Going down all the way in Germany, At ‘Don’t Let The Label Label you’ (DLTLLY) Hollow Da Don vs. Quill is a battle that’s gone under the radar for many, something foreign in the high-profile career of Hollow. Quill comes into the battle as a former Don’t Flop champion and one of England’s best, with a decorated career filled with headliners and a resume of top names like Rum Nitty, DNA, Charlie Clips, and more. Best believe, he showed why he is revered the way he is out the gate in the 1st round.
1st Round
With the battle starting on Quill, he opened up with a joking tone, bringing up how he “thought you quit?’, beginning early into what would be a very tailored approach to the battle. Connecting this to a “Hollow Promises” bar and then a Micheal Jackson Smooth Criminal bar (one of his best of the battle), he then began his version of the Hollow Lean angle, which is a topic that would be used all three rounds of the battle. Being very multi-heavy with the rap style for the 2nd half of the round, Quill attacks this angle till he stops rapping, with his “I had to change my approach/ from trying to kill you to trying to save you” bar being the absolute antithesis of his 1st.
Hollow 1st, in response, starts with a solid rebuttal, saying he “Bought a Beamer in Germany so I can lean in it”, playing off the angle he’s heard so many times before. From there, Hollow 1st just doesn’t have much, as it is consistent with primarily jokes about the English and a few outdated punchlines here and there (My clips are gay / no they bi cause they swing both ways). It may be funny to some, but overall, it’s a lackluster round on mostly all fronts. 1-0 Quill clear.
2nd Round
As for the 2nd, this was the exact opposite. Quill once again brings an angle-heavy round from beginning to end, although it started with a missed rebuttal. This time, he goes back to Hollow quotable vs Pass about being a Time Traveler, which is a creative angle to try and flip, but the execution here didn’t sell it all too well. This was mixed with a concept about Hollow not being able to find himself, trying to find the old him, and constantly going back to the drawing board. While there are a lot of good concepts here, they all become too jumbled up together. While multis can emphasize a topic and build momentum at times, Quill struggled a bit with his breathing control and a lack of reaction, and he just felt like a rushed and all-over-the-place approach by the end of the round.
Hollow inversely has his best round of the battle. However, starting with jokes again, he landed a powerful mid-round rebuttal about Quill taking a selfie when he got on stage with him, calling him out for his fandom after a whole round of him telling Hollow he fell off. From there, he a Pat Stay-inspired rhyme segment, some angling about America’s influences on Quill’s raps, and some bars bragging on his legacy such as “If God got a Top 5, I’m in his Top 3”. It’s not the craziest Hollow round, but enough to even things at 1-1.
3rd Round
Comes down to the 3rd round and of course, this ended up being the closest of the battle, although unfortunately more in a low than high quality way. Quill 3rd is still angle based, with an comedy based opening angle about LOM clothing, a mention again of Hollow drinking lean. He did get a bit more into his punching bag, with a Bill Withers bar and a good mid round rebuttal of his own to Hollows selfie rebuttal the round prior, but all in all still a beatable round. However, Hollows 3rd wasn’t enough to fully close the deal as he started with a few good bars of his own (Probiotic and Cannoli bars), however after a few more jabs he got more into a joking bag again towards the end with a very abrupt and stumbly cut to the round. Not the cleanest end to the round, so as stated it is up for debate, but even with the weird finish Hollow still had just a few more jabs that put him over in a close 3rd and gives him the battle 2-1.
They had a post-battle interview, which was refreshing to see after the match, and I would like to see a variation of this implemented a bit more often. It reminded me of the ‘Straight to it’ post-battle interviews on RBE during the height of that series. Hollow touches on an interesting point about how he felt much more relaxed as a performer because he didn’t have to spend bandwidth on marketing and promoting the match. His sole focus was just on the art and the performance, and he said it was refreshing to be in an audience of fans that are just excited to see them battle without the need for an extensive roll-out. It’s a fair trade-off. Sometimes, you have some matches that can sell themselves, or you have some locations that don’t get the opportunity to get events or see certain battlers, and that is a massive selling point within itself, too. However, that level of marketing effort doesn’t need to be completely absent; it could still be applied when the battle drops with interviews, highlight clips, and reels. etc… There are several ways to optimize battle rap content, but Hollow is right when he says the priority should always be to produce good content first.
If there is one thing battlers always say is one of the coolest parts of their career, it is the travel and getting to be paid to go all over the map and perform something they love; regardless of impact, it has #s wise the fact talents like Quill and Hollow can rap to the level that they are paid for to travel and perform somewhere as far out as Germany shows how cool it is to see the impact Battle Rap has on a global level.
