LTBR Award Recipients
Battle of the Night: Aye Verb vs Shotgun Suge | Saflare Sole vs Footz
Round Of The Night: Shotgun Suge 2nd round | Aye Verb 1st round | Casey Jay 3rd round | Footz 3rd round
The biggest win of the Night: Casey Jay over Arsonal
Best Individual Performances of the night: #1a Shotgun Suge | #1b Aye Verb | #2 Footz |#3 Casey Jay | #4 Saflare Sole
Saflare Sole vs Footz
If you’re familiar with these guys, you knew there was sleeper battle of the night potential and they for sure delivered a great opener to the card. The only round I have as clear is the Footz in the first round, but the second and third are highly debatable. The flow pockets and witty lines and performance from Footz in that second had it looking like Saflare might have been in trouble, but he didn’t just fight back, you could argue his haymakers and energy stole the round. It’s a similar story for the third round as well. No matter which way you call it, this battle will go a long way to proving these guys aren’t being pushed “too hard”, they’re poised and ready for the spotlight.
Recapped By Q Moody
Jerry Wess vs Kid Chaos
The surprise battle of the night was between Jerry Wess and Kid Chaos. Ironically, Kid Chaos was supposed to battle DNA on Volume 10, but that didn’t go down. Wess is back outside months after defeating Lu Castro on Civil War 2 and Chaos is fresh off this battle with Sheed Happens at Traffic.
1st round is on Jerry and comes out the gate with aggressive back to back punching. “He think he can’t bleed, I’ll expose him-It’s really all clout// Balenciaga, one shot hit the Kid (kiddie) he pouring (porn) out” is one of the bars to highlight in that round. Jerry projected, moved around, and performed very well. A lot of “kid” flips, but he landed most of his punches nonetheless.
Kid Chaos was lively in the first round-from delivering tailored material about Jerry’s scamming, combined with intricate scheming and narrative. However, some of Chaos’ lines fell flat-which resulted in some dry spots here and there. Chaos had a slight stumble in the 1st round, but he didn’t let it take over his material. Jerry was clean, was aggressive, landed more, and his presentation was slightly better than Chaos’s in the 1st round.
Jerry approaches the second round with the same energy, high punching rate, and aggression. Everyone knows Jerry Wess’ name is synonymous with props and they usually create moments. Well, Jerry created a moment similar to his bar against TeeWhy and it was the highlight of the second round: “The bullets’ll spit out kid/Kid (Ooh daddy) like a thot b*tch.”
Jerry goes back to heavy punching. It’s clear Jerry loses his place momentarily and runs back his material. He lands a couple more bars and calls time. Outside of the moment, this round was a step down from his first.
Chaos gets into his second round with a rapid flow pocket intertwined with some dope scheming, more energy, and aggression. He delivers a fire mountain climbing scheme, “Was supposed to battle Twork…now here you are mountain climbing, thinking you got strapped in but your efforts get repelled to the ground thinking what you kicking off the wall, but you don’t harness enough for them to stop letting you down.” Chaos continued to showcase his rapping skills in this second round, performing with more aggression. He was also more comfortable and energetic this round. In my opinion, he did a little more in the second round.
Top of the 3rd, and it’s back on Jerry Wess. He gets right back to his punching style, but he also gets into a scheming bag. I thought his 2k/basketball scheme was fire:
“If your shorty on lockdown, defend her (defender) or she gone line your a**, sharpshooter from a shot creator (create a) blood, it’s a lot of that, don’t play make a mistake, if I give it to him the nine’ll blast- if I pass it to ‘em, he gone make the shot, I got my Dahmer badge. You ain’t in the street, if you tuck and you ghost, he a Facebook thug, he only tough in the post. If his shorty under the car, I hit her with a big beretta-she hiding behind the tire praying to God hoping the rim protect her (protector).”
He ends his third with shots at Aye Verb, Tay Roc, and Twork. Fire third from Jerry.
The bottom of the third is on Chaos, and he comes punching out the gate. He starts angling about Jerry’s career and he is landing. Chaos is switching cadences and performing. He does have a slight stumble, but it doesn’t affect his momentum. Chaos continues to deliver layered, tailored material to Jerry. One of the lines this round to highlight was, “But the bitter truth is not that you’re lyrical, you’re just forgettable and so one dimensional, not to mention you give us dementia too-cuz when it’s through, we keep running events back trying to remember you.”
Chaos goes on to break down Jerry’s career and ends his round talking about why his battle rap career itself is a scam. A masterfully crafted round coupled with incredible angling and rapping from Chaos.
Overall, this was a pretty dope battle. Some fire content on both sides, just wish it was a little cleaner. But with roughly 11 days to prepare for this battle, Jerry Wess and Kid Chaos completed the objective.
Round 1: Jerry Wess (clear)
Round 2: Kid Chaos (edge)
Round 3: Kid Chaos (edge)
Recapped by Moni
Casey Jay vs Arsonal
This battle was originally booked as a LiteWork battle two weeks ago. It was rescheduled and placed on the Volume 10 card. Arsonal is coming off his Homecoming performance against Swamp and Casey Jay has been sitting since her battle against Aye Verb on Kings vs Queens in April.
