Dollar Signs Help Resurrect MC Battles on Wax

Article by Bakari Kitwana
Photo by Ernesto Pontillo (Gala Graffix)

Since the emergence of NWA in 1988, the rap industry has heavily relied on the same tried and true gangsta/thug formula for selling hip-hop. Periodically, however, the industry does explore variations on the theme as a way of increasing its market share. One trend that seems to be gaining momentum, having recently proven effective for some artists, has been a return to the age-old hip-hop art of mc battles.

MC battling, two artists engaged in a back-and-forth verbal jostle for rap supremacy, has often been likened to a boxing match. Reaching back as far as the early 1980s, mc battles have occasionally made their way onto record. One of the most legendary recorded mc battles was the classic mc battle between Queens rapper MC Shan and the South Bronx bred rap luminary KRS-One. KRS-One’s “The Bridge is Over” was a response to the earlier MC Shan release, “The Bridge.”

During the overblown East Coast/ West Coast rap war of the mid-1990s, there was Tupac vs. the Notorious BIG, among a handful of other artists. Sales of both BIG and Tupac CDs topped the charts as fans hungrily awaited the next diss record response. The murders of Tupac in 1996 and BIG six months later brought an end to this war of words—and with it, high profile battles on wax withered.

“Battle rapping changed in the 1990s as hip-hop became a means of making big money,” says Hashim Shomari, author of From the Underground: Hip-Hop as an Agent of Social Change. “In the early days of hip-hop, mc battles used to be about respect. Today some of the best battle rappers don’t have record deals, in part because no established artist wants to battle them.”

Even if rappers won’t battle unsigned artists, mc battles on wax among established or emerging signed artists seem to be reappearing. With post Tupac and Biggie high profile battles like LL Cool J vs. Canibus, Ja-Rule vs. DMX, the more recent King of New York battle between Nas and Jay-Z, and the success of New York City mixtape DJ KaySlay—who’s made a career off such lyrical boxing matches—visions of dollar signs are again dancing in record executives’ heads.

This year, the rap world has been tuning in to mc battles like the one between Eminem and lesser known rapper Ray Benzino, who although having put out several albums over the last decade according to the Los Angeles Times, hasn’t sold more than 300,000 units collectively. But after taking his beef with Eminem to wax (charging that the white rapper is taking sales away from black rap artists), Benzino began showing up on Billboard’s top-selling charts.

Last year, Nelly, another favorite among mainstream hip-hop fans right now, was challenged by KRS-One, who though popular since the early 1980s, hasn’t posted the big sales that Nelly enjoys. KRS-One’s challenge to multi-platinum selling Nelly focused on rap skill and authenticity. In this case, the charge from KRS-One has probably done more to add rather than take away from Nelly’s sales—as Nelly was one of last year’s top-selling rap acts.

What may prove more significant and more volatile than both of the above battles is the more recent battle between new kid on the block rapper 50 Cent and Murder Inc.’s hitmaker Ja-Rule. 50 Cent’s attack on the more established Ja-Rule has no doubt contributed to 50’s near platinum sales in less than one week of the release of his Get Rich or Die Tryin’. Although an mc battle between these two powerhouses continues to fuel sales for both, battle rapping of this variety and in this era is not without consequences.

Says Shomari: “Hip-Hop has become a career and losing an mc battle could mean the end of a career. Now if you destroy someone on wax, you may be damaging their potential to get paid.”

Shomari likens this to the early 1990s phenomenon in hip-hop when rap artists were physically confronting journalists at influential rap magazines when artists felt their album reviews weren’t favorable enough. Rap artists then held journalist personally responsible for making or breaking their album sales.

Sergeant DeLacy Davis, an East Orange, New Jersey policeman who heads up the national organization Black Cops Against Police Brutality, concurs, but points out that implications of on-wax mc battles can go beyond merely rap artists to the street level, with far more serious implications.

“It’s a soap opera that has real-life implications—a war of words that manifests itself in dead bodies, record sales, and a prison industrial complex that can add more fuel to its system,” he says with an eye on the outcome of the East Coast/ West Coast rap civil war of the 1990s and the vast sea of impressionable hip-hop listeners who too often try to bring to life the street life fantasy of their favorite rappers.

If both Shomari and Davis are correct, the hip-hop industry’s latest sale pitch is the best indication that it’s time for the industry to do some soul searching. What fans really want are higher quality albums that depart from the old formula. Most hip-hop fans have grown tired of anticipating another great hip-hop purchase, only to be disappointed upon hearing another lackluster album laden with all the prerequisite tales from the drug game. And all the tracks in the world filled with artists bad-mouthing each other is no substitute.

Bakari Kitwana is the author of The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture and The Rap on Gangsta Rap. Kitwana currently writes a column on hip-hop and youth culture for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He teaches a course on hip-hop in the political science department at Kent State University in Ohio. He can be contacted at bakhannkru@aol.com.

A version of this article appeared in the February 24, 2003 Edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

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