URLTV: Summer Madness 13 Recap - Let's Talk Battle Rap

Summer Madness 13

Rating

Event Recapped by Senior Staff Writer Q Moody

LTBR Award Recipients

Summer Madness, is perennially one of the biggest and most important events in battle rap every year, and this year wasn’t any different. Beyond the usual stakes of this being the WrestleMania of URL, for several people on the card, this event represented a do-or-die situation of the highest importance.

For Ace Amin, Fonz, and Real Sikh, this event could have had huge ramifications on their prospects as future stars on the platform. After a highly publicized clash with URL towards the end of 2022, Ave was in the biggest spotlight of his life and it was time to see if he was really on the level he feels like he should be at. The same sentiment also mostly applies to Jerry Wess. After years of being “underrated” and not being as active as fans would like, would Jerry finally pay off the faith some fans have had and display that he’s a top-tier talent.

It was sink or swim for half of the card and on URL’s biggest night of the year, all the people with the biggest question marks about them stepped up tremendously.

Full Podcast Recap

Rum Nitty vs Ace Amin

Setting off the night was Ace vs Nitty and it delivered on every single expectation that the fans who were clamoring to see this battle had coming in. And if for some reason, someone wasn’t interested in or excited for this battle, the end result surely made them a believer. Ace was the one with the most pressure on his shoulders here, after fighting off the bad stigmas and life setbacks that kept him from being here sooner. But Ace passed this test with flying colors. The only noticeable area of improvement I would note is it did feel like the excitement and adrenaline of the moment did affect Ace in the 2nd round with how visibly tired he was, but that has nothing to do with any shortcomings in material or preparation. This was the biggest battle of his career to date and it very understandably had a physical effect on him.

Beyond that, Ace was incredible and if one wanted to say this was the best Ace performance ever they wouldn’t be off base. Ace’s 1st round had great material and some lines it took the audience a second to catch, but it took him towards the end of the round to really land a bomb. That bomb he landed was monumental though and got one of the biggest reactions of the night. Ace closed out a very solid round with as great of a closing segment you could hope for. In contrast, Rum Nitty’s 1st was garnering reaction immediately and we left his round with a ton of quotables. Nitty’s round did start to lose a little bit of steam towards the end, so I do think the conversation surrounding this battle will come down to who won the first round and if you prefer the strong closing from Ace or the early onslaught from Nitty.

The second round tells a fascinating story because even though Ace’s 3rd is the round of his making the most waves, I thought his best round of the battle was his 2nd round. Even with the fatigue affecting him, his 2nd round was stellar…then Nitty rapped.

Everyone says it, but we really take Nitty for granted. Here Nitty is battling Ace Amin one week before he takes on Jaz the Rapper (with Illmac at Blackout also looming), and instead of coasting, he decides to arguably have the best round of the night. He truly is a special talent. Ace was great, but Nitty’s 2nd was just way too powerful. Some people might not have liked Ace’s approach in the 3rd, but I loved the content and thought he executed it extremely well. One knock might be about “indirectness” but the substance of his round still resonated profoundly with me. Oh yeah, and Nitty just kept being casually great, no big deal.

The best-campaigned battle in years lived up to every bit of hype. Ace proved that he’s ready for brighter lights, Nitty continued to prove why he might be the best battler on earth and we got the battle of the night out of it. Congratulations to both men, this is what battle rap needs.

Dizaster vs Real Sikh

…Sigh

Let’s get the bullshit and serious conversation part out of the way.

Dizaster was fucking terrible. Short notice prep isn’t an excuse when your opponent had just as much time as you did and he didn’t embarrass himself like that. The only redeemable thing from Diz was how hard he fought to get out of that self-imposed hole he was in heading into the 2nd round and I did feel like his pacing was better than it was during his last time on URL. Other than that, this was a shit show of epic proportions and he almost single-handedly tanked the entire event. The crazy thing is, Diz is coming off the Eazy battle where I thought his 3rd round was really great, it’s not like he’s totally incapable of being good or that I think Diz is terrible. This was just awful to watch and that’s not even getting to the third round.

