#j. dose

DAILYSPICE - CLASSIC ROUND BY J DOSE

Reggie D. hails from Virginia. His hobbies include GTA: San Andreas and finding kids named after Aaliyah. In Hold It Down, his new monthly column for The Brown Noise, Reggie drops old-head knowledge about the wonderful world of battle rap, updating us on all the recent goings-on in one of America's most vibrant and fast-growing arts. You can follow him on twitter @kanye.

Math Hoffa vs. J. Dose, a Battle Rap Saga

Prologue

  Rather than seeing one’s favorite emcees exchange words in person, most rap battle fans today watch battles over the internet, either live on Ustream or on YouTube days later. With battle culture’s adoption of digital media, the culture of rap battling has completely changed. What used to be tournaments comprised of many short battles over beats have now become sponsored events filled with longer, more theatric battles that don’t have beats to accompany performances. The measure of excellence used to be decided by a panel of experts, but today, a battler is not only judged by how many good lines he or she gets in, but rather, the amount of views they rack up on YouTube. 2013’s biggest battles are typically unjudged. It is assumed that the best battlers have the most views, so naturally, the best battles would be those that have the most replay value. Though today’s emcees may think they want wins, what they really need in order to set themselves from the pack is “classics”.

Math Hoffa has had one of the biggest names in battle rap for at least the last 6 years, which is saying a lot, considering that longevity is extremely difficult in battle rap, a rapidly-evolving medium which favors fresh blood.  In order to stay relevant for so long, Math has to be very good at what he does. In the last year, Math has been on a rampage, taking battles left and right, but he’s still missing a solid classic. Not only is he missing a classic, but there are still two strong marks against him on his resume. His clear loss to Calicoe and his battle with J. Dose, which ended up in a fight. It seems like he’s been able to shrug off the loss against Calicoe pretty well, as it happened at a time where there wasn’t a peak interest in battling. As far as the rap battle community goes, everybody has seen his battle with Dose multiple times. We’re talking about one of the first Hip-Hop viral videos. There was something for everyone, the clash of the authentic NYC style vs. the aggressive and rhythmic style favored in Philly, and a fight that seemed to come out of nowhere. Though this viral video didn’t achieve household meme status like the “I’m stylin on you” battle, both of these battles occupied the visceral, primal niche that would later become associated with WorldStarHipHop.

Before the rematch, nobody really knew what was going on with Dose, or how he would sound in front of an opponent, since the culture has changed so much since he was last seen. This rematch was in the air for the last two or so years, and in-between, both Math and Dose made vlogs explaining how the fight really started in their own terms. This type of talk served as a lifeline for Dose, whose name was only made relevant whenever someone referenced him vs. Math in their own battle. Whereas Dose basked in those kinds of references, it seemed like they were eating at Math, until he was ready to wash his hands of this once and for all so that he could go on with his battle career.

This is a particularly noteworthy battle because of the intersection of two emcees at vastly different yet pivotal places in their careers. Math is as famous and well regarded as he’s ever been, and Dose is perhaps a few steps behind where he was before he battled Math the first time. Math is out to solidify his name as the best in the business; Dose is trying to pick his career up from where it left off.

Part I: “Yo, son. Get out my face, son.”

  Their first battle was set in New York during the SMACK-DVD era, years before there would be a SMACK/URL. The two emcees had never met before but apparently Dose signed a contract without actually knowing that he was agreeing to a battle. Math suggested that Dose was merely the replacement for T-Rex, a Harlem rapper that Math really intended to battle.

Dose’s first round almost holds up, even after all of these years. The aggression is still effective but it’s clear that he was often focused on multis (multiple syllabic rhyme schemes) and the general consensus is that kind of rapping is played out. You can tell his content was probably from a song because of how rhythmic it was. After about a minute and a half he stops sort of abruptly and the screen cuts to a youngish looking Math Hoffa.

Math starts off by calling out T-Rex for backing out. The crowd goes crazy and doesn’t even let him get halfway into his second line without stopping. He gets into his lines and his delivery isn’t very good at all but the lyrics have aged pretty well. These are probably bars from one of his tracks as well. Math gets into his grove but Dose isn’t having that, he walks forward, getting into Math’s face. His hat brim hits Math’s nose, causing Math to stop and say, “Yo, son. Get out my face, son.” Dose then steps back and starts to remove his jacket, saying “What’s up then, dog?” But before he can even get it off Math has already swung at him and a large brawl ensues.

Part II: “He Still Look Like a Sucker.”

  Set in a small room, the crowd is mostly other URL affiliates and battlers. After denying Dose a rematch for years, Math has finally accepted and here they are. Dose hasn’t had a battle close to this magnitude since the last time he battled Math.

