Danny Jaqq's Backstage Tales From "Beat Fighter 2"

Hello.

My name is Danny Jaqq — a mildly known resident battle rapper from Don’t Flop. I’m most known for telling people my name loudly and going on about how women should be seen as equal and respected, whilst hypocritically being the self-proclaimed savior of said women.

I also have 100K+ views on one battle. Sorry Chris. [Editor's note: Don't apologize to me, Danny. Just thank Deep Throat Thug for the name she chose. -CM]

BattleRap.com has kindly allowed me to write articles, reviewing DF events around England. But instead of talking about the battles that you will eventually watch for yourself, whether it be on the PPV or on YouTube (don’t be so lazy), I’m going to write more about the side you never get to see, i.e. the behind-the-scenes stories that go down before the event, during the smoking breaks and after the event (without incriminating anyone).

So to kick these off, I’m going to tell you about my personal experience at Don’t Flop’s most recent event, “Beat Fighter 2" in Manchester, England. For those unfamiliar with the Beat Fighter series, it’s an event that focuses mainly — if not completely — on on-beat battles. It’s all very "8 Mile."

The road trip to any event is always a highlight — it’s all very exciting as we talk about battle rap, fight over the AUX cable and complain because one of the passengers has the bladder of a three-year-old. The road trip from London to Manchester with the king himself, Cruger, and DF staff member Krishna was no different.

http://instagram.com/p/BBk3PHKKSIa/

It was 8:00 A.M. and, to the head-shakes of my road trip companions, I had just opened my first beer. We had four hours of long road ahead of us, so I bought four cans because alcohol. The road trip was pretty smooth; I got drunk, Cruger talked about his battles, and explained his reasoning for battling Fresco after coming off good battles with Conceited and DNA, which was that he didn’t want to battle another gun-toting URL battler with a speech impediment (he didn’t mention the speech impediment). [Editor's note: Those are called "American accents," not speech impediments, Danny -CM].

We finally reached Manchester around 11:30 A.M., and met Krishna’s stewarding team, who then led us to the venue. We walk in and fans are already waiting outside in the rain, only to be told that they were not letting people in yet, only staff. I felt pretty bad because straight after this I walked in and I’m neither staff nor sober. But hey, the perks of being mid-tier, right?

The venue is cold. It’s the first time I’ve been in a venue and watched them set up. It’s boring as hell and I am going to try and avoid it from now. Luckily a bartender walked behind the bar so I ambushed her with orders, making me the first customer of the day. I celebrated that feat with another drink. I sat and watched Krishna do things, and Cruger do other things.

I moved a table.

Yeah pretty much nothing happened at this point, apart from the rapid decline of my sobriety.

Later on, the room was packed, I was no longer a fitting member of society and the energy was flowing. I’m not going to talk about the battles; that’s for some other mug. I’m going to talk about the smoking area.

If you are familiar with Don’t Flop, you probably know CoJay by now. If you’re more familiar with battle rap culture from across the pond, you might actually know CoJay personally because he’s one of YOU. He has made a lot of noise in DF, including the good kind, especially over the last year and is becoming quite the threat. He lost to me once. But that’s irrelevant.

I was with CoJay in the smoking area, along with DF creative director Liam Bagnall and generally having a good time, when a fan approaches us, clearly intoxicated, using every form of blasphemy to express his happiness at the fact he gets to meet us (big up, you, by the way).

“I just had to come over here and shake hands with Danny Jaqq” he says.

I shake his hand, and he then shakes Bagnall’s hand, equally as happy. Now CoJay is standing right next to him, and in my mind, if you know who I AM, then you have to know who CoJay is because:

1) I battled CoJay and
2) CoJay is more popular than I am

So how this guy turned around and expressed his happiness at meeting CARLOSS, was beyond me. I didn’t quite hear the exchange but CoJay told me he played along with the guy’s mistake, claiming that he’s ready for his “battle” later on in the day.

CoJay and Carloss only look like each other if you’re a racist.

What makes it even funnier is this guy opened up the conversation by saying, “It’s been a long time,” implying that he had met Carloss BEFORE. I guess in that time, this guy believes it’s possible to switch from an English rapper to an American one. Well I guess Slick Rick did it, but CoJay is not Slick Rick. Or Carloss.

Later in the night, we all watched Raptor vs. Izzie Gibbs, which resulted in my voice leaving the venue before I did, and that was the last battle I saw, even though it was not the final battle of the day. But the night is not over.

We are all discussing after-party options, which included CoJay’s house and … well … home.

So we chose CoJay’s house and this caught the attention of some local Mancunians. The word “lad” was said a lot and “R (our) kid” too. Raptor was one of them, so I listened to him and we all ended up back at Carloss, I mean CoJay’s house.

We filmed a blog where me, Raptor, Heretic (DF Newcomer of 2015 and undefeated, supposedly) and SleepyGee/KXVU (DF's resident DJ who once beat Raptor. No really, he did) filmed a blog where we read negative comments from our battles and reacted.

https://twitter.com/heretichr/status/696415665922699264

Before I continue, I’m going to remind you that Raptor had a near flawless year in 2015, propelling himself into a solid top-tier position, whose resume includes Villun, Big Kannon, Tony D and Pass, all of which are debatable. He is an animal.

But believe it or not, he actually lost a battle to SleepyGee.

We reminded Raptor that in the last Top 8 Tournament, Raptor was not only the favorite to win, but that people believed the tournament was made for him to win, as a sort of justifiable boost up the tiers. We reminded Raptor that he went out to SleepyGee in the first round, who then lost in the final to Juan. We sat eagerly awaiting a reaction from the energetic Raptor, who did not disappoint.

Raptor admitted that he is BITTER at the loss to SleepyGee (all in jest, I might add) and went on a rant about how it was a “FOOKIN FIX.” You could tell that it had been eating at him on the inside — that no matter the level of success he reaches, he will always hold an L given to him by SleepyGee. Pure gold.

Raptor was by far the man of the night, in addition to his battle, his highlights included a 20-minute rant about batteries, a rant about how me and Heretic are overly emotional bell-ends, and showing us some exclusive verses from his upcoming album “LIT,” which were some of the best things I’ve ever heard.

Manchester always results in great stories and painful hangovers, and after 16 hours of drinking, I was unable to move to write this article until today.

Hope you enjoyed it and gained a new insight into the world of Don’t Flop!

Next event features Arsonal vs. Psychosis Holocaust, in his hometown of Sheffield. March 5 at Plug!

Get your tickets here.

Here's a preview of some of the battles from BF2:

Get the PPV here.