A Leading Force in 2022 & 2023
Most would be under the belief that reaching your full potential is all about reaching the pinnacle of overcoming the conceptual difficulties of your mental or physical endeavors. Battle Rap is a cerebral process, and if you conquer your mind, you can conquer your world. It’s never too late to sacrifice who you are, for who you can become. And over the last year, Ms. Hustle has made a remarkable advancement toward maximizing her talents, hitting new significant milestones, and extending her legacy. It’s always profound to see any battle rapper that has been battling for over 10 years and can still reach a new peak.
She is coming off one of the best years of her career in 2022, where she had two headlining battles on Chrome 23, a headlining battle against Buretta Blaze, and two judged victories on URL’s Litework (against men who ranked within the Top 20 of Champion of the year). Oh yea, did we mention she was ranked #13 on Champion Of The Year for 2022? Her and Jaz The Rapper are the first and only females to ever make a Top 20 COTY list.
Following her preeminent year in 2022, she carries that momentum into the entire first quarter of 2023. She has a dominating performance against Myverse & Shooney Da Rapper. A stellar performance in a main event battle against Tay Roc. She may have lost the battle by the caffeine votes, but the eye test will tell differently. And she is scheduled to battle Loso on Bullpen in April. After 4 Battles in 4 months, she is leading the charge so far in 2023.
How Ms. Hustle Reached Her Apex As a Puncher
Ms. Hustle is currently in the prime of her career as a battle rapper. There is always a moment in the pyramid where the apex is reached, but how did she get here?
Well, It’s worth noting that during the window of 2015 to 2019, Ms. Hustle had a 3.5-year hiatus from battle rap. During that time she was missing in action, the battle rap culture was going through a series of evolution in many different departments. Most noticeably, the biggest evolution was found in the way battlers were punching. The art of packaging a punchline in battle rap was starting to become more sophisticated.
Let’s focus on the anatomy of a punchline for a quick second, we know battle rap is built off of entendres and a punchline puts the entendre in the forefront to deliver its impact. Each punchline is created through setup lines that are followed by a punchline to contextualize the setup. Over the first half of the decade of the 2010s, we are accustomed to seeing battlers use the traditional 4-bar setup, with the 4th bar being the punchline.
Over the span of Ms. Hustle’s hiatus from battle rap, so many emcees expanded the boundaries of how to format a punchline. We all know B-Magic is one of the pioneers in utilizing punchlines within his setups, to give you 4 punches in 4 bars. But you can point to many battlers like Danny Myers, Ave & Rum Nitty who specialize in punching every 2 bars. Battlers like Tsu Surf, K-Shine & DNA have made a complete hybrid of chain punching every bar. Battlers like Jey The Nitewing, Nu Jerzey Twork, Daylyt, or Chess have their own unorthodox sequences where sometimes they mention the punchline first and then surround it with its contextualized connection. You also have battlers like A.Ward, Ace Amin, Eazy, or Fonz, that are guys that can build up an angle quickly for a punchline and pivot to the next subject.
The point is, punching has drastically evolved while Ms.Hustle was gone. When she made her return back in 2019, there was a slight disconnect in some of her performances. She wasn’t necessarily outdated nor was she struggling, but she wasn’t fully aligned with the new tempo and variety of the current landscape of punching.
From the start of 2022, Ms.Hustle augmented the volume of her punchlines in her first round by a large measure.
She’s nearly increased the number of punchlines she raps in a round by over 50%. But she isn’t just aimlessly jabbing or trying to chain punch for the sake of it.
She has a unique writing structure that gives an admirably succinct purpose to all of her set-up lines, which makes her punchlines efficient and sharp. Once she finds a pocket that she is comfortable in, she’s able to produce multiple punchlines within that rhyming pattern. And she also strategically places her words for a transition bar at the end of a chaining punching sequence, to introduce the next sequence. She has also stepped up her wordplay which makes it easier for her to deliver one-liners, and once you coincide this new writing format with her excellent abilities as a stage performer, she becomes a rampant force. Her vocal projection and aggression are both an art and an executant skill, that amplifies her own momentum.
In her battle vs Couture on Chrome 23, Ms.Hustle would lay the blueprint for what would become her Apex.
Let’s look at 12 bars at the start of her first round against Couture.
The beginning of her first round may seem like she is just chain punching in a fluid rhyme pattern, mixed with some wordplay and multis. But the reality is, she is showing the template for her revamped style as a puncher.
