LTBR Award Recipients
Battle of the Night: #1 Hitman Holla vs Geechi Gotti
Performance Of The Night: #1 Nu Jerzey Twork | #2 Ave | #3a Hitman & #3b Geechi Gotti (Interchangable)
Staff Writers: Q Moody (Senior Staff writer), France, Justin Smolenski (J Smo)
Hitman Holla successfully elevated Bags and Bodies to new heights with their first major league event, marking a significant milestone after a string of smaller gatherings and two full seasons of content. This event had it all: high-stakes mega-matches, full pay-per-view access, in-depth commentary, thrilling face-offs, and a meticulously crafted itinerary. Much respect goes to everyone on the Bags and Bodies staff for making this event possible. One thing about this event was the level of attention to detail; it made you feel special in all areas. If you were a fan in the building, you got the chance to really immerse yourself in a sold-out special event, if you were media, you got correctly treated with respect and press passes, and the rappers got ample amount of time, a little over 2 months to prepare, promote and showcase themselves to their maximum capabilities. Our Staff writer, J-Smo, was in the building and can give his own testament to how special it all felt.
We had Froze & Bronze providing dope commentary and giving the event a unique sports feel. They also added a little caveat with pre-battle interviews to insert during their commentary; I thought that was slick. Salute to some of the Face-off hosts that we have seen before the event, like DC Young Fly and Jay Blac, offering their services and contributions. Major props to the Ruin Your Day team for handling the production; there were a few minor hiccups on the stream, but it is a well-produced product. But a particularly special salute is due to Duh Boss, who was instrumental in holding everything together.
Duh Boss
If you may not be familiar, She is widely known for her strong presence in the culture, works quietly behind the scenes, and very much in the Twitter Spaces streets; she’s a passionate, vocal, and adamant advocate for battle rap. Sometimes, you may catch her sparking debate or ruffling feathers with her raw, authentic opinions. However, no one can deny her dedication and love to the culture.
This year alone, Duh Boss has taken on roles as a judge, manager, booker, event coordinator, and countless other responsibilities that we may not even be aware of! All of it is very fitting to her name. Her biggest contribution was ensuring that the event ran smoothly, especially given the challenges that come when league owners like Hitman Holla are active competitors at their own events. Balancing his roles as artist, host, and league owner undoubtedly added pressure to Hitman’s plate, but Duh Boss worked tirelessly to bridge gaps, reduce stress, and create an environment of support. She brought the zen to the League owner, and that’s ultimately what you want. It is almost like being the glue to a sports team locker room that stabilizes everyone. It’s hard to give her one exact title cause she kinda does it all? It ranges from communicating with the artist, connecting with the media, strategizing with her battlers, and working with Hitman to ensure the operation runs smoothly. This event’s success is a testament to her indispensable role and value, and if you didn’t know about it before, now you do!
Snake Eyez vs J2
2.75 ☆ Rating Recapped by France
A lot to unpack with this battle. This grudge match opened the card, and it set the tone for the event.
Snake Eyez is very experienced in the grudge match settings. Still, some of the things I dislike is when he gets into these segments of elongated storytelling and ineffective counter-writing. Counter-writing isn’t just bringing up a topic your opponent will mention but also neutralizing it and taking power away from it, which he failed to do in my opinion. Snake Eyez elected to go first in the battle, and his first round started off on fire! He had such a strong start that it began to tail off. It’s funny cause his 3rd round was the opposite; it started a bit slow and really heated up toward the end; in his 3rd round specifically, I liked a lot of the pockets he got into. Snake just showed better dimensions of rapping to me than in J2’s 3rd round. J2’s 3rd round was probably his weaker of the three, and he still had moments in it, but by the time we got to the third round, I already had Snake Eyez down 0-2. J2’s 1st round damn near made it seem like he was the more experienced battler and poised for the stage; the bar for bar, he just kept connecting with the room in the 1st round and built up massive momentum. Honestly, that 1st round was fairly competitive in spurts on the watch back, but J2 ran away with it for the most part; he overpowered Snake and delivered some of the better haymakers toward the end, especially with the silencer bar; it shut the room down. J2 showed much better crowd control, pace, and performance in the 1st & 2nd rounds, albeit J2’s 2nd round wasn’t as potent as his first, but the 2nd round is where Snake probably lost the battle to me.