Math starts off his first round by thanking the crowd. He extends his arm out to Dose as if he wants to shake hands, and deftly moves it out of the way when Dose extends his. He’s treating Dose like a little brother, which is bad, but considerably better than he treated him in their last faceoff. Math gets into his verse by quoting himself in their original battle as if to say that nothing has changed. He continues to rehash his old material, with a little update here and there to make it more relevant to today. He talks about the fight and says that even Smack (host, and co-owner of SMACK/URL) can vouch that it was really Dose who violated the agreement. Math mentions how Dose has lost on 106 and Park 3 times since their last battle and says that battlers within the modern era of SMACK/URL have him to thank for setting up the foundation for their careers.

  Dose starts out by getting into Math’s face and threatening him ironically. The crowd gives him the laughs he was looking for, and he gets into his bars. He starts off with a handful of filler (irrelevant and not particularly clever lines) and then goes on to mention how people that know of the first battle always seem surprised to see him as if he’s a ghost. He drops some more filler, including some content that he’s said before on VladTV. In his defense, he added some weird kind of qualifier at the end that conceded that he was recycling lines, but because of this disclaimer, its OK. Now if that sounds confusing, it’s because he’s full of shit. He says some more filler, but out of nowhere he transitions it back into dissing Math, and the crowd is feeling it. He has this manner of pacing during his rounds where he steps back and spins around, as if it is his secret signal telling the crowd to cheer for what he just said. After this last spin/cheer combo, Dose looks in the zone. He goes into a scheme (a block of lines with a common theme) about math, something that has been done against Math (coincidence?) in probably every battle he’s ever had (except his first one against Dose). He says an ok scheme about the Packers and then gets aggressive. He informs the crowd that since getting beaten up by Math, he’s been shot in the neck. Why would he worry about getting beat up, he seems to ask the crowd, when he’s survived situations that were far more dangerous? This would have been a great rhetorical device to discredit Math making jokes about beating him up, but like a novice, he let Math start off the battle and set the tone. Dose contrasts the level of hardships he has faced with the life of the average battler. He feeds the crowd some more filler and does another 360, but this time he spices it up by going the other way around. He then starts rapping faster and faster, to the point where you can’t actually tell if he’s really saying any real words. He then slows it down and cuts into his second and third line this round involving the Cowboys. I don’t think him mentioning the Cowboys was really part of a scheme per se, he just seems to have a lot of lines about the NFL and didn’t realize that he was getting redundant. He goes back into a flow reminiscent of their first battle and says another math punch line.  Talking about his life again, he says that his brother died recently and it’s really changed him. He has a really creative line connecting his girlfriend breaking up with him to how he believes in himself and when he delivered the punch, he faced the camera and winked, obliterating the 4th wall. He then says that Math only beat him up because he was losing the battle and ends his round on a meh note.

  Math starts his next round off by letting everyone know it is going to be joke heavy. He makes fun of Dose’s name, and does a pretty funny impression of him, which points out some really weak lines that Dose said in the previous battle. Then he starts flipping some of Dose’s lines from the first battle. The crowd joins in with him on some of them which is pretty surreal considering that it’s still Dose’s material that is now being used against him. Math ends the round with more jokes.

  Dose’s second round was very bad. He started off with some filler, and couldn’t seem to move the crowd at all. He used a line that Conceited has used before and rather than just going with it like most battlers would, he adds the little disclaimer at the end saying that he didn’t know Conceited had already said it when he wrote it so it’s ok. Say what you will about Dose’s originality but he’s a trailblazer in unintentional self-depreciating battle raps. This whole round was filler and the crowd wasn’t having it at all but at least they were respectful enough to not start booing. Had the audience been populated with more fans and less actual battlers, it might have been an even worse look for him.

  Math’s third round starts off with him addressing crowd culture in battle rap and saying that people should boo at bad content rather than just booing at people they don’t like. I have no idea what that really had to do with this battle but it did look like Dose was really feeling what Math was saying. Math gets into some more bars and the crowd is into it but honestly, his content wasn’t really much better than the crap in Dose’s 2nd round.

  Dose’s 3rd begins with him flipping one of Math’s schemes. At this point, Math’s face is sweating a lot and it’s kind of gross but I am certain that it was completely unrelated to anything Dose had to say. It was a small room packed with people and I’m sure there were hot lights put on him because of the camera or something. Dose starts to get personal and calls Math a bully. Someone in the crowd heckles a bit but Math signals for them to stop. Dose then gets into a really good scheme but ends off quoting his signature line from the first battle which kind of took away his momentum. The battle ends with Math embracing Dose as he would his little brother, telling the camera and viewers at home that “It’s over”. What I assume he meant was “OK we had the rematch now stop talking about the fight.” 

  Epilogue

  This battle was long overdue, and after all of the hype, it turned out rather disappointing. Math’s style still doesn’t have too much replay value, and Dose had no idea what the hell he’s doing. Since the battle has been released, Dose has gained a decent fan base within the current SMACK/URL audience, so one could say that he won because of that alone. I say fuck that, they both lost.

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