The Complete MC Blog

Of all the aspects in hip hop, nothing illustrates the thrill of victory and agony of defeat as well as a freestyle battle. I’ve personally seen MCs break down and say that they would never freestyle again after losing a battle in front of their friends and family.

Freestyle battles are the measure of a MC; it shows how well you can handle victory as well as defeat. Over my decade of rapping I have encountered hundreds of battles; most of which I’ve won some of which I’ve lost.

Here are seven tips that have helped me win battles in the past. I hope they do the same for you…

1. Be specific. No matter how good your lines are, if the crowd feels what you’re saying can apply to anybody, it will fall flat. For example, I was in a battle a few years ago against a real fat dark skinned guy. In this scenario, had I used simple jokes about his mother, the crowd would’ve seen right through it and realized it was probably a written line. While a fat joke would’ve been better being more specific), everybody knows at least five or six fat jokes. In the end, I said “ he looks like this the stay-puffed marshmallow man burnt to a crisp.” The line was so specific that the audience knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was in fact freestyling, and it won the day.

2. Use props. Crush your opponents with the use of props. A freestyle battle is a lot like a kung fu movie; the best battles are the ones that are able to incorporate everything in the room. Look around. If there is a run DMC poster in the background, you can make fun of someone by saying he’s nothing more than a sucker MC. If he’s wearing a Public Enemy shirt you can call him a wanna-be Flavor Flav, an aspiring crack addict, a no talent ass clown who can’t rap at all.

3. Jump of the Stage. The most important part of winning a battle is getting the crowd on your side. A simple and effective way to do this is to jump off the stage and get next to the crowd. After all, if you’re standing next to someone in the crowd while you’re talking shit about someone on the stage, it’s pretty hard for them to disagree with you, isn’t it?

4. Flip your opponents punchlines to your advantage. If your opponent makes fun of you for being skinny, and he’s kind of on the heavy side, use that to your advantage. If he makes fun of you for wearing cheap clothes, you can make fun of him for being a pretty boy. Any approach that they use on you can be flipped easily and used to win the battle.

5. When you can’t beat them at their own game, change the rules. If your opponent is killing you on punchlines, tried to beat them using a different flow. I’ve seen people win battles not because they had better punchlines, but because they were able to win the crowd. Simple call and responses can give you the slight edge that you need to win.

6. Anticipate your opponents rhymes. In doing so, you are showing the audience that your opponents rhymes are so simple you see them coming a mile away. The most devastating lines that you can inflict upon your opponents are the most unexpected. Just like punches, the ones you don’t see coming are the ones that hurt the most.

7. Avoid racial slurs. This is always been a touchy subject in rap battles. Unless you can deliver a completely original line about your opponent (like the stay-puffed marshmallow man example) you’re better off leaving the subject of race alone.

I have the utmost respect for anyone who has the guts to get up on stage to face off with someone whose sole intent is to humiliate them. Battle techniques are constantly evolving, and if you have any other ideas that you’d like to share, I’d appreciate it if you left a comment below. Best of luck!

Click the link for more tips on how to win a rap battle

Tags: how to rap battle, rap battle advice

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 11:20 pm and is filed under Learn How to Rap Battle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.