As RBE unveils the 4th installment of their Full Circle series, with some of the RBE heavy hitters. Salute to the Run Your Day Production team for the visuals, but we will have other aspects of the production to point out.
Fans were eager to witness another chapter, which is now the most active series on the platform. However, this latest card left much to be desired. The battles were released to the RBE members only, and concerns quickly arose regarding the audio quality in several matchups. At times, it was challenging to make out what the battlers were saying, leaving me wondering if the final product would undergo further refinement to augment these issues.
Moreover, the transparency of this series has always been a concern for me, especially with some battlers publicly claiming that other rappers choked during their performances in the circle. Yet, the footage appears to show no signs of these alleged chokes, raising questions about whether the chokes were edited out. As the Full Circle series continues, one can’t help but wonder if we’re truly seeing every moment as it happened or if some of the raw authenticity of battle rap is being polished away in post-production.
There was also a controversial no-show from Jag for his battle with Swave Sevah, which has taken things by storm. ARP addressed Jag for not showing up to the battle. This series would be a good opportunity to implement some of the rising talents that showed up in recent performances on RBE to showcase themselves over putting on a name like Jag, which has been such a liability in the past. This is a slot where Dolla Bill could be inserted, and fans would gravitate towards it with excitement, and maybe for the next Full Circle, we see those stand-out names get a chance to shine
Ill Will vs Emerson Kennedy
3☆ Rating Recapped by J Smo
In maybe the BOTN, EK vs Will was a barfest that played out how many may have foreseen before the battle. EK gave a solid showing, barring out in the 1st 2 rounds, with his 2nd being his best. He also had an angle-heavy 3rd, painting a picture that Will had not made the most significant financial decisions in Battle Rap and how to use his brand more effectively. While it felt a bit far-fetched at times and didn’t connect consistently, the Sheet Rock punch he landed was very creative and heavy. Overall, it was not the craziest performance for EK vs top comp, but it was a solid and formidable one.
Will’s performance is the strongest of any of the battles, starting solid in the 1st but really raising the level in the last 2 rounds. Will is one of the all-around best in the game. He showed that by showing examples of rebuttaling (albeit not his best ones), punches, schemes, angling, performance, and comedy and covering pretty much every aspect, with 2 punch-heavy rounds to start and an angle in the 3rd about EK being preachy with a white girlfriend, his Jaime Kennedy bar being one of the cleverest of the battle.
His second is also notable and probably the best of the battle on either side. Will, like Bigg K, who also battled on the card, has a much bigger fight on the horizon, and this battle may act as a warmup for the year-defining matchup ahead. Will gentlemen’s 30 could be argued 2-1 in the 2nd and 3rd in a solid battle that may have even been better footage if EK rounds aren’t hampered by very tough audio.
Arsonal vs Rosenberg Raw
1.5☆ Rating Recapped by Q Moody
This battle is not good. I wish I had in-depth or poignant observations for you, but I don’t. It’s not a good battle. Rosenberg won, but if I’m being honest, it’s not a Rosenberg I left being impressed by, though I did think his first was pretty good. Ultimately, while I believe Rose sounded good, his flow and delivery worked well in the setting, but the content sounded unmotivated. His 3rd round didn’t share the same intensity in his delivery as his first two rounds. But my smoke isn’t for him.
Arsonal has been skating by on legacy for years now. When will it be finally time to admit that? When will it finally be time to be honest about the outright terrorism on battle rap this man engages in? Arsonal, on a technical level, is great at putting words together and making them flow seamlessly, and he has an excellent delivery to go along with it; I would never take that away from him. But his writing has never been a strong suit, and it only continues to get worse. This man has been responsible for some of the worst lines I’ve ever heard in battle rap for the last 2-3 years, and especially this year has been heinous.
The “poly wanna cracker” and “dry hump, I came from nothing” bars from this battle are genuinely fucking pitiful, and we should be holding our supposed greats to higher standards than this. This isn’t even mentioning some of the dreadful shit he said against Coffee Brown like “you from a ho nest, I’m just being honest”. I’m open to the idea that some of this is maybe Arsonal trying to be funny, but the thing is I don’t find it humorous. I find it embarrassing. Time and time again, I wonder why I wasted my time giving his battles any attention. Because sometimes, rarely at this point, you might get a motivated-sounding Arsonal. Like what we saw against B-Magic. Otherwise, it’s just been years of not-good raps. The same smoke people have for Charlie Clips and his constant bullshitting needs to be applied to Arsonal. We should want better, but maybe people want to hear about ho nests and dry humping. Be better. At least he got through his rounds clean this time, I guess.
Bigg K vs Coach Coreleone
2.25☆ Rating Recapped by J-Smo
Bigg K vs Coach is a battle that has been on the books for quite some time, and the matchup finally went down in the Full Circle setting, acting as Coach’s biggest RBE opportunity up to this point. While overall a pretty regular, decent battle, something that must be mentioned off-rip is the mic quality. While in the other 2 battles, the audio quality only affected one of the MCs; in this battle, both mics had the echo-like quality and made the battle extremely hard to hear cleanly and took away from the footage greatly.
Bigg K led the battle in a punch-heavy round with his signature flow and marquee-rapping ability. In a matchup based around punching, this was expected and matched well with Coach, who also brought a punch-heavy approach. Another similarity they shared in the battle was a plethora of jokes and comedic elements, K harping on Coach’s Twitter use, time with the Bricks, and his being a part of the group Bash Money. In contrast, Coach used a white angle to joke at K across almost all three rounds. The 1st was fairly close, but with nearly having any truly round-snatching moments, that more all-around polished style of Bigg K gave him a 1-0 lead.
The 2nd was a repeat of this, albeit by a closer margin, with both leaning more into the angles/comedy. Edged K the 2nd for a 2-0 lead, but at this point, the battle seemed more contested. Coach can get one back on the board in the 3rd, though, as this was Bigg K’s shortest and also his weakest round. While Coach didn’t have a standout 3rd, it was in line with the level of his 1st and 2nd rounds and enough to take a round where his opponent showed a drop-off, leaving the battle as 2-1 for K in a battle that didn’t stick out as a standout showing for either battler, good or bad.
Like most Full Circle battles, this felt more like going through the motions on both sides of the battle. When you had the mic quality to watch experience, it’s some low-impact footage that doesn’t do much more than add to each Battler 2024 resume and maybe a tune-up fight for Bigg K, who has an absolute war ahead of him on KOTD later this month.
