Before we could I can get into where battle rap started first we have to examine what battle rap is. Battle rap is basically 2 rappers going at it head to head, bragging about what they do and insulting there opponent while rapping. It can be with against a real person or an imaginary person but battle rap is more interesting. You can either battle rap by making dis song or straight up head on Battle Rapping face to face. Sometimes battle raps can be spontaneous sometimes they are written rap verses.
Battle rapping was believed to have originated in East coast rap/hip hop scene in the late 1970's. One of the earliest well- known rap battles was in December 1982 when Kool Moe Dee challenged Busy Bee Starski. Kool Moe Dee won the rap battle of course .This event changed the course of rap/hip and more complex ed rappers started coming out. When this happened a rapper was no longer just a stand up hype man that could rock the crowd. This revolution in Hip Hop gave birth to a new breed of emcees battle rappers such as KRS-One and Big Daddy Kane. Big Daddy Kane said that the most important thing to him back in the 80's was to make sure he had a battle rap verse up his sleeve just in case other battle rappers tried to put him to the test. Some of the biggest known rap battles included the Roxanne Wars (1984–1985), Juice Crew vs. Boogie Down Productions (1986–1988), Kool Moe Dee vs. LL Cool J (1987–1991), MC Serch vs. MC Hammer (1989–1994), Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg vs. Luke (1992–1993), Common vs. Ice Cube (1994–1996), and LL Cool J vs. Canibus (1997–1998) - Each battle had unique rhyme verses.
Rap battling was mostly an underground phenomenon in the nineties and was the starting point of a lot of rappers mainstream careers from DMX,Jay-z, to emcees that are best known for there battle raps like Eminem. At times there is confusion of whether certain rappers are freestyle rapping or spitting written rap verses but I'll bet you didn't know that originally a freestyle wasn't considered off the top of the dome.A freestyle use to be considered a rap verse wasn't about a specific subject. So now a days all rappers freestyle
Check out what krs one had to say about rap battles of the past.
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