Even since Cracker tagged Charron in for him during a 3-on-3 freestyle match for Don’t Flop in April, Freestyle Royal Rumbles have become the latest fad as an end-of-event rager, perfect for emcees who can only muster a few spontaneous lines at a time and also to showcase lesser-known battlers as they step into the spotlight with bigger names.
Now, across the Atlantic (and then some), Dirtbag Dan is trying to recreate this new format in his hometown of San Jose (baby, RAAAHHH!), only this time with more order to the chaos. He has specified eight pre-announced contestants rather than using DF's "everybody's invited/a target" approach. Once the order is determined, the rappers will take turns spitting their pre-written three one-minute rounds.
Caustic will referee the match, calling time and keeping the order organized. It’s almost a crime to sideline a battler who is known for his freestyling ability and last-minute approach to content, but he did battle Detroit’s Marv Won at Day 1 of the event, so we can’t be all that mad. Plus having seen how chaotic DF's Royal Rumbles have been, there's a good chance the rules here will go out the window very quickly anyways.
The participants are Dirtbag Dan, Pnut, Madflex, Fredo, The Deadman, Reverse Live, and two battle rap beginners: Chuuwee, a Sacramento artist who has dropped a whopping 21 mixtapes since 2009 along with his 2014 album The Chuuwee Channel, and Abel Abilities, also a rapper and regular on The Dirtbag Dan Show podcast. The two beginners have people talking, and may very well bring in new audiences to the event. Expect lots of Chuuwee fans from SoCal to be in attendance.
[UPDATE: Actually, Abel has two Grindtime battles both released in 2010, against Pnut and Mic Phenom.]
Dan has recused himself from winning the competition (it will be judged by crowd reaction), leaving the prize of a goody bag including Vaped products (obviously) to one of the other seven emcees. In the last year or so we’ve seen Dirt take on Shufflo and K-Shine, and absolutely smash it against Big J in Amsterdam while high on hallucinogens, so we'll see how he fares in his hometown. Plus, he has the advantage of personally knowing all seven of his opponents.
Pnut, Madflex, Reverse Live and Fredo all had standout performances at KOTD's "Back To Basics" earlier this year, leaving many fans wanting to see them more often on West Coast events. It's unlikely there will be a bad performance between the lot of them, especially in a fun environment like this. Deadman hasn’t performed much in the past year (though he has stayed busy doing interviews for BattleRap.com), with his last battle dropping on KOTD's main channel against J-Pro 11 months ago, so he’s definitely going in with something to prove.
What can we expect from Chuuwee and Abel? Both have spoken about how excited they are for the match and have heavily advertised their presence on social media. For a debut battle not only have they picked an interesting one, but they are going up against some of the best the West has to offer.
Any one of these guys could have a standout performance, but with pre-writtens, opportunities for rebuttals, and a mix of old and new faces in a new format, your guess is as good as mine as to what will happen, or who will come out on top.
Thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
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