Battle rap

Battle rap (also known as rap battling) is a type of rapping performed between two or more performers that incorporates boasts, insults, wordplay and disses. Battle rap is often performed, or freestyled, spontaneously in live battles known as Rap battles, where participants will compete on the same stage to see who has the better verses. Although never a rap battler himself, battle rap was loosely described by 40 Cal, previously a member of American hip hop collective The Diplomats, in the book How to Rap (2009) as an "extracurricular" display of skill, comparing it to the dunk contest in the NBA. Battle rap has been developed into highly organized league events drawing in significant revenue and attention. Mainstream artists such as Diddy, Busta Rhymes, Drake, Joe Budden and Cassidy have attended or participated in battles to help increase their popularity. Rap battles are often written and performed to impress crowds with technically inventive rapping, and knowing a wide variety of rapping styles and a wide range of MCs as personal inspirations is recommended. Various MCs have started out writing mostly battle raps and battling other MCs before releasing commercial records. Battle rap is believed to have started in the East Coast hip-hop scene in the late 1980s. One of the earliest battles occurred in December 1981, when Kool Moe Dee challenged Busy Bee Starski – Busy Bee Starski's defeat meant that "no longer an MC just a crowd-pleasing comedian with a slick tongue; he was a commentator and a storyteller" thus, rendering Busy's archaic format of rap obsolete, in favor of a newer style which KRS-One, in rapping in the documentary Beef, credits as creating a shift in rapping in the documentary Beef. In the 1980s, battle raps were a popular form of rapping – Big Daddy Kane in the book How to Rap says, "as an MC from the '80s, really your mentality is battle format... your focus was to have a hot rhyme in case you gotta battle someone... not really making a rhyme for a song".