LTBR Award Recipients
Battle of the Night: #1 Fonz vs Ms Hustle | #2 Rum Nitty vs Real SIkh
Performance Of The Night: #1 T-Top | #2 Ms.Hustle | #3 Chef Trez |
Staff Writers: Q Moody (Senior Staff writer), France, Justin Smolenski (J Smo)
The return of Mondale Robinson and battle rap is back! And salute to him because none of this would’ve been possible without him.
Mondale Robinson, if you weren’t made aware, is the Mayor of Enfield, North Carolina; he is also a political strategist, activist, and the founder of the Black Male Voter Project. He has been actively involved in efforts to engage and mobilize Black men in the political process, mainly through voter registration and turnout initiatives. Robinson has spoken extensively on racial justice, voter suppression, and the importance of Black political participation. And for what it’s worth, it’s safe to say he is a political figure you probably have never seen before!
This time around, Mondale partnered up with the URL and The Black Male Voter Project to put on the No Cap Conference, where a panel of intelligent brothers speaks to us about the importance of political awareness and education.
The Black Male Voter Project (BMVP) is a nonprofit led by Mondale Robinson, focused on boosting voter turnout and civic engagement among Black men in the U.S., a group with historically lower voting rates. BMVP aims to dismantle barriers to voting by using culturally relevant outreach and fostering community-based connections. Through building trust and providing resources, the organization encourages Black men not only to vote but to stay involved in civic life, ultimately working to strengthen their political representation and influence. And The No Cap Conference spoke to that.
It’s always good to educate our community to disarm them from misinformation and disinformation, which was the conference’s main objective. It served properly by having an open forum and a panel discussing the importance of breaking the ignorance and understanding politics.
Smack White got a chance to say how he feels in regards to connecting with the Mayor. “We bout to lock in and put some real good shit together for not just battle rap but black males in the united states period. we wanna create events where we can come together as black men to create thoughts and objectives and educate.”
Surprise Battles
Bad Newz had a memorable showing in his one-round battle against Woosaah, making the most of his home advantage. Woosaah gave a commendable five-minute round; in fact, his 5 minutes were fire, and I have no critiques for it. But Bad Newz’s dropping a 17-minute clip was too overwhelming, it was impossible to counter. Hopefully, we see Bad Newz more often on URL
Meanwhile, Kapo Bravado continued his win streak with a clear win over Ace Amin. Ace’s struggles with consistency or giving a clean performance, and it gave Kapo the perfect chance to shine. Showing his investment value with a sharp and decisive performance.
T-Top vs Jerry Wess
3.50 ☆ Rating Recapped by France
T-Top delivered a performance for the night against Jerry Wess on the Bars Over Politics card, showing how battling him on his home turf is nearly impossible. Battling T-Top in the Carolinas is a nightmare for any battler. T-Top is already an elite angler, storyteller & showman. Still, with the motivation of being in front of his people, amplifying his punchlines, humor, and mastery in crowd engagement, it becomes too much for anyone to handle. His last battle in Raleigh was against Mike P in 2021, which resulted in a body, and now Top adds another one to his resume.
One of the most impressive aspects of T-Top’s performance was his strategic use of counter-writing and timing. He showed his veteran instincts by switching his mid-battle rounds, moving his third round up to the second in anticipation of Jerry’s angle about a past encounter in a Bentley. This adjustment demonstrated T-Top’s level of awareness, as he knew exactly how to shift his material to maximize the impact. From crowd-participation moments to relentless angles, he brought the three E’s. Energy, Entertainment, and Execution. All of this made it the standout performance of the evening. While Jerry Wess fought back, the sheer level of T-Top’s performance and adaptability made it an insurmountable mountain.
Jerry Wess did have a much better 2nd round than his first and stood resilient in his 3rd round despite the avalanche T-Top was conjuring, so on the watch back, one of those rounds could be a little more debatable bar for bar in Jerry’s favor. Pen-wise, Jerry does write better punches than Top. Still, when it comes to many other areas like delivery, execution, and setting up a punch, performance, projection, and crowd control, Top outclasses him in nearly every other component. Side note: I noticed that EFB was deep in the building; Geechi Gotti, Ms Hustle, JC, and Rum Nitty were all in the building, and half of them were on the card, but none of the EFB members were behind Jerry while he was performing. It might not mean much, but it was an interesting observation.