Battle rap is a largely uncensored medium. That’s part of the appeal to a lot of people, the rawness of battle rap is something that’s not replicable. A freeness of speech exists here that isn’t in more sanitized or mainstream entertainment genres. But what people always leave out about “freedom of speech” is it doesn’t mean that you can’t be criticized.
Snake Eyez decides to spend the ending portion of his 2nd round coming at pretty much anything LGBTQ related, starting with J2 wearing a shirt in the past that said: “protect trans kids.” I’m not sure what perception people have, but if someone actually understands the duress that trans people and trans youth live under, a gesture like that wouldn’t be questioned.
As much as people want to hide their bigotry behind wishing to fight against the “LGBTQ agenda,” they don’t know or understand the lives trans people live. Trans people, in reality, often live fucked up lives. From how frequently trans people are murdered simply for being trans, the rates at which trans people are homeless or runaways because they didn’t feel safe or loved in their own homes, and so many other things. We have to stop comparing the daily lives of real, everyday LGBTQ people to whatever is on TV. On top of this, people who spew this rhetoric seem to leave out the black LGBTQ population that exists. We have seen gay or LGBT approaches to J2, and some have been effective, but if you don’t try to put anything creative or lyrical to the idea, you fall into the trap of just sounding ignorant. The idea of “What about Protecting the straight kids” or the idea of “straight pride” is nonsensical because pride movements exist to uplift marginalized communities facing discrimination, while heterosexuality has never been historically oppressed or stigmatized in the way LGBTQ+ identities have been. We all know that being black in the world is hard enough, so anyone who’s black AND identifies with LGBTQ at all doesn’t have it any easier.
I would say it’s an irresponsible approach, but it’s really just a testament to Snake’s lack of battle IQ, execution & creativity; it’s not about “Not having gay bars against J2 in Atlanta.” Because his “Choke you out till you’re the color of pride month” Punchline was fire, and it got a ton of reaction; it’s just that this 2nd round angle essentially mirrored a MAGA Rally speech with no metaphors, punchlines or any entertaining aspects for the audience to be invoked with. If we are being honest, Snake Eyez got far more descriptive with vivid gay imagery in the battle than J2 did! His gay bars turned the crowd off, so you can’t even lean into the excuse that “This Atlanta crowd was in favor of J2.” That’s not the case; J2 just executed his approach in the battle far better.
Let’s keep it all the way real here. We are fully aware that battle rap can be a homophobic culture, and that isn’t really the issue at hand because that’s always going to exist, but not being able to deliver a homophobic round to an audience that would possibly cheer for it speaks more volumes to how poorly constructed the round was. Maybe those at home who share the same mindset will enjoy the material because there are plenty of YouTube comments where you can find people saying Snake Eyez won; that won’t be denied, but seeing Snake Eyez struggle with the crowd at times or take an approach that didn’t deliver him a win in a grudge match is disappointing, especially when you take into account his experience or the fact that at times, Snake has more flows and pockets to get into, especially with his basketball bars. He’s the better rapper and the more seasoned battler, and yet it’s almost like he avoided leaning on his strengths for the low barring fruit, but it did not pay off.
Much credit to J2 for this performance because he elevated to a needed level. One can say this may be his most impactful win so far in his career. He looked more like the person in control of the battle from start to finish. He had the best round and most significant moment of the battle. You have to tip your hat to that.
