LTBR Award Recipients
Battle of the Night: Tay Roc vs Snake Eyez
Round Of The Night: Tay Roc 3rd | Elijah Strait 1st round | Snake Eyez 3rd | Shotgun Suge 1 round | Th3 Saga 1 round |
The biggest win of the Night: Elijah Strait over Don Marino | Shotgun Suge over Danja zone (1rd) | Th3 Saga over Swamp (1rd)
Best Individual Performances of the night: #1 Tay Roc | #2a Elijah Strait | #2b Snake Eyez |#3a Shotgun Suge | #3b Th3 Saga
LiteWork Battles: NJ Twork vs O-Red | Chilla Jones vs Chess | DNA vs Calicoe
Recap Podcast
DNA imprinting his Management Company
Back in March of 2022, DNA announced the start of his Battle Rap Management Company ‘Get Money And Drink Water ENT’
Some of the lists of clients under this management company are names such as Z The Drop Out, Don Marino, Th3 Saga, Danja Zone, and more. So he pulled some strings and made the right calls to set up his own event. URL & GMDW ENT have a joint venture for this event.
Salute to DNA for always making special moves in this culture while still remaining an active battler.
He is a man of many hats, a media member, a Battle Rap manager, a matchmaker, a master marketer, a commentator, a Podcaster, an Active battler, a gamer, and more. But for today, DNA gets in his hosting/league owner bag. He facilitated 3 of these battles on the URL Outside card, promoted these battles with face-offs on his platform, and got everyone a last-minute bag to end the year.
3 emcees that are heavily in the runnings for Champion of the year being featured on this card will also have some effect on the standings for the end-of-the-year rankings. DNA has advised that these battles will drop on the URLTV App & also on Youtube.
Don Marino vs Elijah Strait
A heated style clash was orchestrated by Get Money And Drink Water ENT. Don Marino has been in the league for a few years and has gained a lot of experience over the years with a handful of caffeine appearances, has been on a few medium size stages and has battled a handful of heavy names on his resume like Geechi Gotti, Pass, ill Will, Marv Won & more. Don will be faced against the pure puncher of Elijah Strait.
Fresh out of the first season of the crucible, Elijah Strait has only been seen a few times in the league since his two caffeine appearances during the UM4 Tournament. Elijah is A potent writer and powerful puncher, and yet he hasn’t really gotten the opportunity to capitalize and catapult himself to the next level, until today.
This battle had 2 heated face-offs on DNA’s Caffeine show and the battle turned into a judged battle with $1,000 on the line. Don Marino sets the tone for the battle with a very polished round, great pacing, humor, crowd control, punches, and schemes. But he did have a minor slip in the first round, not drastic enough to cost him the round but Elijah lead the offense for the rest of the battle after an explosive first round. Don Marino fights back in his 2nd round with another round very similar to his first, he has some great highlights, and a little verbal slippage but doesn’t set a high enough bar to give himself the comfort of withstanding another explosive round.
Elijah is landing bomb after bomb in his first round and second round. Elijah opens his 2nd with a unique writing structure to his rounds. His second round opened up with some humor about Don’s Mexican bars, which led to him using wordplay with Spanish words, and then it transitioned into an angle about Don making a mockery of his Mexican heritage. It was the nail in the coffin. And Elijah displayed relentless pressure all 3 rounds.
The Judges for this battle were Dre Dennis, myself, & Troy Martin. And It was a unanimous decision, a clean sweep for Elijah.
Th3 Saga vs Swamp
A one-round battle that was set up by DNA for a style clash between Swamp & Th3 Saga.
Th3 Saga takes full advantage of this opportunity as he is able to relentlessly unleash a dangerous round for Swamp to combat. Saga was clicking on all cylinders and was completely comfortable in this situation. Saga brought out the violence and it was beloved in the room. His round was fairly longer than Swamp, but when you are in the midst of having so much momentum and all of your bars are registering with the crowd, they are going along for the ride.
Swamp has an uphill battle to climb after standing in front of such a good round, he starts off his round a bit slow and takes a little bit more time to heat up. He did have a few stumbles that he very quickly recovered from and once he recovered from those stumbles, he up’d his aggression and delivery knowing that the round was slipping away. Swamp ends the round very strong landing a handful of haymakers but it was evident that Saga just set too high of a bar with his round and Swamp failed to match it.
Let’s make it very clear, this does not derail Swamp’s contentions for being Champion Of the Year. He is arguably #1 for many fans, and after this battle, it’s not like he is completely out of the runnings or dropping down massive spots in the rankings. However, it’s very possible this performance against Saga is a battle that can be used to nitpick against his campaign.
Shotgun Suge vs Danja Zone
A one-round battle that was set up by DNA for a style clash between Shotgun Suge & Danja Zone. An electrifying performer vs a heavily layered pen in a small room. While you would be under the assumption Danja Zone has the upper hand with the environment that is present, right? Wrong. Suge was just in a small room with one of the most lyrical battlers in battle rap in his previous showing against Aye Verb. So Shotgun Suge knows very well how to use his performance to extenuate the lyrical dexterity of Danja Zone.