Ms. Hustle vs Fonz
4.00 ☆ Rating Recapped by France
The battle between Ms. Hustle and Fonz was electric and set the bar for the battle of the night. Showcasing two of the best punchers in the league in an intense, high-energy intergender match. Known for his winning record against female emcees, Fonz went toe-to-toe with Ms. Hustle, who has spent the last year and a half facing some of the top male battlers. Their matchup had all the makings of a fire battle, with Hustle’s stature as a WOTY (Woman of the Year) contender making her the perfect challenger for Fonz’s streak. From the very first round, it was clear that both emcees brought unmatched intensity, delivering explosive material that kept the crowd engaged and the energy in the room at a fever pitch.
The coin toss is vital to this battle. Both battlers relentlessly matched each other’s power and had enough. potency in their punches to meet whatever level they set, so having a lasting impression was a clear advantage. Fonz came out firing in the first, setting a high bar, while Hustle matched his firepower with an equally powerful opening. The entire debate of this battle comes down to the first round. The second round saw Fonz regain momentum with a well-timed rebuttal, instantly recapturing the room’s attention. However, Fonz’s consistency wavered in the third when he blanked out at the beginning, impacting his ability to close out the battle on a strong note—a recurring issue. Having a weak third round will result in turning clear wins into debatables and close battles into losses. Though Fonz’s performance in the first two rounds kept the battle competitive enough to still give him a chance at arguably winning the battle, Hustle’s strong close in the third round and I gave her the edge in the first.
Ultimately, it was Ms. Hustle’s ability to deliver, match the pressure, and capitalize on Fonz’s slight misstep to secure the clearest of the rounds in the battle that secured her victory.
Tay Roc vs Chef Trez
3.50 ☆ Rating Recapped by J Smo
With maybe the most shocking result of the event, Roc vs Trez was a high-quality battle that ended with a potential career-high type of battle for one of the names involved. The 1st started great, with Roc starting off. Although taking a bit to heat up, Roc 1st is more of what we’ve seen this year with some of the highest level rapping ability mixed with quality punching, his “Left/Right, nothing right was left” pocket being a high point in the round. Although a more than formidable start for Roc, Trez responded by raising the bar even higher. As usual, Trez can start off on a haymaker with a perfect rebuttal to transfer the momentum, leading to an elite round for The Chef. Matching in rapping ability and energy, the key difference here is the punching’s efficiency and consistency, which just showed a level of difference in the material quality. While still a good 1st from Roc, this 1st was about Trez starting at max level and taking a clear 1-0 lead.
The 2nd is once again fire from both sides, if not better from both sides and is the closest round of the battle. While Roc tried his own rebuttal in the 2nd, it fell comedically flat before he entered his actual material, which ended up being a step up in quality from his 1st. He is landing more haymakers and even producing moments with his Scary Movie 2/Little Arm for Chef bar. With an even stronger round and a Roc 2nd at that, you would figure this would lead to a 1-1 result. But once again, Chef showed he was willing to take it to any level necessary to get a W with an insane 2nd of his own. While there will be a debate for this round, being it’s nearly the best version of both, I still edged Trez this round and gave him an early 2-0 lead.
That leaves the 3rd, which is the easiest to call. While material-wise, this was shaping up to be Roc’s best round of the battle, and even with some strong wrestling rebuttals early, a very rare choke from the Gun Bar King leaves this round as an easy one to decide. With Trez just needing to be clean, he went beyond that with a 3rd and final strong round, this time not just punching by angle heavy and one of the more all-around approaches you’ll see from Trez in a battle. While this was still a good Tay Roc, short of the choke, this one was all about Trez as he walked about with a clear 2-1, if not gentlemen’s 30, result. Trez is following up on what a career 2023 with a year was just as good, if not better, and for those that disagree, a clear W over Tay Roc should be enough to at least open some eyes to the run the Chef is currently on.
Rum Nitty vs Real Sikh
3.75 ☆ Rating Recapped by J Smo
A battle that was worthy of Battle of the night, Real Sikh vs. Rum Nitty most definitely lived up to at least most of the hype, and it started that way very early. The battle started with Nitty, who gave a good 1st. While his energy and delivery aren’t as sharp as it is later in the battle, content-wise Nitty 1st is what you’d expect as while it’s good, it also contains tons of gems as a more pen-heavy than punch-heavy opening round. With Real Sikh going 2nd, he matched this content in the 1st and added that element of high aggression and energy that was missing from Rums 1st. While the 1st was high quality and close about 2/3rd through Sikh’s round, the final run of punches in his t took it to the next level and secured the 1-0 lead. His Chainsaw with ya name on it/Rum Rum and Alien/Flying Disk haymakers were the perfect close to a powerhouse round and put the pressure back on Nitty.
