« Red Bull EmSee 2010 SF (Exclusive Live Footage) »

Friday night at 103 Harriet, it was going down. Sick of all the scripted battles packed with prewritten punchlines and freestyle-free flows, Marshall Mathers (you might know him as Eminem) and Red Bull decided to shake things up a little. By adding rules to force emcees to demonstrate their freestyle abilities, such as having to incorporate random images or words into their flows, they were able to weed out the weak from the dope. Thizzler On The Roof was there to document this groundbreaking new way of battling and from firsthand experience I can say that although the technology might need some improvement, the concept definitely works. Judged by legendary artists Aceyalone (Freestyle Fellowship), Del The Funky Homosapien (Hieroglyphics), and Lyrics Born, the competition was filled with seasoned battlers: NoCanDo, Dirtbag Dan, Illmaculate, Madness, Dizaster, Thesaurus, WonWay Posibul, and some Sven cat. As a fan of the Bay Area rap scene, I'm glad someone living in Oakland won...WHO? Hit the jump to see ALL the battles (except for the very first round, which was Dirtbag Dan vs. the Sven dude, but honestly Dirtbag murdered him so easily it wasn't worth watching anyways), including the final round.

Round 1:

Rules: Rappers are shown images on the screens before they begin, which they must use in their freestyle.

The semi-finals:

Rules: Words are shown on the screens while they are rapping that they must use in their freestyle.

And the final round:

Rules: 1st Round, beat. 2nd Round, beatbox. 3rd Round, acapella.