Who do you have winning between J2 vs Snake Eyez? #Powermoves
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) November 9, 2024
Ave vs A.Ward
3.25 ☆ Rating Recapped by France
Ave and A. Ward’s on paper are supposed to be a clash that offers a compelling mix of strategy, pacing, angles, punches, and styles. In theory, this was supposed to be a battle to uplift the card’s value; only one battle rapper came to the party. I always felt that the coin toss would be pivotal for this battle: A. Ward’s freestyling can often shift the momentum of a round, depending on his ability to rebut and adapt in real-time, would be a huge benefactor, but it honestly didn’t matter. Out the gate Ave established a solid footing in his first round, a round with mostly all punches, and it set a good enough bar that would make Ward have to snatch the round to win it clearly. A.Ward opens his first touching on Ave’s health and recent absence from the Shotgun Suge boxing card due to high blood pressure, Ward brought some creative blood pressure punches and had some dope mid-round freestyles but he may have he lingered too long on Ave’s health issues. Although the first round was close, it was the only competitive aspect of this battle. You could have A.Ward winning the 1st, but I thought Ave still edged it in my opinion.
As the battle progressed into the second round, Ave demonstrated why his skills go far beyond simple punching. Ave has been angling for years now and doesn’t get the credit for his approach or substance in the times he gets into breaking his opponent. Ave dissected A. Ward’s career trajectory and impact, contrasting it with his achievements and positioning in battle rap. His storytelling arc and breakdowns reinforced his dominance, painting a vivid separation from A.Ward’s career. Meanwhile, Ward’s second round faltered; it may have been one of the worst A.Ward rounds I’ve ever heard, with uncharacteristic stumbles and a lack of direction, he looked completely out of character. Ave built up so much momentum and became a freight train for the rest of the battle.
A.Ward opens his 2nd and mentions how Ave is so boring, and he struggled to write for him, and it rubs me the wrong way as an A.Ward fan to hear that. In one view, I can see how Ave is a difficult opponent to construct a practical approach for because Ave has little to no dirt on his name to conjure up an angle. Ave is an elite puncher, so trying to punch with him is also challenging. Still, when I see A.Ward battle names like Gwitty or many of the amateurs he battles all over the country, and he finds ways to bring so much better material for them, It’s unfathomable to accept the fact that he just couldn’t get his creativity going or have anything entertaining for Ave. It is one of the worst A.Ward performances of his career. It’s damn near shocking to see him look like this since he’s been such a model of consistency for years. Especially when going into this battle A.Ward says, “This is one of the ones.” And he didn’t hold his end of the bargain.
Ave’s third round solidified the win, echoing his second-round approach with yet more depth and introspection. This battle continues Ave’s impressive streak and COTY run, with the exception of a close battle with Chef Trez; he’s primarily been uncontested and dominant in his matchups this year. How Ave chooses to close out the year will really help further push his case with fans and potential voters on Champion Of The Year. I want to see Ave embrace the fact that he is a contender, he has a legitimate window to be a COTY, and these last two months, he will have to be strategic with his final selection of battles if he wants to bring home the gold.
Who do you have winning between Ave vs A.Ward ?#Powermoves
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) November 9, 2024
T-Rex vs Swamp
3.00 ☆ Rating Recapped by J-Smo
In a battle that many predicted to be the battle of the night, Swamp vs. Rex was still a solid battle but one that’s quality was brought down by a mix of the pace of the rappers as well as the talking in the crowd being at its worst during the night for this matchup.
Starting on Swamp, his 1st round can be defined by solid consistency. He didn’t have his strongest round, not hitting many memorable highs or peak bars, but he held a good level of rapping and punching from beginning to end. While not an unbeatable round, it stood as a formidable one. It looked early in Rex 1st like it could’ve been a mistake, with Rex landing a huge rebuttal and a heavy Landscaping bar to start. After gaining all the momentum early, though, Rex’s 1st basically was him slowly cooling down and dropping the momentum till the round closed. While still having spots of good content, this bit of slower pace and constantly decreasing landing rate was similar to other Rex big stage showings like vs Chess, Rum Nitty 2, or as far back as battles like Shine and TTop, where Rex starts on fire but has issues keeping that pace through the whole round. While some in the building thought it was close enough for debate, I comfortably edged Swamp the 1st for a 1-0 lead.
