A long awaited clash of two titans from the battle circuit, Oakland's TheSaurus and the current king of NY Iron Solomon (who also came by our radio show last week, audio forthcoming). Great battle, and since is this my pet issue I have to note: yet another example of the guy who mixes in premeditated lines beating a foe who demands respect for staying off the top. Are y'all ready to admit yet that the "all battling must be off the top" orthodoxy was never a good idea?
Yeah, off the top is over-rated imo anyway. If you have prepared lines but still have to deliver them in the flow off the top, thats the perfect mixture. You really cannot consistantly beat cats by going strictly off the top. It stifles your creativity, imo.
Posted by: Kai at July 6, 2006 10:43 PM
Off the top is the only way to go! This shows the most creativity of all and its obvious when someone is off the dome or if they are written. Anyone who is serious about an art form will not cheat to win IMO. If I wanted to hear something you created in your bedroom a week ago I would buy your mix tape. I think the premeditation line should be drawn to anything relevant to that day's events unless you know the dude or did a little research. there is nothing worse to me then to hear a "freestyle" that's content doesn’t even fit the opponent because they wrote it weeks ago and didn’t know that he would be there fresh to death but you decide to talk about his beat up shoes. Conflicting lines bore me.
If you want to see real talent make sure they go off the top. I got dudes that will request an audience member or a judge, host, whoever yells out a word (nothing to stupid) every few bars and they will fit it right in and still dog ya man out real talk!
Posted by: X-ceptional1 at July 7, 2006 08:30 AM
freestyling is stupid anyway.
who wants to hear a bunch of random garbage, especially when the lines are half-assed prewrittens anyway? even when they're off the top, they're especially boring.
i'd rather hear someone deliver some dope lyrics they really spent time on.
Good dudes, but the battle was corny. Neither were very good.
Posted by: SN at July 7, 2006 01:09 PM
I'm assuming you're saying Iron was premeditated, but a lot of his hits appeared to be directed at his opponent (unless he knew in advance who he would be battling, then that would be different).
Both opponents came with fire...Iron seemed to be marginally more steady with his flow, Thesaurus seemed to have better voice control (at some points, it sounded like Iron was straining his voice). It would be better to hear a battle like this OVER BEATS, since hip-hop in its essence involved the breaks (coke la rock wasn't rocking the park jam acapella).
Iron had some cool imagery (the porcupine line made me chuckle and there was one more zinger i forgot; i also thought the eric stolz/pair of bolts rhyme scheme was clever). i liked how the.saurus ended most of his verses...he was clearly off the top nd he's ferocious. i think he would have won if he would have had more 'direct hits' (lines directly about his opponent). when he started talking about iron's 'album', he lost me.
Posted by: Spirit at July 7, 2006 01:51 PM
that's funny, I went to high school with TheSaurus.
For all those people who think freestyling off the top is garbage, then those are the same people who can't freestyle.
If I wrote a tight verse, and took time writing it, whether I wrote it in 2 days or 2 years, its the same shit.
But to be able to spit a verse by thinking about it in a split second, and making sense with it, then that my friends is an artform that very few people can master.
I love Iron Solomon, and I know he has his lines ready to go, but don't think for one second that he can't freestyle off the top as well as thesaurus.
