I had a live video stream of the battle, but I’m not obligated to review it because I didn’t watch the whole thing. I decided to stop watching, and listening, once I realized that Canibus; an MC whose battle raps made him one of the best popular battle rappers in my mind, even though I’d never heard or seen him in an actual battle; was in over his head.

He forgot his lines and choked repeatedly, at least that’s what I gathered from the viewers in the chatroom I was monitoring, before pulling out a notepad to read from. It wasn’t just disappointing; it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing for me and I wasn’t even there. I can only imagine how embarrassing it was for him and everyone else who was.

I can’t feel too bad for him though. He had months to prepare. What made him show-up unprepared is beyond me. He may have needed the money; they say he got paid thousands of dollars; but it isn’t worth his reputation and career; both of which, considering his whole image is built around being a battle rapper, may be ruined beyond repair.

I hope not. I was never really a Canibus fan; I can’t name a lot of his songs I like; but I generally like him as a rapper and still consider many of his battle raps highly impressive, particularly during the 2000 BC era. Besides, a rapper doesn’t have to be able to battle for real in order to compose and perform clever and creative battle-style verses.

I also think he’s generally better than Dizaster, who wasn’t really impressive in this battle neither, judging from the bits I did hear, thanks mainly to his ridiculously-forced delivery. He tries way too hard, but at least he tries. I don’t know what Canibus was doing. Canceling at the last hour would’ve been better. Instead he lost in a profound way.