The 2nd was set up to be the best of the battle, with both agreeing to have their 2nds be all drug bars in the faceoff. Swamp took advantage of this opportunity by giving us the best round of the battle, landing multiple haymakers through solely trap talk. Similar to his 3rd vs. Chef Trez last year, it will go down as one of Swamp’s best rounds in another elite year for him and put the pressure on Rex early in the battle. While Rex’s 2nd round in response was strong with drug content of his own, which would make sense considering this is widely considered his lane in BR, he just didn’t match the explosive highs from Swamp even while still having good content. But this is also worth mentioning: the crowd was talking through both battler’s rounds heavily, which affected the pace of both battlers but more harshly affected Rex’s momentum. While 4 rounds in the battle were good, it optically will lose points because the battlers are constantly being interrupted every other bar, if not every bar. While this may not have changed the result either way, it’s a shame as it takes away from a battle that had higher potential if it simply had a more focused crowd that’s more worried about the event itself than socializing by the bar. Swamp 2-0, with the 2nd being very clear.
As for the final round, this is where Rex somewhat shockingly turned it up to have his best round of the night. Traditionally not an uphill writer it is a great sign to see Rex fight through adversity with the crowd and be at his best even after the turbulence through the battle. Swamp had a solid round of his own, the weakest of his 3 rounds but not light at all. However, Rex had more energy, kept hitting with the real/drug talk, and even solid punching more like the start of his 1st but landing more consistently. While still a close and debatable round I edged it to Rex, bringing the battle out to a 2-1 result in favor of Swamp. Although the battle could’ve been better and it’s a shame knowing the reason mainly isn’t the artist fault, still a solid battle and one that has some positives for both battlers, especially Swamp who looks to be closing in on a potential top 5 COTY type of year with a collection of great showings during legacy battles.
Who do you have winning between T-Rex vs Swamp?
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) November 9, 2024
Nu Jerzey Twork vs Bigg K
3.50 ☆ Rating Recapped by J-Smo
In a matchup of 2023’s best, Bigg K vs. Twork was a heavyweight matchup that pitted the 1st and 2nd place for last year’s COTY against each other. With the 1st round starting on Twork, the key element of the battle being showed off rip: explosiveness. In what was very possibly the round of the night, Twork 1st is him at his best. The wordplay, haymaker ability, and tailored angle punches are scattered throughout. Twork brought the building down for what felt like 10 min + in a round that could only be beaten by equal 10/10 output. Bigg K’s 1st, in response, was a solid round, although not given full respect by the crowd. His signature strengths of punching, pure rapping, and angling were all on display. But with so many fewer reps in these larger crowd settings than Twork, added to a notably harder crowd to control, the difference in the performance and crowd control aspects between the battlers was evident. The constant stopping through K’s round and interacting with the audience made it hard for K to build up the momentum necessary to match those haymaker highs, making an already difficult task harder. Even verus a good Bigg K round, Twork was up a very clear and dominate 1-0.
The 2nd round had the same result as the 1st. While the 1st half of Twork 1st was well written as well he wasn’t landing at the same rate of his 1st but picked up to that same level as the round went on. It was two rounds of Twork at his highest form, and by this point, he had the building in the palm of his hand. This made K’s job even harder in the bottom of the 2nd, as his more angle-based approach was harder to build up and get a message across with an even more restless crowd that kind of gave the feeling Twork had taken the air out of the room. While all K’s approaches in this battle (Plate angle, alcohol angle, difference in career path, etc.) were all good ones to take, it’s just very difficult to execute in this setting as well as in front of such a polar opposite and high energy approach. It was a clear 2-0 heading into the final round.
And the 3rd is as clear as the rest, this time even being by default as K has a choke, or at least a very awkward stumble in his 3rd, against another good and clean Twork round. The weakest of Twork’s rounds still was checking out from a content perspective and, at this point, was finishing off what was already a clean result. Twork with the clear POTN, and while not even a bad Bigg K as far as content, this shows the importance of all aspects in Battle Rap and an example of certain matchups being tough regardless if the talent of both battlers be top 1%. The big stage is where Twork’s strengths can be used at maximum capacity, and it was shown here with a masterful 3-0 over the reigning COTY.
