SONG OF THE DAY: Anti

We had a War Games rap battle event this past weekend, our third, and it went down pretty well. Solid DJs plus solid direction plan helped. We’ve got a Brass Knuck title for the illest MC who controls the stage, everybody else get the fuck off, and that battle had both people do two songs (challenger first/champion second) then perform a third knockout song. The challenge was a female MC, Shamika Shard’e, and she absolutely fucked up the third song, like there was no doubt she was gonna win that shit. The way we run these is with a homemade cage, like MMA or wrestling, and three judges who score the competitors. Shamika won on unanimous decision.

The main event was a battle rap, featuring hometown hood battle rap legend Versity Rell vs. our champion Fellowman. Crowd was in Rell’s corner, but he did slip up in second round a little, and still got off some of the hottest lines. Fellowman won on judges scorecards, split decision, and there was a couple folks in the crowd heated about that. I mean Rell had his mama at the show to watch.

BlackLiq was one of our judges, and the thing I love about this dude is he’s always straight up, even if what he’s got to say ain’t what you was hoping to hear. Our host (my brother Remy St. Clair) had the judges speak on why they scored it the way they did, and BlackLiq was straight up with the crowd, no sugar coating. Then he hung out for a while, rode back to Richmond and hosted his radio hip hop show later that night. The dude is putting in work constantly. He’s put out a freestyle mixtape every month this year from his vast radio show archives, in anticipation of dropping a new album project in 2020. “Anti” comes off his last album project, which is slamming as fuck. I appreciate people who don’t necessarily slap that “creative” noun on their own ass, as an identity, and instead are just out here doing the work every damn day, building worlds. The rest of civilization notices little by little, and might not notice at all sometimes, but you’re still putting in that constant grinding work to build those worlds you need to see, need to express, want to make bigger. I respect artists like that so much more than self-identified creatives or people gaming the system with the same shit some other dude two neighborhoods over is doing.

Bonus footage of our 9 Pillars War Games heavyweight title battle rap below...