URL bosses Eric Beasley and Smack White previewed this weekend's "Summer Madness 5" event in recent interviews with HipHopIsReal.com.
Beasley announced a live pay-per-view for the event but explained that it won't be handled in the same way as NOME5's streaming. "We have seven battles and I'll probably be streaming four of the battles cause it's tough. Some people say 'I like pay-per-view 'cause I live in Australia and I can't make the event' ... then there's the people who like the battles delivered in a traditional way, with like the trailers and even though they complain about the battles being released in a timely fashion, they actually enjoy the wait and the anticipation."
Going off the advertising of the pay-per-view, it appears that the two battles that won't be included are O'fficial vs. Ms. Hustle and T-Rex vs. T-Top, although this has yet to be officially confirmed by the league and Beasley does say he will "probably" stream four battles.
UPDATE Sept. 24, 2015: URL has now officially announced the four battles that will be on the livestream.
- Charlie Clips vs. Loaded Lux
- T-Rex vs. T-Top
- Steams & Chess vs. DNA & K-Shine
- Calicoe vs. Tay Roc
Beasley also spoke about the business reasons for executing a livestream of the event, explaining, "At some point, there's got to be some balance here where there's a way we can pay for these big battles you want to see. I think a lot of times with Summer Madness and cards in general, URL is in a competition with itself, and I say that to say, well people always say 'why don't you do what you did at Summer Madness 2.' You can't do that ... Nobody's doing a card with [Tsu] Surf, [Loaded] Lux, Hitman [Holla], [Murda] Mook, all these people in one night. It hasn't happened in three years."
Beasley goes on to explain why. "Financially it doesn't make sense and sometimes artists will demand a certain amount of money and there's no way to equate their worth. To say you're worth this amount of money and don't bring this amount of people and they'll say 'Oh I'm not doing the battle. URL does bad business'."
Get the event PPV here.
While Beasley spoke about the financial aspects of SM5, Smack focused more on previewing the event.
Explaining the increasing difficulties in putting together mega-cards, Smack said, "At the end of the day this is a business, this is a industry, it's a lot of politics that goes into putting these battles together and there's a lot of time and a lot of negotiations. That's why Summer Madness is so late, cause of the negotiation process, we got divas now."
As for what fans should expect from the event, Smack smiled knowingly. "I don't even know what to expect, it's going to be a lot of energy, a lot of greatness, I know everybody is going to basically come with it, if you don't come with it as a battle rapper that's your fault, be prepared to be embarrassed, everybody watching, you don't know who going to be in the building."
See the rest of our SM5 coverage here, and tune in this weekend for our live coverage.
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