So I know not all of y'all are with it, but I've done a recap of battle rap in 2016 for those that are interested, including a list of the top battles of 2016.
Some general suggestions:
Rum Nitty vs. Ave.
- Probably the best battle of the year. Super densely written battle with punchline after punchline after punchline. This battle alone legitimately has half of all of the hardest bars all year. My favourite:
If I'm with the piece, your family's fucked
Headshot ya mom's sister, they gon' have to M.O.P. your Ante Up
Tsu Surf & Tay Roc vs. K-Shine & DNA.
- The 2on2 format came back this year and Surf and Roc tore the building down with their first round, which is all you need to watch (at the timestamp). Worth watching just for that one sequence (Beasley is the guy that broke up the fight later in the round, for reference) which IMO is the moment of the year.
BEFORE THE SHOT, HANES SHIRT
AFTER THE SHOT, YEEZY
Danny Myers vs. B Dot.
- If you were into that Loaded Lux real talk/less gun talk/preaching stuff years ago, this is the battle for you.
Iron Solomon vs. B Magic
- If you prefer a bit more flow/rhythm in your rap, B Magic is pretty much the king of that, and Iron Solomon is a returning legend.
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Battles are pretty long so there are some decent longer and shorter (some funky editing in this one) compilations of some of the best bars of 2016 that I think are decent at covering most of the good stuff.
Still waiting for Thugga to come out (or maybe he's asexual). I could see Drake being bi, tbh. Imagine the biggest rapper right now coming out. Would be a huge step for progress in Hip-Hop.
So, listened to Blowout Comb. Really liking the smooth, light-hearted vibe!
Mike Dean on the keys is always perfection. The autotune is always fucked during Trav's live performances, but I love those added synths. Dean's track where he basically fucked around with a Moog sounded great, but that's mainly because I'm a sucker for these mostly synth driven tracks.
Yeah that was pretty awesome. I only listened to Birds once or twice and didn't like it much, and I didn't remember this track being so good. I just went back and listened to the studio version and yeah.. it's not as good as this.
This live version reminds me of Nightcrawler a bit, which is really the only TS song I like a lot.
Mike Dean on the keys is always perfection. The autotune is always fucked during Trav's live performances, but I love those added synths. Dean's track where he basically fucked around with a Moog sounded great, but that's mainly because I'm a sucker for these mostly synth driven tracks.
I mean, I'm the biggest sucker for huge-ass synths, but even after a second listen I think it sounds too chaotic and I could swear some of the chords were off in addition to the off-key autotune. Would need to hear a studio version of this.
Lawd, I was not ready for those synths. Much better than the Colbert performance. Reminds me of when Mike Dean took Blocka to another level after he gave the song to Pusha T, although this is damn near a whole new beat.