Danja Zone inability to captivate the room was glaring in this performance. He is always able to present witty lines and some dope wordplay but it wasn’t flashy enough or delivered in a manner that can that was able to garner the attention of the room. A lot of his punchlines connect with the camera, not people, and when you go against someone with such high intervals of energy like Suge, You are probably better off at amplifying your material to entertain than the room as opposed to trying to lyrically dissect him.
Suge instantly commands the room when he cuts Danja Zone’s round off and he is able to display a great example that sometimes the rush and momentum created by a performance bar, can’t be duplicated by a pen-heavy bar.
Layered punchlines doesn’t always garner the same excitement or reaction from a crowd as how an energetic performance bar can. Suge has been steamrolling the entire second half of the year, he picks right back up where he left off and puts on a performance in a small room that was identical to any of his showings on a big stage. Suge puts a nice ribbon on his dynamic and dominant run in 2022 and has a prolific case to be a valid Contender for Champion of the year.
Tay Roc vs Snake Eyez
A grueling match that could very well be considered a grudge match is set the take the stage for the night. This was the Main event of the URL Outside card. This is Snake Eyez 2nd main event this year on URL & this Tay Roc’s 4th main event for the year. This is a battle that has harbored some tension since 2019.
2019^
Tay Roc has been eyeing a battle with Snake since April of this year, during the bane of Midnight Madness, While Snake Eyez was the hardcore Belt holder. Although Snake Eyez did lose the belt to Stumbles and Midnight Madness as a league has put a halt to their operations, Roc still expressed interest in battling Snake, and we are finally here. The divine timing of the match taking place at this moment has so many layers to peel back. This is Tay Roc’s third battle in a span of 30 days, and he is fresh off of being in the midst of some controversy. As for Snake Eyez, he is coming fresh off being featured in Season 1 of Bags & Bodies, while also having some controversy of his own. So there are a lot of angles available in this battle.
The 1st round of that battle starts, and it opens up with intervals of high energy and aggression. Snake Eyez is landing consistent good jabs the whole round. Roc is landing some bars that are very well delivered but It felt like the content was almost equal. Tay Roc is a master at being able to maximize his performance & delivery to make good punches sound & feel great. While Roc is gaining momentum in the room, I actually have Snake winning this round.
After the 1st round, the entourages get into a heated exchange and the battle has a brief pause with a scuffle and things almost go left.
The Tension is thicker than German guard dogs. But after about 10 minutes of arguing, we get back to the raps. Battles that ALMOST go left, but can remain the course of completing the objective, will always add an extreme amount of value towards the entertainment aspect for the viewers.
2nd round is objectively a preference round with Snake Eyez opening up some effective angles & Tay Roc gun-barring his opponent to death. It was a heated round coming off the scuffle from the first which amplified the tension. The content separation on this battle will be on how effective you receive Snake Eyez angles to be, vs how powerful Tay Roc’s gun bars register with you. Tay Roc ended his 2nd round powerful enough to steal the round for me.
The 3rd round of this battle was powerful by both emcees. Snake Eyez 3rd round started to catch so much fire once he found himself in some pockets he was very comfortable in. He landed a giant Chop Cheese Haymaker, which crescendo his momentum and he landed another haymaker right after that. Snake Eyez set the bar very high for Tay Roc in the third round, and he was met with a masterful round from Tay Roc in the 3rd as well. Tay Roc opens by addressing Snake’s recent controversy, then transitions into some gun bars, and then Tay Roc has an immaculate segment in his 3rd round where he gets into a sequence of a 3-syllable rhyme pattern, for 32 bars straight. The Room erupted every 10 bars into this pocket.
It feels like I have rarely seen a room that wasn’t against Snake Eyez. While Roc does lands some big haymakers in the 3rd round, the room starts a 3-0 chant, and objectively this battle didn’t feel like a 3-0 in my opinion. It was a heated and competitive battle with Snake Eyez showing relentless effort and proving that he could go toe to toe with the best in the business, and handle the weight of being a main event name. A Successful way to close out the year. Tay Roc puts a ribbon on a Champion of the year run.
Signature bars from Snake Eyez:
“Don’t talk about any fight I loss, because at least I fought back
“Even if you was Onyx from pokemon you wouldn’t rock Snake”
“You don’t shake the fiends, sent a pack to Jamaica but it was only sent to Jamaica Queens,”
Signature bars from Tay Roc:
“Step on Eyes like Uma Thurman”
“You wanted to be down with Roc so bad since you were Young Chris”
“Strap squeezing on his head, he got on an oculus”
LiteWork Battles
To prevent any possibilities of Swaying public opinion for the caffeine fan votes, we will not give a verdict or a recap of any of the litework battles so that the people can see them for themselves.
But we got 3 dope battles for Litework.
1. O-red vs Nu Jerzey Twork
2. DNA vs Calicoe
3. Chilla Jones vs Chess