Who do you have winning beween Nu Jerzey Twork vs Bigg K ?
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) November 9, 2024
Hitman Holla vs Geechi Gotti
4.25 ☆ Rating Recapped by Q Moody
The stakes of battles this big are colossal. They can be legacy defining or legacy tarnishing. Especially with one that’s been in the makings as long as Geechi Gotti and Hitman Holla was. Two on stage faceoffs in two different leagues before eventually being set up on Bags and Bodies, it felt like a battle everyone wanted but for whatever reasons became out of reach.
Thankfully they took matters into their own hands and we still got to see this battle take place.
Coming into the battle it felt like Geechi Gotti had the advantage on the promotional side. From being able to pick at and troll Hitman with mentioning the Aye Verb tension, reusing lines in his Bars on I-95 freestyle, utilizing the “fake tough guy” angle and the icing on the cake was the appearance on both battlers made on stream with Wack 100 and Joe Budden and the talking point that came out of it of the validity of Hitman Holla’s alleged gang ties.
For a battle of this magnitude, controlling the narrative coming in can be a massive advantage and I’ll be honest, I was worried about Hitman’s chances in this battle for that reason.
And it doesn’t help matters that Geechi’s first round is excellent and masterfully crafted in terms of using all his time for direct and cutting attacks on Hitman’s credibility and character. It’s probably the best angling someone has done on Hitman since the Tsu Surf battle. There are not many people who can put everything about you in question the way a focused Geechi can. But he also has the lines and punches to match. Stuff like “more Bounties on Hitman than John Wick”, “looking for a fade/they already lined you up”, and “crazy you got all these Lueders with you/they just took yo shit and ran with it” are all stand outs, but this section here is just flawless writing:
“a nigga that fake gang bang like you can’t even get next to me
you ain’t even have the sauce, these niggas gave you the recipe
they was like ‘nigga you gotta learn to bang on niggas’
He was like ‘what am I supposed to do’
They was like ‘nigga walk over there and let’s just see
You ask a nigga what a represent, then chunk up the letter P’
He was like ‘alright I think I’m ready’
They said “naw nigga you better be’
He walked over there voice cracking
And then forced out a ‘where you from?’ like a refugee”
Geechi does rap for a long time in his first and I think maybe over-rapping took this round from being almost unbeatable to cracking a window of opportunity if Hitman had enough fire power. But Geechi was phenomenal in this round and a Hitman fan had to have some fears.
But Hitman did what all-time greats do. Standing in the face of adversity he brought the heat himself and made this round extremely competitive. What Hitman maybe didn’t have in terms of character assassinating angling, he made up for with his energy, efficient punching and scheming and that ability he has to switch between flows so effortlessly. I went from listening to Hitman and thinking “this is a good round but it’s not enough” to by the end really not being sure who I had winning the round. He blends in some legacy talk with angling as well when we reach the segment where Hitman says:
“See you got this ego like you a pioneer
Fuck a walk take this jump with me
Cuz you ain’t do nothing for URL
Except sit back and reap the benefits of that streaming company
When technically you should be thanking me
Yo Smack, I ain’t impressed with ‘em
They ain’t get that deal cuz of you
Man URL had to use my numbers to convince Caffeine to invest with ‘em
Cuz I was must see TV
Cuz I had the Christmas drops
I’m who the people vote
The world was sleep on his battles
He had to rely on Caffeine to keep the people woke
Talking about ‘where was Hitman Holla during the Covid era?’
Getting paid, living out my dreams too
Nick Cannon got me a Pepsi sponsor
So although I never stepped on that platform
I was somewhere making money off Caffeine too”
I also thought this segment here was one of the most creative things I’ve heard Hitman write and one of the best sports bars I’ve heard in awhile:
“When it’s war
All I need is Jason Williams, Bill Russell, Melo, Bron and Kyrie
And imma never switch crews
Cuz I feel like imma win
With them .556s and .762s
I can sub Yao Ming
That’s a 7’6 too
I shoot him in a Philly jersey
That’s a 7 6 too (76er)”
Hitman closes strong, too, with the Welvin The Great/Deez Nuts. Gotti flips and leaves this round being almost impossible to call. For how spectacular Gotti was, Hitman was firing on all cylinders the whole round. It’s a razor close round and really will come down to preference, but gun to my head I give the round to Geechi.
