Preamble:
LTBR Senior Staff Writer Q Moody has recapped the Trilogy between Eazy vs Hitman – Geechi vs Eazy – Hitman vs Geechi
He has drawn a fascinating story arc and connection between the three battles with his in-depth recaps of them all.
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