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Quote:Tonight is the Iron Mic comp. I think many people will be going.
Yup, I’ll probably go. I used to go to battles at Hemp House in 2006, it’ll be interesting to make a comparison since Hemp House is small again like it used to be.
Quote:It was good, but I think the winner was fixed and so did most of the crowd.That is a shame. I’ve seen other battles that were like that years ago, I would certainly hope that it’s no longer like that but you can’t expect too much I suppose. Around 2006 it was common to see rappers emulating 50 Cent, wearing clothes 4 sizes too large and things like Chicago Blackhawks fitted hats when they surely did not know which sport or city they were representing. Basically, hip hop was understood as a fashion show. While there are still huge crowds of people like that, the situation has improved substantially since there are at least some real MC’s holding it down at the moment. Namely Kafe Hu, Fat Shady, and a couple of the CDC Rap Crew guys. Check this: CDC Cypher
Shady and Kafe are good, the others are still finding their voice I think. But the fact that this includes subtitles says a lot: it says that hip hop in Chengdu is becoming more about expression and communication than ever before. Still, the battle scene is pretty weak sauce here, but that’s okay with me because making good music will always be more important than battling.
I was at the battle. I don’t think that it was fixed, but the judging was an inexact science, since the host was just asking people to cheer for one rapper or the other, and making a spot judgement about which cheer was louder. The cheer-based voting system definitely gave some rappers a hometown advantage. Some rappers clearly had a substantial number or supporters in the crowd. In several cases, both rappers in a battle seemed to have loud fans cheering for them, so there was no definitive crowd favorite.
I thought the judge/host did a pretty good job of awarding the victories, and making rappers go an extra round if it was too close to call.
The two rounds where cheering and judging really came into play were the second semi-final and the final. In the second semi final a short Sichuanese rapper with a blue hoodie battled a known Henan rapper. Both rappers had very strong crowd support, and the host/judge made them go into 5 or 6 overtime rounds to determine the winner, because the cheers were so close after each round. I actually thought that the Sichuanese rapper should have won the battle, but the rapper from Henan advanced.
In the final there was definitely strong fan support for the local Chinese rapper who eventually won. The organizers of the event and many of the rappers participating in it were cheering loudly for him in the match against the Henan rapper, which could have been a factor. I didn’t think that the Sichuanese rapper or the Henan rapper gave their strongest performances of the night in the finals, but it was a good match, and it was a close match, and it could have gone either way. The decision wasn’t a robbery, and I didn’t come away with an suspicion that it was rigged.
All in all the battle was dope. The level of ability among the Chinese battlers has definitely gotten higher in the past few years.
Did you guys find the lyrics comprehensible? I remember going to a hiphop show at Hemp House and the sound wasn’t really done well to be able to hear what they were spitting, which is pretty essential for a rap battle.
I thought the sound was pretty good. I could hear what the rappers were saying without too much trouble. To the degree that I couldn’t understand, it was not because of the sound quality.
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