A Letter to Battle Rap (part I) & EBA Update

In 2008 everyone insisted that battle rap was dead ...

What are we doing this for?  We need to focus on making records.  We are corny.  There's no future in this battle shit.

How many times have WE heard this?

You fast forward about 4 years, 500 battles and about 160,000,00 views later and WE have one of the most popular raw formats in entertainment.

WE are the battle rap community.

URL has Diddy behind them, SMACK is with all of the stars & their battlers get PAID!  That was the original goal, right?

KOTD had Drake behind them, Dizaster is their champion & they have their whole country on lock.

Countless leagues are doing their thing across the globe.

WE did pretty good.

I am writing this seres of letters (if you will) with the intention of to giving battlers, fans, staff, and anyone else within this community a little insight on what goes on inside my head and behind the scenes of battle rap.  This is not meant to be used as a viable source of historical battle information (even though it may be); it is written from my perspective and contains many personal thoughts and ideas.  Nevertheless, its a journey - enjoy.

BRIEF BACKGROUND

In short, I left Grind Time at the beginning of the year (click here if you did not read my blog) and announced that I would be starting a new battle league called EBA (Elite Battling Association) and (to most) have been notably invisible from the scene since (besides my blogs.)  I have this slight issue of forgetting that the people want to hear from me.  Of course I have a page on twitter, facebook and every other major social networking site, but i'm not really giving people true updates.  So, consider this an update ...

WHAT IS MISSING?

I am a realist.  I know my limits.  I know battle rap is cluttered with bullshit right now (and good shit).  I know i'm smart enough to do something else.  I also know that I'm one of the only people on planet Earth that could reshape the battle scene for the better.

If I die tomorrow, maybe I slightly changed the Earth .0001 percent.  That's cool, but I feel I have some sort of social responsibility to uphold.  The battle industry is starting to mimic the music industry, which is good and bad.  Im not here to screw anyone over, ruin careers or show favoritism - just create a quality product that is beneficial to everyone involved.  Of course business is tough, but most of the people I am currently working with and reached out to understand my mission and know my heart is in this game; I was with them shooting in the gym.

My biggest issue in life is that I downplay what I have done and what I am capable of.  Grind TIme has almost 90 million views online.  The channel is youtube.com/drect ... thats my name.  Pretty cool, but I still feel like I haven't done anything at all.  My short term goals were to ressurect battle rap, get a couple thousand views and just get a little bit of recognition - I reached that.  My long term goal was to become a millionaire, make battle rappers millions of dollars and gain the respect of other millionaires.  Sounds nice, but we fell a million miles short.

So, I took this year to backtrack and study every single nook and cranny of the battle rap game.  I watched almost every single battle from every league, disected peoples' business strategies, spent hours on the phone with your favorite battlers, celebs and business minds -  picking their brains, and asked myself the simple question, What is missing?

Somewhere along this journey, I realized how much I have personally done for the scene.  I have always been scared to take credit for the things I've done.  The fear of being labled cocky, arrogant, or a "show-off" has always haunted me, so I chose to play the humble role.  Maybe a little too humble because people take the credit for my work and I never say anything.  I didn't even care until I realized: a.) other people were making money off of mind without it filtering through me first b.) business is business, not friendship c.) im that dude

PERSPECTIVE

Anyone who knows me personally knows im famous for comparing battle leagues to companies that deal with computers and mobile phones.  Its just an interesting way for me to put things in perspective:

I look at URL like Microsoft and KOTD (and old Grind Time) like Google.  In the 1990s Microsoft almost became a monopoly and almost completely shut down all opposition with some ruthless business practices.  Do you know what happens when a company becomes a monopoly?  It means game over for all of the competition - one company controls the market and therefore, can dictate the direction of the industry.

I just want to create battle rap's Apple.  Something new and innovative that changes the industry and makes everyone else adjust.  I've just been taking my time to really be creative without going too far outside of the box.

SOMETHING NEW


A lot of people have been asking me questions about my new league, so allow me to elaborate.

Settling for mediocrity is the mark of an underachiever and you guys expect something great from me.  From a media standpoint I have grown to hate low quality cameras, the same angles, overused environments, etc. and become a director of sorts - EBA being my first serious project.  We started another business too, but its too early to talk about that ... you guys will see.

Great marketing, a unique technical approach and superior business model will see a league emerge like none other.

Im not trying to outdo anyone.  I don't care about a competition - I'm doing what I feel is best for myself, the people I work with and the fans.

Here is a sneak peek at the first EBA event

A very engaging promotional tool for battle rap that has only been loosely explored and poorly used in the past.

A controlled environment.

A venue that we do not necessarily know, but will all recognize.

Marvwon will retire after his biggest and most important match to date.  I predict his best performance - we all want to see this one.

Ness Lee gets his career match.

Another Detroit battle legend vs a 106th and Park hall of famer.

A dope undercard between two emcees who deserve more than most to be called "top tier."

Female Battle - This is tricky due to the fact that Gattas has retired and I have to redirect her focus for a brief period of time.  I'm not going to steal any established girls from other leagues, so I will be flexing my A&R muscle and finding the next dope chick you never heard and finding her a DOPE opponent.  Seems hard, but im kinda good at these type of things.  *I have a few people in mind, but contact me if you are interested*

If all goes as planned, this will be a great way to start 2013.  Speculate away!

*will be back with another "Top 10" blog soon*

- Drect