It's A Movie
Event Rating
Event Recapped by France
First and foremost, salute to Jai 400 Block for putting on a dope event on a Sunday afternoon. The Battles were scheduled to start at 3pm, but if you know the culture that probably means 3:30pm-4pm. But the first battle started at 4pm and we were out of the venue by 6:00pm. What made the afternoon so much fun is how Jai decided to exercise brevity for this event today.
Battle rap events are a physically taxing commitment for all parties involved, the fans, the battlers, the media, the league’s staff. Everyone in attendance will usually have to stand for about 6, 7, 8 maybe even 9 hours. Whether you are working the event or just a fan in attendance, you have devoted your evening and your feet to this scheduled event. This venue for this event was in a simple yet spacious venue with comfortable couches, seats and a balcony upstairs for a birds eye view of the battles. It was crowded enough to get the energy from the crowd but not too crowded to the point where you don’t have any wiggle room.
A two battle card, is the perfect bite size amount of battle rap I would be willing to commit to on a Sunday. The energy in the atmosphere was special. Everyone wanted to see some good performances. Jai may have found a blueprint with this event model and it looks like this certainly a project that he can capitalize off of in the future.
Respect the shooter ! Twizz was in the building and shot the battles today. The battles were hosted by Instagram comedians Darius DK & Mike Ruga.
Gwitty vs 280 Zay
First battle of the afternoon, Gwitty sets it off by going first. He starts off the round at a slower pace than his usual cadence and at one point he started his whole first round over after losing some concentration in his placement. 280 Zay kicks off his first round and immediately capitalizes and establishes his presence. Zay is currently dilating the pace of the battle as he is able to rally the crowd after landing a few big punchlines and schemes in the middle of his first round. Zay takes the first round clearly.
Gwitty second round almost continued from the exact same place his first round left off. A bit of a slower pace, but he up’d the aggression. Gwitty is trying to connect with the crowd but doesn’t have anything potent enough to really raise the bar or put the pressure back on Zay. Bottom of the second round, Zay is putting Gwitty in a highlight Reel and this is a clear 20 going into the third.
Gwitty starts to fight back in his third and lands a big punchline to start the round but then he had a hard stumble a few bars after. Zay has a good third round that had just enough to win but he did also have a minor stumble towards the end of the round. But at that point of the battle, it was too late for the outcome to be different.
280 Zay wins every round.
Danny Myers vs Jai 400
The second battle of the afternoon, the main event & the best battle of the afternoon all in one.
Jai 400 wins the coin toss and elects Danny to go first. Danny Myers starts off his first round with a strong pace, landing some big punches and he is setting the tempo of the battle. While Danny has a good first round, Jai has a great first round to counter. Within the first minute of Jai’s round, he is establishing presence, rapping towards Danny, rapping towards the crowd and working the camera angles. All while landing some slick wordplay and sets up a flawless Mr Miyagi/Daniel San haymaker, that the crowd was able to catch onto and say it with Jai in real time. The building erupted after that bomb. Jai was able to sustain that strong momentum the entire first round and he is now in clear control of the battle thus far.
Danny opens his second round with his signature rebuttals. What makes Danny such a great rebuttaler is he usually goes for 2 or 3 haymakers in his rebuttals so if one of them fall flat or it doesn’t garner the explosive reaction he is looking for, the next one probably will off the sheer fact he’s compounding so many freestyles. Danny second round is even better than his first and he sets a high bar for Jai to match. Jai starts off his second round a little slower but picked up heat and found the right pockets to tap back into the same intensity and force that his first round presented. And Jai ends his 2nd round very strong.
This second round is a completely debatable round. In the building, I did edge Jai the second round but I can definitely see an on camera playback case for Danny Myers in the second. Especially factoring in the rebuttals. Even Danny acknowledges the second round being the round to debate.
“i liked his first round the most. I would have me second and third but the people would have him for the first and second”- Danny Myers via 15MOF
Some highlights from Jai 400 vs Danny Myers.🔥🔥🔥
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) July 31, 2022
The atmosphere and energy was on point! Jai had a successful event, looking forward to his future endeavors! 💯💯 pic.twitter.com/p0Tcgzzdim
Danny Myers clearly wins the third round for me, bar for bar & fundamentally. Danny third round was his best round, he implemented so much of his experience in this round, adding humor in between the bars, comedic timing, freestyle in the middle of the round about Twizz while he was shooting the battle, Danny displayed crowd control and engaged them to recite the bars with him as he ran it back. It was an absolute master class.
Jai 400 had some turbulence with starting his round. He literally says the first sentence of his round, stopped and took about 30 seconds to get started. Once it clicks back into his heads he finished his third round and delivered it as strong as he could. Jai’s struggle to take off the runway, might be enough of a reason for someone to have him losing the round, but truthfully I think he would’ve lost that round based on content regardless. Jai was in control of the battle in the beginning, although I believe he would’ve lost that third round either way, but its important to always closeout strong and end on a high note.
Round 1: Jai 400 (Clear)
Round 2: Jai 400 (Debatable)
Round 3: Danny Myers (Clear)
Final Takeaways
Jai 400 has embarked on an independent venture, that was very successful for its first installment and would be a great thing to brand and keep for himself. I would add 1 more battle to these type of cards. A 3 battle event is perfect.
I hope he realizes the energy he was able to capture. There are somethings you can’t put a price on nor can you manufacture, and being able to have an event provide that feel, that essence, is already a major win within itself.
I would provide some feedback as far as just being more cautious when you change locations/venues for an event. To make sure you are updating the masses as possible and be careful having two different flyers to avoid confusion.
