Salute to Battle Academy for putting a ribbon to an action-pack year of battle rap with a start-stuttered event that featured Jaz The Rapper Making her debut on Battle Academy, a long-anticipated Grudge match for the state of Pennsylvania in Bill/Raw. And bringing in the hottest name in battle rap in Eazy The Block Captain back for a home game.
Major salute to Stizz and the productions team that went into their PPV stream. The visuals were beautiful. The audio did suffer some turbulence and have some mic issues but nonetheless, this is something great for the league to build off of and Looking forward to them sustaining this level of production for big events.
LTBR Award Recipients
Round Of The Night: Eazy’s 1st round | Jaz The Rapper 3rd round
The biggest win of the Night: Jaz The Rapper over Shiest Raw | Eazy The Block Captain over Big T | Bill Collector Over Rosenberg Raw
Best Individual Performances of the night: #1a Eazy The Block Captain | #1b Jaz The Rapper | #2 Bill Collector |#3 Hennyman | #4 Quban
Hennyman vs K Walker
K Walker vs Hennyman would open the night, with Henny starting 1st. A battle that was supposed to mainly showcase real talk and rapping ability, the result followed the script. From 1st to 3rd both gentlemen took real talk approaches, K Walker with a bit of Philly pandering (especially in the 1st) and the standout bar of the battle being Hennyman’s Dice Game bar. The difference in the battle resides in some of K Walker’s content, which simply at some points screamed OBC and a lack of cohesive penmanship. Hennyman pockets have been his strong suit in recent time, and with a slightly sharper pen, he was able to secure the W in a lackluster opener.
Results: Hennyman 30, 1st debatable
Recapped by J Smo
Kaboom/Steel vs TopFloor Lut/Newz
Next up was the 2 v 2 with some of Philly’s home talent. This battle was crippled by chokes more than anything else, containing stumbles every single round from each pair, with final 4 combined rounds from the battle having flat out chokes. Lut/Newz best round was their 1st, where they took a 1-0 lead by landing some good Steel flips (I’ll trash steel like scrap metal). From there, their lack of cleanliness led to a 2-1 loss, with Kabooms iso moment in the 3rd being the most redeemable quality of the remainder of the battle.
Result: Kaboom/Steel 2-1 2nd and 3rd
Recapped by J Smo
Danny Myers vs Quban
Danny continues his usual, insane yearly workload, taking on Quban who himself has had an impressive 2022 with great showings vs Yunus and Chilla Jones. 1 round battle, with a competitive feel, both battlers showcased solid writing, and both produced solid haymakers, Danny ending his round with a bomb talking about Surf in an approach against Quban. Bar of the battle, and the winning moment in my opinion was Quban’s Heat Resistant bar, which capped off a well-polished round that was written and performed well. Debatable 1 rounder, solid work from both, and I edged Quban 1-0.
Result: Quban 1-0, debatable
Recapped by J Smo
Eazy The Block Captain vs Big T
Eazy catches the coin in the air and it was up from there. Eazy starts the top of the 1st by pandering to his home crowd and uses this opportunity to show he has a high battle rap IQ with his counter-writing abilities. Knowing there was a question posed about where in Philly he was from, he instinctively uses real talk and city references to neutralize this angle and grab the crowds attention. Eazy was hitting on all cylinders in this round with the punches and name flips, pacing, conviction, crowd control, performance, and even humor. This round had the glow and looked unbeatable.
Eazy is performing at such a high level.🔥🔥 💣 pic.twitter.com/G2Ct1JL7og
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) December 10, 2022
Jaz The Rapper vs Shiest Raw
Big Bag Jaz man, what more can we say at this point? She’s in her most active year and hasn’t missed a single beat. 5 battles this year with 3 of them being headliners. 4 out of the 5 times she’s hit a stage this year, she walks away with one of the best performances of the night. Did we mention she’s been on the road for 4 of those 5 battles as well? The consistency of performing at such an extraordinarily high level, while increasing her volume exponentially, has been a remarkable sight to witness. And it’s notable how elated she is after every performance, rightfully so. Jaz has shattered narratives this year by expanding the boundaries of her own capacity in the most efficient manner.
Prior to this past year, Jaz has only battled once a year. And from October 2021 to December 2022, in a span of 14 months, she’s battled 6 times. (Gattas/Geechi/CakeLyfe/Shooneral/Viixen/Shiest)
Shiest Raw was overmatched, we all knew that going into this but the focus here should be on Jaz’s individual performance. Battling as a heavy favorite is one of the hardest things to do in battle rap, the expectation is for you to dominate and the standard and pressures of that are immense. Jaz managed to not only match the expectations but control what is historically one of the most difficult cities and crowds in the game with effective Philly references, sharp delivery, crowd control. and haymakers. She’s a master of her craft and justified for all credit and praise she gets going forward. She even got comfortable practicing a one-legged step-back 3 and landed a few rebuttals. Another elite display of penmanship and performance by Jaz. Her greatness is to not be taken for granted.
Jaz wins every round of this battle in a convincing fashion.
Recapped by Titus
Bill Collector vs Rosenberg Raw
Mic issues are the worst. The absolute worst, this battle was plagued with them, especially during the first round and it affected the momentum of both men. Also to have such issues in a very personal and well-built battle is a huge disappointment. Both guys showed their professionalism by fighting through it despite the issues. The thing with personal battles like this one, it becomes hard for outsiders to know exactly what to do with them from an evaluation standpoint. A lot of the material is tailor-made for a select group of people to grasp and understand, but I’m happy both guys got thru their problems and were able to battle and put on for Pennsylvania.
Bill walks away victorious from one of his biggest grudge matches this year. Although the mic issues hindered Rosenberg’s ability to deliver a more favorable performance, make no mistake, Bill’s content still possessed enough power to overwhelm the attacks of Rosenberg.
Bill puts a ribbon to an outstanding year of his career. Arguably the best year of his battle rap career.
Recapped by Titus