There is something to be said about how long it took for Diz to get actual backlash and pushback on his insistence on him saying nigga. This is nearly 10 years of footage where we can go back and hear him use it, we can even hear interviews of him justifying it and completely dismissing the thoughts of the black viewers, bloggers, and battlers who all had issues with it. To be entirely fair to him, “sand nigga” is an actual racist term said to people of Arabic descent or perceived to be of Arabic descent. His experience being called that in that situation or any other time it may have happened is valid. Diz loves hip hop, Diz loves rap more than most people ever will, but no matter where you grew up and who was okay with you speaking a certain way around them, it doesn’t mean everyone else has to be. Straight up, someone doesn’t respect black people if the only black people’s opinions they care about are the ones they personally know or who agree with and enable fucked up behavior. If they did, they would actually listen to people who tried to talk to them respectfully and receive their thoughts instead of making every excuse in the book to justify it. “If y’all were real hip hop y’all would let me get this off” being said in response to the distaste and disdain the crowd had for him saying a word he had no business saying is hard to even know how to put into words. After calling a black man older than him with a vast knowledge of all things rap a “guest” in battle rap and this debacle, it’s safe to say Diz doesn’t respect the black consumer and we don’t need to respect him back.

Back to the regularly scheduled programming, Real Sikh was tremendous and looked so much more comfortable than the last time we saw him on a stage of this size. Granted, he wasn’t under any real pressure of a great performance standing across from him, but Sikh’s weaving of haymakers, angles, and humor was more than enough to get him the clear win and it was especially impressive what he was able to craft with limited time. In particular, his first two rounds are great and I’m looking at anyone sideways who thought about giving Diz the second before the fiasco in the third. It’s hard for the nonsense to not overshadow Sikh’s performance but I really wish people would take notice and appreciate this dude’s consistency for the last 4 years. He’s made the necessary improvements, had a BOTY contender for 3 straight years, and gives maximum effort. Sikh is one of the best the culture has to offer.

“The main difference between us two in battling, is I’m you if you respected where you at and you adapted”

Fonz vs Shotgun Suge

Last year at Summer Madness, it was a tale of two different stories for these battlers. Fonz, making his SM debut, didn’t get over the way we all hoped and got a lot of negative feedback on his performance, maybe even more than was actually warranted. On the other hand, for Suge SM last year might have been a career-high after having one of the most talked-about performances of the entire year and solidifying his comeback run. With Suge being a proven big stage monster and Fonz still having some demons to overcome in that regard, it seemed like an uphill battle for Fonz coming in. What actually transpired couldn’t have been further from that.

Suge didn’t look the most comfortable and confident from the get-go, with some slip-ups and a bit of stumbling to derail a decent round. Fonz didn’t have any lack of confidence or any jitters to slow him down, he pressed the issue and took control early on. Suge does get it back together in the 2nd round, which is the closest round of the battle, but Fonz continues the pressure and refuses to let up. By the 3rd, Suge seemed as out of it and lacking confidence as he was in the first round, and it doesn’t help matters that the 3rd was Fonz’ best round. His football scheme might be the best bars of the night and it’s up there with his computer scheme vs. Mackk Myron as some of the best writing I’ve heard all year.

For Fonz, this was a huge win and erased the stain of his debut SM. From this point on, a lot of Fonz’s most anticipated battles have big stage clash potential and he showed he can make the adjustments to become one of the greats. For Suge, it’s disappointing to see him after a great 2022 campaign, seemingly falling back into the same pattern he was in before. For as great as Suge was vs. Kyd Slade, his performances vs. Sheed Happens, Shooney the Rapper, NOME Impact, and Fonz left a lot more to be desired based on the new standard he set for himself last year. Hopefully, he can get back on track and reignite the passion last year that brought him close to winning COTY. The culture is better when Suge is great.

DNA vs Jerry Wess

In the biggest shocker of the night and maybe one of the most unanticipated events in battle rap in years, Jerry Wess didn’t just beat DNA. He beat him clearly and in emphatic fashion. This is probably the clearest DNA loss that I can recall since something like the Rum Nitty battle. And the thing is, DNA was far from wack, he was still better than a lot of people on the card. But Jerry just had the crowd eating out of the palms of his hands in ways I would have never expected.

When DNA opened his 2nd round with the basketball freestyles, I thought to myself “Yeah no way Jerry wins this round”. But then he did. This performance showcased all of the big stage monster potential that Jerry’s most ardent supporters always believed, that a star was there but he needed to be given the chance.

The faith paid off, Jerry put on display why those people were right to never sell their stock on him. Based on the clearness of his win and the difficulty of the assignment, Jerry Wess has a very strong argument for being the performer of the night and now the sky’s the limit for him after this. Jerry already had top-tier names wanting to battle him and after this, there should be no hesitation to set those battles up. This goes down as a clear L for DNA, but this man went on a 5 year run damn near of no clear losses facing some of the toughest competition imaginable. DNA will apply whatever changes he needs to and bounce back strong.