Rum Nitty’s 2nd round in response is simply the peak of the battle. Getting into his haymaker chaining bag, Nitty raises the bar to a place few battlers can reach. With power shot after power shot, the round is Nitty at his best and goes right into the final of classic Nitty 2nds he’s built up over his career. Not only was it punch-heavy heavy, of course, but Nitty stepped up his performance and rapping ability in this round, turning it into a more all-around set of attacks. Feeling like an inverse to the 1st, Sikh 2nd was good in response but was a step back from his 1st, especially with the energy more against him than in the 1st when he did a better job transferring the momentum. It was knotted at 1-1 with four high-quality rounds going into the 3rd.
The 3rd is where the actual debate of the battles takes place. Nitty 3rd is once again very solid content-wise; however, as with many of Nitty’s 3rd rounds, the round was on the shorter side time-wise. Ending close to 2 minutes flat, it acts as a formidable but beatable round for Real Sikh in the 3rd. As for Sikh’s 3rd, this was his most angle-heavy round, covering a few different topics tailored to Nitty. Starting off with some comedy about Nitty’s writing style, he goes from that to an angle about Nitty not checking Diz for saying the N-word (ended with a clever FEMA bar) and then ends on an elongated angle questioning Nitty as an MC/lack of ability to be to cipher, etc. As with many angles, your feelings on the topic or execution of it can lead to different opinions on how effective it is. While Sikh is a fantastic angler and the rapping ability was still at a high, if not at its highest level in the 3rd, the angles, and more specifically the one questioning Nitty as an MC as opposed to someone who only writes rhymes when it’s time to battle, didn’t connect very much as Nitty is one of the few battlers that has appeared in many cyphers, he makes music, he’s even dropped music videos this year too. To be exact, Real Sikh has had five battles this year and released about ten music videos on his YouTube page, and Rum Nitty has battled ten times with four music videos on his YouTube page. It’s almost an even kill with the amount of work in general with being a rapper and Nitty is one of the more respected you’ll find purely as an MC in Battle Rap. Nobody ran away with this 3rd, as we both saw a dip in quality. Still, I found myself being more a fan of the shorter but efficient bar-for-bar approach as opposed to angles from Sikh that didn’t really connect with me or even apply very much to the opponent in question, which led me to edge to battle to Nitty 2-1 with the 2nd and 3rd.
It is a very debatable battle and a high-quality battle; it displays not just 2 of the highest-level pens but an all-around battle from 2 of the best in general. Excellent showing from both, and to do it under limited prep time makes it all that more impressive. Rum Nitty completes his 5th battle in the span of a month, and despite my opinion, Real Sikh can feel confident of maintaining the 2-year winning streak he has been on by walking away with a debatable. Sikh’s momentum is still intact, with a net positive performance.
JC vs Hollow Da Don
3.25 ☆ Rating Recapped by France
The main event between JC and Hollow Da Don was a true chess match; the tempo of this battle was 180 of the other battles in the evening. Typically, battles are filled with nonstop punchlines or personal breakdowns; this one unraveled with a little more authenticity to both styles. Both were fully tailored and committed and layered with their material and approaches. JC, known for his intricate writing, brought a heavy, lyrical approach that demanded careful listening. While you rewind to find more bars, all his haymakers paid off. Meanwhile, Hollow showed his signature versatility, implementing humor, his loopy rhyme patterns, and various creative concepts. Some connected well, but some of them fell flat. It makes each battler stand out with what they do best for a captivating style contrast.
Watching this battle live didn’t quite capture the depth of the content, and a rewatch is necessary to appreciate it truly. After rewatching it, I can say that JC’s writing was meticulously crafted to give each line a deeper impact, setting him apart from Hollow’s range of skills. I walked away from this battle with JC winning the first two rounds of the battles, rather clearly, in my opinion. And even the third round has a bit of debate about it. JC still delivers a good 3rd, but Hollow has his most creative round in the 3rd, as he brought out some props. He brings out two guys dressed in the infamous Amiri Sweater JC wore and clowned him on but also ties it into how battle rap is all about perception, and if you enjoyed using the human mannequins, Hollow wins the third. Very much worth noting, JC’s 2nd round was the round of the battle, and it was incredible, arguably the standout round of the battle and one of the best JC rounds I’ve heard in a few years, its the round I’ve played back the most when watching this battle.
For fans who appreciate lyricism and intricacy, JC’s performance was a masterclass in efficient punchlines and layered setups that rewarded rewinds and deeper dives. Hollow’s approach may have had some moments where it connects and doesnt; however, it could appeal more to those who value a diverse performance style.