The Eazy/Hitman/Geechi round robin is really a fascinating study of the margin for error in these big main-event battles. Because all three battles share this in common: the first rounds are extremely close, but then the 2nd round is where separation is created and in all of the battles between these greats. That separation always comes in the way of tactical choices and angle approach.
Geechi starts off his 2nd round with a few rebuttals. The “I’m a Boy Damon” one is very funny, and I thought the Spike Lee movie one was too, but I want to highlight another one. He has a rebuttal for Hitman’s “laid up in the hospital next to Verb momma” bar, and it’s along the lines of “You said this, but when Cinnamon was in the hospital, it wasn’t funny”
The rebuttal lands, and it’s effective, but there’s this level of bending the truth here that makes it hard to really get into the bar. The Hitman and Verb fallout has been highly covered and publicized, it’s out there for us to pay attention to and have a timeline of. Just calling a spade a spade, Verb is the one who took it to the level of saying disparaging things about loved ones. So anything Hitman does say isn’t some unprovoked attack or case of taking things “too far.” Because I have that level of awareness because of how public the situation is, it makes it hard to immerse myself in Gotti’s spin on it, and that really is the tale for this whole round.
I want to be clear: Gotti’s round got over in the room and was well received by the PPV viewers. Because of that, there are a lot of people who have Gotti winning the first two rounds. It was effective, and it worked; I’m not here to argue against or debate that at all. But when I analyze the content, there are things it’s hard for me to be able to buy into, despite how well Geechi packages it.
Straight up, spending so much time on the idea that Cinnamon didn’t get shot does nothing for me. It’s a nonsensical statement to say the whole thing was orchestrated as some publicity stunt. It’s an angle that doesn’t land for me, and it feels like Gotti doesn’t even believe it. The first sign is the Verb rebuttal, and he mentions Cinnamon being in the hospital. If you don’t think she got shot or that it was fake, why is your counterpoint based on the reality that she was hospitalized? He spends a good amount of time trying to illustrate how preposterous the story of her getting shot is, just to then switch about halfway through and say, “Well, I love black women, so let’s just say she did get shot.”
What was I supposed to take the first half of the angle as then? Comedy? A half-baked conspiracy theory that he didn’t even believe? I’m not really sure what to make of it. Again, it worked, but after how great I watched Geechi be in the first with how airtight that writing was, the 2nd round is a clear drop off in the level of focus in my opinion.
Where he does heat up for me is that later approach of saying that Cinnamon getting caught up in that situation was Hitman’s fault because of his temperament and the way he flashes and gloats about his lifestyle. And he gets some great bars out of it, the “letting her engage in a shootout when she’s not even engaged to you” hit heavy, but this whole stretch feels like a retread of ground Eazy the Block Captain already thoroughly tackled in his battle with Hitman.
Geechi closes with some Verb stuff, and while I do like the line of Big Gerald responding to Verb in Verb and Hitman’s famous battle was a sign of the respect Hitman’s father had for Verb, the angle Geechi takes with Hitman being salty about Verb’s 3rd round from their battle being the impetus for their tension is another thing where that is pretty much impossible for me to give points for. Again, the feud between those two has been highly discussed everywhere. Enough has been put out there for us as outsiders to be able to draw our own conclusions and what we believe based on the info we’ve been provided and because of that, this is a hard angle to sell me on.
The flip side of this is Hitman starts his round with some content alleging things about Geechi Gotti’s wife. After everything I said about Geechi’s round, I’d be a hypocrite to not pose some skepticism to what Hitman is presenting. For me though, I do find there to be at least a little bit of difference between accusing somebody of sleeping around versus accusing someone of setting up a fake home invasion to garner sympathy and attention.
