We Talked To The U.K. Emcee Kendrick Lamar Battled

Most know Kendrick Lamar as one of the top names in all of rap — a multiple Grammy Award winning and platinum selling artist. But underneath that lives the competitive spirit we often associate with battle rappers. His "Control" verse set the rap world on fire as he went at pretty much every rapper in the game, and he grew up around the L.A. battle scene, rocking corners as K-Dot.

On March 16, Reebok's YouTube channel released a short video of Kendrick Lamar at an event in Manchester, England. A minute or so into the video, a local rapper grabs the mic and addresses Kendrick in a rather complementary way, after which Kendrick grabs the mic, and a sort of impromptu battle breaks out.

Here's the video:

As it turns out, that local emcee is a battle rapper named Visceral, who has been making music for 12 years but who jumped into battling about a year ago. He's appeared in four battles for U.K. league King Of The Ronalds, recently participating in one of their title matches.

BattleRap.com caught up with Visceral online to get his thoughts on the encounter.

“At the event when Kendrick turned up I was facilitating workshops for young people via a fantastic organization called Brighter Sound," he explained. "When Kendrick came in and was like 'I'll whup anyone's ass,' I felt like that was a provocation, almost daring someone to try it. So I told him he wouldn't whup my ass but then brought the focus back to the young people, bigged them up, bigged up Kendrick, and tried to keep the vibe positive. The event was supposed to about the younger local emcees so I didn't want to take the focus away from that."

Visceral told us that he sees cyphering as an equalizer between people, where skill matters over status. "Even though I love Kendrick's music, he is just a human being, he's an artist like everyone else there and in that cypher context everyone should be equal. We shouldn't be kneeling before someone just because of their celebrity status."

At the time, he wasn't able to hear what Kendrick was saying to him. "All I heard was the reactions. It was only later when I saw the footage back when I heard he was dissing me, the little git!"

Visceral also questioned the commercial element of Kendrick's involvement. "Why do celebrity emcees like Kendrick only come and get involved in youth programs when there's a big company like Reebok paying them six figures?"

As for what's next after facing one of the world's biggest rap celebrities, Visceral tells us he's back at it with KOTR next week in Manchester.

And his final words to Kendrick? "If you ever want to battle properly then I'll meet you any time, any place, let's 'ave it sunshine!"

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.