Step Into The Ring: Mainstream Rappers Who Should Battle

It seems as if a spotlight has been shined on battle rap in the past year. As popular as it has been throughout the years, it has remained underground and has produced a much different audience from the Lil Wayne, Drake or Kanye (etc.) type of rap fan base that you see and hear every day. I say this being a particularly new fan myself, and it's crazy to think about the differences in recorded rap as opposed to battle rap, they're really two different beasts completely. One side of the spectrum is made for your listening pleasure, while the other shines a much brighter light on the technical aspect of rap with competition being aplenty. It's very hard to mix the two, and if you do one and have the balls to try the other, whether you're successful at it or not, there is a respect factor given to you for even trying in the first place. There are very few mainstream rappers that have the skill to battle rap, and I thought it'd be a good idea to figure out who these guys (or girls even, remember the term "femcee"?) are. Here's a short list of mainstream rappers who could probably battle.

Ab-Soul

I'm a little new to Ab's catalog, but if there's one thing that opened up my eyes to the idea of Ab-Soul having battle bars, it's this freestyle with infamous battle rapper Daylyt (shout out to my good friend and fellow rapper Terrell Cooper for showing me this!). Ab-Soul is incredibly smart with novelist-like bars and Einstein-like wordplay, and if you were stuck in the dark like me, listening to this would enlighten your day with facts that Ab-Soul could indeed hang with some of the best battlers.

Lupe Fiasco

Another big writer-at-heart rapper is Lupe Fiasco. If you've heard Lupe (or if you even know about him) you know how smart and politically/socially conscience he is of everything going on around him. His rhymes take multiple listens to process for even his most die hard fans, and if there's anything that draws attention to a battle rapper, one of the biggest would be how smart and well thought out their rhymes are (syllables, double entendres, similes, metaphors, etc.). Lupe is such a fan of the craft that comes with rapping that he even battled his fans for a short period of time on Twitter, and has been called out by infamous battle rapper Dizaster to battle, though it never panned out for whatever reason.

King Los

                            (*I do not own any of these videos, songs, audio, or the rights to them*)

I'm not as familiar with King Los' catalog as I probably should be (I've heard from too many people that he's dope), but if I got just a mere sample of what he can do, his "Control" response (which seems to bring out the best in everyone, at least for rappers who had a response) is a good example of it. He really impressed me with the following bars: "I'm a king I'm elite, I could never dream of defeat, I could Dr. King you a speech while I'm Rodney King-in your beat." Day-umn Los! Guess I got some homework to do.

So those are a few dudes that could probably battle with some success (or so I think). There are probably many more rappers you could name who could battle and do well (I would probably say any of the other Slaughterhouse guys along with J. Cole and Kendrick), but there are many aspects of battling that some mainstream guys just don't have or don't show in their recorded song history as an emcee. A lot of guys show attitude and confidence on the mic (you almost have to, if you rap for a living it's a given), but if they have the mental stability is the real question, along with being able to successfully freestyle and truly go off the top of their head. If you know any dudes who you think could battle right now be sure to let me know on Twitter (@SuperNovaRover) or Google+ and let me know why you think they'd fair better than the rest.