“You been gone for 3 years and now you think I’m who you deserve?/
Fuck I look like? customer service…? idgaf about a bitch making a return/
I’m just waiting on a word/ (Transition bar) >>
<<( New rhyme pattern)
To show this bitch I don’t cap a lot /
Pick up a hammer And send her to Ask(axe) God, Raganarock/
They weren’t thinking about you, I made this battle hot/
This is electric because I got on board, Static shock/
First bitch on Smack, I’m the reason you have a stock/
That combination opens doors for you like Padden Locks/
Since I came into this game, I been at the Top/
I been taking off Ture(Tour) but Stepping over you bitches like Travis Scott /
I’ll Grab the Mop (Transition Bar) >>
<<( New rhyme pattern)
This ain’t where you wanna slip boo/
Ms. Hustle is showing the prowess of her new punching format. She ensures that every set-up bar has enough purpose to execute the following punchline. She ensures that she has some slick wordplay to enhance the isolated punchline that doesn’t require a setup bar. She is landing multiple punchlines in the same rhyme pattern, and she uses a transition bar that forwards an action and allows her to seamlessly shift over to the next stance while staying connected to the previous sequence. She even does this funny stomp or thigh slap to indicate she is about to shift, almost like an indicator. And Keep in mind that her delivery and aggression are able to enhance her performance while she hits you with punch after punch.
And is important to highlight, this section of her first round for Couture isn’t just a secluded moment of her chain punching. This is actually the formula you can see her implement in all of her battles in 2022 and in 2023. Against Viixen, JC, Sheed Happens, Myverse, Shooney Da Rapper & Tay Roc, she follows this exact same structure.
Ms.Hustle has found this new sustainable method of chain punching, implementing wordplay, and intensifying her content alongside her polished and skilled fundamentals as an aggressor and as a performer.
“i don’t fuck with you, this was mad random/
Get backhanded/ I’m masked up, trouble in disguise (The skys) like a Crash landing/
i blast cannon/ *Sound effect* Till the Mag Jamming/
Gun Butt, Put the metal on Sho(e), *Stomp Stomp* I’m tap Dancing/
But the Facts Standing (Transition bar) >>
<<( New rhyme pattern)
<<If we got beef I ain’t big a talker/
You gon bring up that fight?
tell that Bitch run it back and the fade is gonna be different like a Switched Barber/
You won’t make it out the venue if I take shit farther/
I ain’t get checked at the door. so you know I got the arm in Rem (Rim), like Vince Carter/
This bitch Awakard (Transition bar) >>
in this stance, you can see she landed 4 punchlines in the count of 8 bars. She was able to rapidly compound the rhyme pattern in the first 4 bars, and this built up momentum for her to perform the last punchline. She delivered the ‘Tap Dancing’ bar with sound effects and theatrics. This then leads her to transition into a stance, where she reopens up a past story and takes advantage of it to make more theatrical punchlines.
The most astonishing thing about this revamped style is how it is able to supply and generate its own momentum. Oftentimes, Ms. Hustle being the headliner will usually end with her battling last on the card. In 5 of her last 7 battles she either went last, or second to last. Ah yes, the gift and the curse of being a main event. All of the people in attendance came to see you, but it is likely the crowd is fatigued from endless hours of standing and watching serval battles.
Ms.Hustle is able to reinvigorate the crowd with her energy which is probably the most impressive feature of all of this. The fact that she doesn’t let a tired crowd affect the level of effort she puts into her performance and stays committed to giving 100%, which is not an easy thing to do with a tired crowd. Instead of feeding off the crowd, she revitalizes them.
The only flaw I find with this rapid punching style is that sometimes you may come across some outdated references, but they are often packaged inside the flow of a rapping pocket or performed with the maximum effort.
New MileStones
From 2011 to 2015, Ms. Hustle has a catalog of 7 battles, which was filled with a great number of historical milestones and accolades against top-tier competitors. The body of work of Ms. Hustle’s career throughout that window of time consists of…
-2x headliners at Queen Of The Ring.
-The first-ever inter-gender battle on QOTR.
–The first woman to battle on URL.
-3x main stage appearances (2x on Summer Madness & 1x on NOME).
And yet, for as decorated as she was within this small sample size, From 2019 to the first quarter of 2023, she has gone on to eclipse this. In addition to her accoladed listed above, she goes on to have
–3x more URL Headliners (one of them being the first female headliner in URL history).
–2x appearances on Kings vs Queens
-Her first platinum battle on Youtube.
-2x Headliners on the newly established league, Chrome 23.
-A handful of clear victories.
-An appearance on a Top 20 COTY list for 2022. (Ranked #13)
-Tied for 3rd most wins on The URLTV App (Out of all the female emcees).
I’ve always felt that Ms.Hustle could live up to a higher level and what she has been able to do over the last year has exceeded the high standard I’ve always envisioned for her to reach. And it deserves the highest commendation and applause.
