the fight, the situation felt like it was escalating into an "East Coast vs. West Coast" thing, with agents on both sides adding fuel to the fire. Math Hoffa was also at one point apparently pursuing legal action against KOTD over the issue.
Daylyt got involved too, posting videos threatening Aspect One (who spoke out about the situation in a BattleRap.com interview), and Dizaster, who he scrapped with in an apparent altercation during the following weeks. Considering that we’ve seen him decapitated onstage this year, there is always space to question the legitimacy of these posts, but it’s unarguable that all of this caused tidal waves of commentary in the international battle community.
Cancellations
Cancellations have been a common theme this year, disrupting major events in leagues the world over and causing a rabble online and otherwise. KOTD's “Blackout 4” was the earliest example of it in 2014, citing no less than six cancellations over the weekend due to various passport problems, car accidents and legal issues.
This event marked the first of three times U.K. battler Shotty Horroh had major battles cancelled in 2014. Likewise with Rone. Daylyt vs. Uno Lavoz has been postponed at least twice, and Charlie Clips vs. Tay Roc had the plug pulled at the last minute due to time constraints at URL’s “Night Of Main Events 4” before being rescheduled a few days later. Even a Don’t Flop title match got axed at the last minute for the second year running with Tony D withdrawing after family matters popped up.
That being said, many leagues are now becoming accustomed to a situation that has become the unfortunate norm, and are making necessary adjustments to keep their paying fans happy. So it’s not all bad, and a cancellation is becoming more of a disappointment than a surprise. There are just … so … many…
Here's a list of the battles that fans didn’t get to see in 2014:
- Bender vs. Big T (Blackout 4, KOTD)
- Loe Pesci vs. Rich Dolarz (Blackout 4, KOTD)
- Remy D vs. Osa (Blackout 4, KOTD)
- Ill Will vs. Real Deal (Blackout 4, KOTD)
- Shotty Horroh vs. Aye Verb (Blackout 4, KOTD)
- Rone vs. JC (Blackout 4, KOTD)
- Ill Will vs. Real Deal (the rescheduled one) (Vendetta 2: Redemption, KOTD)
- Shotty Horroh vs. Aye Verb (the rescheduled one) (Vendetta 2: Redemption, KOTD)
- Arsonal vs. Ill Will (Summer Madness 4, URL)
- Mr. Wavy vs. Qleen Paper (Summer Madness 4: Warm-Up, URL)
- Ill Will vs. Secret Opponent (who turned out to be Math Hoffa) (Summer Madness 4, URL)
- Charlie Clips vs. Tay Roc (NOME 4, URL)
- Math Hoffa vs. O-Red (Lift His Soul, RBE)
- Charlie Clips vs. Big Kannon (The Blueprint, GO-Rilla Warfare)
- Shotgun Suge vs. Marv Won (The Blueprint, GO-Rilla Warfare)
- Bonnie Godiva vs. O'fficial (Ether, FilmOn/FCMG)
- Rum Nitty vs. 100 Bulletz (Flatline 3, KOTD)
- Rone vs. Uno Lavoz (Flatline 3, KOTD)
- Rone vs. Qleen Paper (Duel in the Desert, BBE)
- Shotty Horroh vs. Yung Ill (6th Birthday Weekend, Don't Flop)
- Enigma vs. Bonnie Godiva (6th Birthday Weekend, Don’t Flop)
- Tony D vs. Unanymous (Title Match) (6th Birthday Weekend, Don’t Flop)
And those are just the first ones that come to mind.
Cadalack Ron Pretends To Shoot Up Heroin Mid-Battle
Cadalack Ron treads the line of taste haphazardly at the best of times, but he caused some anxious speculation in the wider battle community during the first half of the year. During his second round against Syfer, he pulled out a needle, seemingly injected something into his forearm and proceeded to slur his way through the remaining round and a half of the battle. Needless to say, friends and fans were worried.
He spoke to BattleRap.com earlier this year and revealed it was a hoax involving Gatorade and came from a place of desperation related to his well-documented ongoing struggles with drug addiction. The incident went viral and triggered a furor on social media.
Bar Recycling
The recycling of not only bars but entire verses came under fire this year, largely directed at Arsonal (after Total Slaughter), T-Rex (after his Shotgun Suge and Charlie Clips performances) and Daylyt (after his title contention against Pat Stay and Moses West battle).
Arsonal defended it, comparing repeated bars to rappers performing the same songs at every concert stop.
Either way it seems to be an issue that is being picked up on more and more and isn’t so much a scandal as something that, like biting or choking, will be seen as unacceptable by some and excused by others.
QP's Wild Ride
Veteran West Coast battler QP (the one from SONS) made his debut on an unusual platform for battle rap, The Maury Show, with a flurry of raised eyebrows and straight-to-camera poses that made for some hilarious viewing - and got battle fans talking all over the globe.
He then revealed in a RapGrid video following his battle with Jonny Storm that the situation was staged, inducing not so much a sigh of relief as per the Cadalack Ron situation as a yearning for it to be real. As battling essentially turns into Maury in rhyme form at points, it makes very little difference either way.
