Post-Battle Breakdown: O'fficial vs. Jaz The Rapper

Adam "Mos Prob" Felman digs into the NOME 5 match-up between two of the best female battlers in the world.

In the testosterone-filled world of battle rap, an all-female battle is a rare but welcome addition, especially when it features the two top female emcees in the world.

RELATED: Watch the battle

New Orleans' O'fficial made her Ultimate Rap League debut against Jaz the Rapper, who had more of a footing on the hallowed New York stage after having faced down Ms. Hustle some two years ago and QB before that. O'fficial had taken on Daylyt and some established vets in the female scene but Jaz has been in higher profile matches (e.g. her 2014 bodybagging of 40 B.A.R.R.S.) despite battling with far less frequency than her opponent here.

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Jaz kicked the match-up off with confidence and verve, pulling off some intricate name flips and keeping the crowd onside (not to mention eliciting foghorns, Don Demarcos and all sorts of reverb-laden soundbites on a consistent basis) with animated delivery throughout — her "Boyz 'N The Hood 'Trey/Doing all that punching for nothing" was laid out with an arm-flailing ferocity that pulled some fantastic noise from the notoriously boisterous URL audience. Her hilarious call-out to Suge and Goodz also got her a lot of points.

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It was a solid round even by URL's lofty standards, but O'fficial hadn't opened her mouth yet. And when she did, everything changed. Jaz's valiant shot at opening the battle was met with one of the most emphatic introductions I've seen on any stage. Winning a New York crowd over with a New Orleans bar right from the first swing is an impressive feat, but to follow that up with her "Pop a gun? Nah, you too scared to pop your cherry" bar to a 20-second thunderstorm of reaction is as good a starting pistol as any. She might've won the battle in the first minute.

It didn't matter. Her energy in that round didn't flag for a second from that point onwards, the crowd's prolonged excitement the only thing standing in the way of delivery. She made video game, Fresh Prince and math bars sound aggressive, she made twerking bars clever and she was boisterous and likeable all at once. It's a fine line to tread, but she nailed it. Jaz set the pace brilliantly in the first verse but no one was expecting what O'fficial pulled out.

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Jaz seemed a little winded when she resumed. She was picking up reactions sporadically (notably for "Clip so long that shit look like a selfie stick") and the crowd was sleeping on a fair amount of material, but when she wasn't within a few syllables of a punchline her delivery became strained and thin. She spent too long trying to expose O'fficial for ghostwriting and the crowd didn't want to know. Her often great writing was clouded by diminishing confidence.

O'fficial picked up right where she left off, and what came out of this round is the amount of fun she looked like she was having alongside the aggression. She had a vet-level handle on the crowd and her presence was ubiquitous. "Bitch, I'll slap your head small" is from now on the only way to issue any comment on head size, and that succinctness and directness was made fifteen times better by the dynamism she put into each bar.

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The deal was done by Round 3. Jaz started the round barely keeping her head above water, garnering enough reactions not to lose the room. The "Couldn’t stop that Heart beating/Flatline" was a building block for the remainder of the verse and the battle became more even at the finishing line. In the closing moments the room turned on her after a slight stumble and then rejoined her for an anti-Queen of the Ring punchline, but needless to say this was the patchiest round of the battle. It looked like she knew she'd lost before she'd started Round 2. She ended and started with momentum, but to compete with O'fficial's performance she would've had to keep building it consistently, and she didn't.

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O'fficial's third was her weakest — the first round the strongest for both performers — and started with a questionable flip (the kind the battler always acknowledges moments after as mediocre) but the personal material about Jaz living at home, and her college education, seemed like it stung and definitely hit the mark with the crowd. Her punchlines didn't sag until a dreaded 'de feet/defeat' bar surfaced (she battled Daylyt recently — "da feet" bars can't be contagious, surely?) and she had to do a bit of legwork to bring it back.

The final half of the third round felt like a victory lap — O'fficial relaxing a little and soaking up the atmosphere and the crowd petering out (probably from sore throats given the volume of their reactions during the match-up) with much of her memorable material taking root in the first and second rounds.

Jaz was by no means awful, but this remains a clear bodybag. We should be seeing much, much more of O'fficial on the bigger platforms in the coming months.

All photos by Smart Alix Kushboy for BattleRap.com.

Who would you like to see these two up against next? Is this one of the most decisive bodybags of the year? Let us know in the comments below.

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