With that being addressed, Hitman had a great haymaker in the midst of that angle with “ignore the red flags,” and it allowed him to get into his storytelling bag, something we don’t get to see him do too much of these days but was one of his old calling cards. And the way he was able to build that into the “yousa bitch” slogan flip pocket and the way it kept building to the “made in China” bar is a testament to Hitman’s ridiculously underrated rapping skills.
From then on Hitman’s just flowing, the pocket and rhythm he’s in is just building more and more momentum. That Hitman flow that’s some sort of chain punching/Philly flow hybrid, has a snowball effect when it gets going. And what’s great about Hitman is his in-between lines aren’t just filler material; they’re actually well-thought-out great jabs before the big swing. His “I’m Hitman, a penthouse suite with the balcony, that’s the only views that I pay for,” and how he gets, there is all built on how well he’s rapping and structuring everything. With how potent Hitman was all around, I have Hitman taking round 2.
Geechi doesn’t write uphill the way he did for Eazy and I think that comes back to bite him a bit. Maybe his idea was to front load his material because the perception of Hitman is he isn’t known for being great all 3 rounds, but with how lackadaisical Geechi’s 3rd is and how strong Hitman closes, it wound up not being the greatest move. Geechi’s 3rd is solid, it’s classic Geechi with some quotables but it doesn’t reach the heights we’ve seen his 3rds take in other big battles with that sort of content. It feels like he takes his foot off the gas.
Because of that, the door was wide open for Hitman to take the third round and I think he does. This was Hitman’s most up-and-down round. He starts off solid, and he gets some reaction for Gotti studying criminal justice material, but it’s far from Hitman’s most compelling content of the battle, though it’s definitely more interesting than what Gotti chose to do. The comedian scheme was cool, but after that, I felt like we were venturing into some outdated bar territory. But Hitman closed strong with revisiting his “the contract said…” bar and turning his focus back to Cinnamon and addressing the situation in his own way:
“Yo, y’all really laughed at my girl
Tried to make a game bout her
Like I wasn’t in the hospital for weeks
Tryna cry the pain out her
Like it wasn’t shell cases all around the crib
Man I went in flames bout her
Talking to myself so much
That I damn near went insane bout her
Like Holla, you famous
It’s time for you to change Holla
You on Wild N’ Out
But not you wildin’ out, that’s not the same Holla
But the devil kept popping up like
‘Huh, oh you lame Holla
They really tried to kill yo girl
That’s a shame Holla
What you gone do about it?’
I said what should I do?
He said ‘you tell me
They shot her point blank range
And I tried to knock the brains out her’
I gotta reload with that bullet that came out her
So when you bring up Cinnamon
And all the lies I can see
Make sure you let the world know
She was riding like a G
It was 4 against 1
She was firing at 3
My baby really gotta switch
She ain’t hide behind a tree”
Some of Hitman’s most powerful writings are perfectly placed to counteract what Geechi said earlier in the battle and are flawless ways to take control of a close battle. I have Hitman winning the 3rd, and thus, I have him winning this battle 2-1 in a stellar main event where both of these legends brought it.
There’s not much left to say about these two men. In my eyes, these are two of the three best battle rappers of all time. For both of them, it crosses into that realm of a legacy match and they both showed why they are who they are. Geechi faced another god-tier name and walked away with a more than strong enough case to say he had won the battle. He’s collected every name possible and deserves to be in the conversation of the best ever to do it.
But Hitman, with everything that’s been going on this year from the Mook drama that spilled into the Verb beef, there were plenty of stigmas and narratives following him coming into this battle. And in the face of that, he put on one of his most impressive performances of all time. Hitman doesn’t need to battle rap anymore. He hasn’t needed to for a long time. He doesn’t have to show up to the events and give love and time to the culture that he continues to do. He’s truly grown to a place where he’s transcended the genre. Appreciate him while he’s here. Because of everything he’s accomplished, he doesn’t have to put his legacy on the line anymore, but he does out of a love of competition and battle rap. He’s one of the best ever to do this, maybe THE best to ever do it, and effort like this makes the case why.
Who do you have winning between Hitman Holla vs Geechi Gotti?
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) November 10, 2024
