Fliptop – ONE3D vs. Hallucinate (MY PERSONAL RECAP)

Let me just get it clear and say this right off the bat: this battle is far from being one of my proudest moments.

Coz as you can easily see when you watch the video, I was sorta choking on some parts and forgot my lyrics pretty badly.

Not cool at all.

That’s one of those things that you always expect will happen to other people, never you. But alas.. It did!

The rest of the Audible cats tell me that it’s nothing to worry about, and that I still did pretty well given the circumstances. And that hey, at the end of it all, I won the battle.

But I don’t really care though.. I had standards that I set for myself. It doesn’t look as bad as I thought it did, but still.. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t deliver the way I wanted to. I do appreciate the folks hitting me up saying that the choke didn’t matter though.

Anyway! That’s enough of the disclaimer. Here’s the video, the recap, lyrics, plus what my intro song is after the jump…

Honestly, I wasn’t even supposed to battle during this Fliptop event.

I just flew back to Manila like a few weeks before Silat, and I was looking forward to going to my first Fliptop event as a spectator, not as a participant.

I was especially excited because this was an all-English event AND we were going up against the Malaysians. Always knew us Pinoys have talent when it came to rapping and it was time to show the rest of the world what we got.

But as I was browsing Facebook a week before the event, I saw some posts that Hallucinate’s battle would be cancelled because of the dude having problems with his visa.

Now if I was in Hallucinate’s shoes, I’d be pretty miffed.. I’d be thinking something like, “You mean to say I just spent the last few weeks preparing for a battle that won’t happen??”

So I offered to step in the Malaysian cat’s place just so Hallucinate won’t have to deal with a no-show, in the case that Evil Poets Society won’t be able to come up with a replacement.

A few days later, I got the green light from Anygma that the battle would be on.

We both had 7 days to prepare for the battle. Nothing as crazy as one night’s preparation, but a week is pretty damn short too.

I spent the next couple of days writing. I already knew a couple of angles I would use for the battle — attacking the quality of Hallucinate’s songs, and his affiliation with Pennsylvania. I also explored a new “storytelling” type of style for the setup of the verses.

But everything else, I pretty much just came up with as I went along and seeing where the pen would take my lyrics.

The rest of the days before Silat I spent rehearsing. Obviously, as you can see from the video, I didn’t rehearse enough… Hahah…

What happened?

Fucking B-Side double booked the venue, so as a result there was a band that was playing inside the venue right at the same time during the battle. Couldn’t help but overhear the bass seeping through the walls. I wasn’t sure if the audience could hear what I was saying; it didn’t seem like the mic was loud enough to me and I didn’t really know where to project my voice and shit.

I knew my lines pretty well, but not well enough to overcome these distractions. I ended up forgetting a critical line during my second verse (when I cut myself off), which would’ve been a PERFECT way to end the second round. Sayang.

(Let’s make it clear though. By no means am I making excuses.. I choked up, and that’s the end of it. Just wanted to explain the thought process of WHY I choked.)

I walked away with a W, but yeah, lemme reiterate.. It’s never really about winning or losing for me. I’m all about delivering a performance that I’m proud about. No excuses, it absolutely doesn’t matter how much time I have to prepare.. When you hit the stage, you better be hitting the ground hard!

Fuck it though, past’s past.

I promise to do better next time!

Till then.. Peace!!

PS. My intro track is a short segment from the one of the new Audible MCs tracks we’re cooking up in the studio right now. Stay tuned for it!

PPS. You can read the lyrics by clicking here.