Rap battles are possibly one of the most well-known and most-entertaining aspects of hip hop culture. When rappers go head-to-head, rap battles are often a contest of either who’s got the more well-put-together verse or who’s got the more devastating insults in their lyrics. Sometimes both but it’s always a show nonetheless.
Don’t Flop Entertainment is the largest rap battle league in the UK, describing itself as the ‘foundation of UK battle rap’, specialising in organising live events and putting out original content such rap battles and music videos on its social media channels. Don’t Flop Entertainment has amassed over 140 million views on its YouTube Channel so far.
On Friday 15th March, Don’t Flop Entertainment will be hosting its latest rap battle event in Shrewsbury. Now Shrewsbury might not have been one of the filming locations for ‘8 Mile’ but I’ve been talking to event organiser Sean Kray to find out why Shrewsbury is actually a perfect location for this epic rap battle.
“We think it has huge potential and great travel links to major cities and we believe we can pull a large crowd but also unearth some young talent who haven’t had a local event to try out at. So we’re allocating a bit of a budget to this event” Sean told me before elaborating more on the event’s concept.
“The idea is to have three main events which will contain the country’s elite battlers but what we are trialling with this event is putting ten local MC’s on the card. Not against each other but actually putting them against established names from our roster”.
Sean told me of how he and Don’t Flop had been overwhelmed by the responses of young rappers wanting to get involved, saying “Loads and loads of local MCs have sent video evidence of their capabilities to me and from that we have cut it down to ten and we have been careful to pick people of the 18-25 age range” adding that “We’re very pleased with our selection” and that these young artists are “hungry and they will be making preparation their number one priority”.
500 tickets have already been sold for the event at The Buttermarket at Shrewsbury, with the event lasting 8pm-2am. There will be live hip hop sets from Trademark Blud, P Solja and Lefty before the rap battles commence. The ten local rappers will be battling ten battle rappers from all over the UK, hence the event’s name ‘Home Team vs The Visitors’.
The battles include Blunt Ted vs Tydal, Bowski vs Rucuss, Micky Worthless vs Tripplejayy, WRDY vs Monroe, Lefty vs Pri-D, P Solja vs Chrisbee, Matter vs Kinell, Brizz Rawsteen and T-Top vs Shuffle T and Marlo.
Don’t Flop Entertainment have a solid reputation of organising the best rap battles and representing the best battle rappers that the UK has to offer. As such, Don’t Flop promise not to disappoint.
Tickets are £15 online and £20 on the door and can be bought at www.dontfloptickets.com
Soundsphere Magazine will be covering Don’t Flop: Shrewsbury and putting out a review with footage included so stay tuned!h
