Although this will likely go down as the most historically embarrassing performance by emceeing and battle standards, I think the choke-job spectacle Canibus put on yesterday for the Vendetta competition is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. KOTD has yet to release all of the footage, but some of the stunned fans who purchased the live stream of the event had uploaded a few rough cuts onto YouTube. (See above.)
As you can see, he came strapped. Not in MC Eiht fashion with a glock tucked into his waist ready to season some broth, but on some dorky old senile man type shit with his right arm in a sling and rhyme-book in hand. Yes, after what I’m sure was a decent amount of money to appear, months of preparation time, and a decade-plus of spitting hundred-bar verses, Bis shows up to battle looking like the biggest pussy of a rapper of all time, and, on top of that, resorts to reciting rhymes from his notepad after not being able to recall the apparent thirty-pages of pre-writtens in his arsenal.
I’ve spent the better part of today preoccupied by this event, essentially by way of Bis’s awesomely awkward human metronome act being an unintentional mockery of what rap battles are today. Years ago, emcees had to improvise rhymes for competitors who weren’t known until it was time to square off. Now rappers sustain arm injuries from writing lines like “You just a funny guy with peanut butter-brown honey eyes” and read bars to the crowd like it’s story time in elementary school. This whole Battle Royal event did nothing for the battle circuit but hold a magnifying glass above it so people could see how corny it has become.
All in all, I actually feel quite bad for Canibus. But I thank him for solidifying my opinion on the modern-day rap battle. Cats just aren’t doing it like this anymore. And it’s disappointing.
Filed under: CA All Day, Events, Hip-Hop, Music, News, Throwback Rap Attack, Yo! TECB Raps Tagged: | Canibus, Dizaster, KOTD
