Bishop Brigante Speaks On His Street Battling History

During the first segment of BattleRap.com’s pre-“Blackout 5” interview with Bishop Brigante, the King Of The Dot representative shared his thoughts ahead of his return to battling.

Here, during the second part of that interview, Bishop speaks on his history in the scene as well as outlining the differences in battle rap in different eras. He also discusses his growing notoriety in Toronto's scene during the late '90s and how he continuously outperformed challengers in phone battles on top radio stations.

“I developed my name on the street,” Bishop Brigante says. “Then it turned into radio and I just completely annihilated the radio for like a year straight, nobody could beat me. It was called ‘Eat The Beat’ 88.1. The radio show was called Power Move. It’s the staple memory of the hip-hop radio shows in Toronto. In the history of Toronto, it was the most popular every Saturday radio show for hip hop. There was a lot more that came along, and even before it, but that was the one. Every Saturday they had a challenger and the battle of the champion.

“What happens is: you get 60 seconds, maybe less, maybe more depending on how dope you were, and then once you were done, people from the city that were listening had to call in and vote. And the first one to vote to five was the winner,” he adds. “I dominated. It was ridiculous. I never lost.”

Earlier in the conversation, Bishop Brigante spoke on the cultural and social differences in battle rap over the years, from the '80s and '90s to now.

“The '80s is when it caught on in Toronto,” Bishop explains. “We were there when hip hop began. When somebody battled, it was a lot different. It was crowd rocking. There were some jabs or whatever but it wasn’t what it is today or even what it was when I was battling. During my time of being in different neighborhoods, I’ve seen people actually be shot from battle rap, because it wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t in any type of controlled environments. It wasn’t in clubs like that, it was on the street.”

“Back then, the respect was way different,” Bishop continues. “If you were wack, it could turn into you getting punked off and run off somebody’s neighborhood. Fortunately for me that was never the case for me because I was witty [and] quick. I took my hustle and turned that into being able to rap.”

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