Casey sets the tone in the first round with fast paced punching, incredible rapping, and aggression. Pretty good first from Casey. She was clean, comfortable and confident. Arsonal starts his first round with the “masculine feature” approach against Casey. Typical Arsonal, a couple of disrespectful lines with some dope punches and good rapping- but it wasn’t the electric Arsonal we’re used to seeing. Arsonal had a solid first round, but Casey showed separation in the first round-she was more aggressive, landed more punches, and had better pacing.
Casey reasserts herself in the second round with the same level of energy and rapping, but she steps it up a couple notches. Casey clicks on all cylinders in this round. She gets into this rapid flow pocket near the end of her round: “All my bars fire, you know arsonist – you had a rat on your team, you need arsenic – Wild’n Out wasn’t your element, it’ll never be Ars and Nick”
Second round, it’s back on Arsonal. He picks up the energy, more fire rapping pockets, some solid punches-but with choppy delivery.
Again, Casey shows clear separation in writing, rapping, and performance.
Top of the 3rd, Casey starts her round with the same formula as her first two. She maintains the same level of energy, introduces some more complex flow pockets, and showcases her incredible rapping ability once again. Arsonal begins his third round with a slight stumble and continues to stumble throughout the round. He can’t seem to get it back and pulls out his phone to recover his material. As he starts to rap again, he chokes and pulls his phone out once more. He continues to struggle through his material. Eventually, he ends the round.
Coming off a loss to Swamp, this was a good opportunity for Arsonal to redeem himself. However, he was unable to capitalize while Casey Jay had her foot on the gas the entire battle.
Casey Jay showcased an elevation in her pen, performance, and rapping ability. A very strong performance from Casey Jay, in fact, one of her better performances of the year. It would be interesting to see what’s next for her in 2023.
Round 1: Casey Jay
Round 2: Casey Jay (clear)
Round 3: Casey Jay (clear)
Recapped by Moni
Aye Verb vs Shotgun Suge
It’s a beautiful thing in battle rap when a long-standing grudge match with two longtime vets in the game lives up to and even exceeds the hype. At different points in their careers, Shotgun Suge and Aye Verb have been two of the heaviest critiques artists in the space.
They both had a thrilling and competitive battle. Suge sets the tempo for the battle and Verb takes the tempo and switches the momentum and puts the pressure back on Suge. Suge is able to respond back with a powerful 2nd round and Verb gives a very valiant effort to go toe to toe with Suge’s most powerful round of the battle. The crowd is enamored and you can feel the intensity of both emcees putting on a pure show.
We’ve seen their highs and lows, times when people even said they should hang it up. When these two finally clashed they gave us one of the best battles of the year. Suge came out firing from his opening bar, Verb came back with aggression we haven’t seen from him in ages, and from that moment on they both put their foot on the gas and didn’t let up for a second. There was a $10,000 bet in place and this battle was really too close to call. It’s a pleasure watching the greats in the craft go toe to toe and give us exactly what we want to see. Salute to both Verb and Suge.
Both emcees have been in the game for over 10 years and put on the best battle of the card and arguably the best battle of the entire Volume/Civil War 3 Weekend. Aye verb continues to prolong his legacy and shows that he is able to give impactful performances in multiple eras and Shotgun Suge has added another feather in his cap to enhance his candidacy for Champion of the year.
Recapped by Titus
Charlie Clips vs Calicoe
Clash of two titans. Two all-time great names take the stage for the main event in Charlie Clips setting the tone for the battle by going first. Clips is presenting everything that we know and love him for using his charisma, four-bar build-ups to heavy punches, freestyle abilities, and his perfect comedic timing to separate the tension between his bars and being entertaining. Clips is bombing in the first round and is clicking on all cylinders to start his round.
Calico however is completely gliding in this room once he has found his comfort and footing in the first round. He was able to hit any flow pocket he wanted to get to, while also being direct simultaneously and attacking Charlie Clips. Once you mix In a round of really good rapping/directness vs the versatility of punching and being humorous you are pretty much left with a preference round, of which style you gravitate to the most.
I personally edged calico in the first round because I enjoyed the content and rapping a bit more but the whole room is split on this round and so was the audience at home.
How ya calling this battle ?
— Let’s Talk Battle Rap (@LTBRpodcast) December 11, 2022
Charlie clips Vs Calicoe
The last two rounds are pretty clear in my opinion with the second round going to Charlie Clips and a third round going to Calicoe but the battles seem to taper off after the first round with a bit of the energy dwindling down in the consume not hitting as hard there was a bit of disrupting‘s from Calicoe side of people talking and clips chattering with them and fundamentally when anybody’s talking to Charlie clips while he’s rapping he’s going to make a freestyle about it which is always ammunition for him but as far as the optics in the battle, it seems to have lacked a bit of fluidity in the level of entertainment started to dwindle down as the rounds continued.
Although I was entertained and truly did enjoy the battle, I couldn’t help but wonder after walking away from watching it, should that match had been reserved for a stage instead of a small room ?
Round 1: Calicoe
Round 2: Charlie Clips
Round 3: Calicoe
Recapped by France