T-Top vs John John Da Don

I’m not mad at T-Top and John John. As battlers, they did their job on the promotion front and really did a lot of stuff to make the battle more interesting and I do genuinely applaud them for that. That being said, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that this battle wasn’t going to be received well. For as talented as both of these guys are, being two of the best battle rappers of all time, there was no pathway I saw to this being a great battle or overcoming the obvious flaws the matchup possessed.

This battle didn’t need to be booked and just wasn’t the best use of an appearance for either man. T-Top won the battle, but I didn’t leave being super impressed by any of his rounds. John John actually had the round of the battle in my opinion with his 3rd. All in all a very lackluster battle and it begs the question of what is next for John John. This is the 3rd straight underwhelming SM performance and for the last 2 years and some change, there has been a very evident decline. He has his moments like the Chef Trez battle being a great back-and-forth, but it still got voted as a loss. If his wins at this stage of his career are coming over people like Jae Millz and Reggie P, there really has to start being an evaluation of what’s the best way to invigorate him and reach the levels we know he can perform at.

Hollow Da Don vs Nu Jerzey Twork

In a lot of ways, it may be the biggest battle on the card. Yes, it wasn’t billed as or placed as the main event but this battle had the most consequential outcome on the card. Twork has been phenomenal for the last year and a half or so, being super consistent and being the usual Twork we’ve come to love while adding new elements to his style. He’s become the fully formed version of himself we’ve longed to see. With unfortunate events, controversies that led to departures and the top guys of the league all having beat the game already, Twork was the last star left standing who had more mega matches left to build around and push. Twork because of his inconsistencies still had a ton of matches left on the plate and in times when someone with fresh options left was needed, I felt as if Twork would be heavily relied on this year and this battle would indicate if he’s truly ready to handle that. Hollow has beaten the likes of Geechi Gotti and K-Shine on big stages and has a BOTY against Ill Will. He’s mostly thrived against this strong competition so this was a real test for Twork.

Albeit not his greatest material, Twork did more than enough to clearly win this battle. His first round was extremely explosive and set the tone immediately for a battle that Hollow might not be able to maneuver his way out of. Your mileage may vary on the quality of his second and third rounds. The second is okay to me, but I think the third has a few highlights to really latch on to and come away satisfied by. Hollow wasn’t bad at all and his writing here at stretches was very potent, this was also some of the better freestyling we’ve heard from Hollow. I think he’s really hindered by how short his rounds were in comparison to Twork’s, just in terms of round length it’s hard to stand a chance and put up a fight when Twork raps that much longer than you.

Not that Twork needed to “prove himself” as reliable to not choke, we’re well past that point with him. But in a battle where I think this could be the springboard for more blockbuster matches for him, Twork did exactly what he needed to do and proved that going forward, URL can trust and rely on him to deliver against the highest level of competition and with Homecoming 2 on the horizon, we’ll see if that is followed up on.

Tay Roc vs Ave

After weeks of questions about how Ave would fare in the main event slot going last and a long night of ups and downs at Summer Madness, Tay Roc and Ave put on an incredible close to the event. At some point, it feels sort of silly to keep having all these questions about Ave and what he is or isn’t capable of doing. He’s rocked big stages time and time again, to the point where I fully believe he’s a much better big stage performer than a small room one. The last battle of the night is just a difficult spot and not one where everyone can thrive, but Ave proved it wasn’t any cause of concern for anyone as talented and consistent as he is.

There’s something to be said about having a main event and high-profile battle not shrouded in nonsense or distracting BS. We got to watch two amazing rappers go out there and have a battle where that’s all it was about. Sure, there were underlying storylines and details we were intrigued by but at the end of the day, this wasn’t a battle built upon or presented with bullshit as the main attraction. If anyone has difficulty calling a winner, that’s more than understandable.

The battle really is that close and hard to call. Ave after getting ducked and avoided for years by certain battlers and feeling like he’s worth certain spots, proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, he’s worth the investment. And well, Tay Roc is Tay Roc. What is there left to say? Time and time again, this man proves why he’s maybe the greatest to ever do this thing we call battle rap. Appreciate Tay Roc while he’s still battling because he is the main event battler of all time and no one will ever come close.