Feel about that however you will, and you are allowed to. I’ve little use for battle rap that appealed to middle America in the early 2000s, and feel far more lovingly about battle rap that remains grounded in the roots of the art form. I value battles that look and feel like battles, and I prefer what feels more like a brutal war of words than a comedic exchange masquerading as a battle. I believe in valuing overall skill sets, and moments. I am a Clinical Psychologist, a New Yorker, a devout believer in the potential of humans to do great and terrible things, and one raised in the era where battling and cyphers were commonplace. I should say a bit about my background, because you, likely a battle rap fan, wish to know my biases so that you may argue that these have influenced each of my selections. I will say a bit about some of my choices but not all. I am not beholden to any league or region or battler, and so you will see a wild mix of all here, as that is the only proper way to compose this essential and chaotic list. I am going to provide you, us, with the definitive list of the 50 greatest battle rappers of all time. I step into this space knowing that there is always the debate, often from those battlers so delusional, and fans so quixotic, and a community needing to always fly its various flags.

Perhaps we are that insecure, as a family. Perhaps we fear that the art will leave us and become alien should it grow. Perhaps so much so that we enable the questions of who won, and who is better, and which of our gladiators are best, to hobble the growth of the sport.Īrt, sports, competitors, communities, need stakes and definitive statements, and battle rap refuses to mature to provide that. Make no mistake, we are bombastic, and appear spent and angry, but we love this art. I imagine that we the body of battle rap, would simply find some other war to wage were we not to have the straw man of battle rap to burn in effigy. We, battle rap family, are passionate and brutal, and perhaps our beloved culture couldn’t survive any other way. Perhaps these rages we go into around every point of the battle rap spectrum, every fight for every drop of the art form’s blood, is what keeps it tenuously alive. We debate structure and round placement, and content, and believability, and wordplay, and skill sets and remarkable moments and profound impact, and agree and settle on very little, ever. We debate who is winning and who won during and immediately after battles. We need the exchange and the raucous that we tether to our opinions and religiously held beliefs around the art and artists that dwell in our battle rap. We tribal battle rap fans adore our lists. As delusional as battlers may be about their performances, and as blindly devout as fans may be when comparing their favorites to others and styles, and eras, battle rap embodies so much of what is perfect and affirming about hip-hop culture. As frustratingly self-destructive and contrarian as the community and its artists may be, it remains an achingly pure and beautiful element of hip-hop culture. I go days at a time wondering what battle rap would look like were it made ready for shared consumption, and less niche than it is.

I’ve been victim to it, wildly and gladly. I believe that you could as well, were you to spend a bit more time with it.

Charlie clips vs shotty horroh