As a side-serving of scandal, QP reportedly spat at a woman’s face at "Duel In The Desert," and confirmed that he had worked as a male escort and a pimp. So at least he's keeping busy.
Bonnie Godiva Accuses Uno Lavoz Of Sexual Assault
Photo by Dan Gibs for King Of The Dot.
It’s strange for a battle that contains the line “you look like a glow-in-the-dark slave” can’t cite that as its main source of scandal, but in her third round against Uno at KOTD's "Blackout 4," Bonnie pulled out a judge's robe, Lavos' ex-girl (Mystique) and a bible and had her swear onstage that Uno attacked her following a declined sexual experience.
Uno came onto social media to fervently deny the accusations and the topic was quickly dropped but the direct link between battling and sexual violence was a worrying one and one that had people talking at and after the event.
Daylyt's Fecal Shenanigans
We’ll cover Daylyt’s busy 2014 in another article, because the trolling has been relentless and consistent, but there were a few moments last year that snagged him borderline mainstream recognition. The common thread is attempted evacuation in front of an audience.
"Total Slaughter" was the first of the year’s high-profile commercial-rapper-affiliated throwdowns, and Daylyt, as one of two finalists from the "Road to Total Slaughter" house tournament, took the opportunity to dress in an elaborate Spawn costume then completely avoid rapping in the third round via a meltdown in which he ripped his clothes off and then appeared to eat his own excrement. On this occasion, the creation was a Mr. Hankey drawing. The controversy was less that he pretended to defecate and more that he did it during battle rap’s highest profile event at the time.
Following this, he again attempted to defecate on stage against Real Deal at "Duel in the Desert" before being escorted from the venue. His song "Boo Boo in the Desert," recorded in the days after the event, gave some clues toward his motives: he did it simply for the sake of doing it, and exploded the Internet in the process, appearing on media outlets around the globe.
His exhibitionism hit the big time on another occasion this year, as he supposedly came out as gay and issued advances in the direction of P. Diddy on Vlad TV. The level of trolling, as per usual, is unclear, although it was picked up by Gawker and MTV’s site and got him some pretty insane exposure.
He has been at or near the epicentre of many of the controversial incidents of 2014, and his bizarre actions have garnered the attention for which he set out.
‘Battle Critic’ Gets Exposed As Alleged Catfish
This was a strange one. One day we were all surfing the net undisturbed, and the next a single Twitter mishap involving a comic book artist and a tweet from the wrong account set off a wave of speculation on the OTBVA forums that much-maligned battle rap commentator David Masters had been contacting girls online under the guise of an arch-feminist female hockey/battle fan from Boston named Kara da Costa.
At first the link (and source) was spurious enough to merit an arched eyebrow and a pinch of salt, but more and more ladies were coming forward having been approached for topless photos and blackmailed, including the partners of several Don’t Flop battlers (myself included) and before any answers were uncovered both David and Kara’s Twitter vanished and his Facebook account with them.
His side of the scandal placed the blame at the feet of OTBVA mods, accusing them of hacking his Twitter for three years after an argument with them over a mixtape upload. Confirmation was never provided either way, but there’s no doubt that it was a scandal that rocked/thoroughly amused a large proportion of the U.K. battle rap community.
EtherGate/Mega Events
Photo by Valerie Sakmary for BattleRap.com.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Numbers-wise, the Dizaster vs. Cassidy battle generated more interest than any previous North American match-up. There was a six-figure budget and the involvement of somewhat wacky billionaire heir.
So after a way-behind-schedule start time for the match-up and a crowd that became unmanageable mid-battle, the mega-battle was scrapped after one round from each emcee, causing massive outrage online. Many were talking about the death of the culture and, after technical problems with the PPV, the final break in the connection between battle rap and the mainstream.
Total Slaughter was plagued with similar criticism (due to a shoddy PPV and lacklustre performances from Joe Budden and Loaded Lux) and aside from the good vibes of Snoop Dogg’s "Gladiator School" event in Atlanta the main discussions in battle rap this year have stemmed from the pitfalls of the mainstream events.
The "Ether" controversies have rumbled on, with Lush One and Serius Jones beefing over Twitter about payment, then Daylyt and the event's financier Alki David having a shorter but equally public spat.
And even up to the last few days there’s been some pretty devastating fallout for the FilmOn/FMCG collaboration. Certain footage, like Bigg K’s first round, was lost in the, well… ether, and there have been some jaw-dropping allegations of the addition of crowd noise and a laugh track by FilmOn editors. It's hard to even verify that now that the battles have all disappeared from Youtube with KOTD filing a copyright infringement.
The post-Ether fallout keeps coming, so stay tuned to next year's "Biggest Battle Rap Scandals of 2015" for the exciting conclusion...
* CORRECTION: This article originally said Dizaster punched Math Hoffa at BOTB5. It was actually at BOLA5.
Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments below.
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