 If you're like only point of reference to what Battle Rap is, is 8 Mile, then you're probably going to figure it's a bunch of people in like oversized hoodies and jeans. The whole thing that draws me into it is the intellectuality of it. It is crazy, the level of attention that people put into their writing now. Battle Rap is not rocket science, we're running out of space for challenges. They think just because I teach I don't push the rock to clients. Like I would just wash my hands in a profit like Pontius Pilate. Battle Rap now is so funny because people have to try harder because you know now that like a lot of people are going to see what you're going to do. My name is Rowan Fife, I'm 26 years old. I'm a rap battler and co-founder of Bone Flop Entertainment Ltd which is right now the biggest rap battle slash hip hop promotion in the UK. Yo yo yo, welcome. This is Jump Up TV's first ever basement street battle. We've got six of the top MCs in the country, we're going to be featuring tonight and boy we've got a live tonight still. First up to back we've got MC Ur. My rap name is Ur, I've been called Ur since I was about 17 years old. I got started in Battle Rap because I used to hang around every Friday and Saturday night with a rapper called Archaic. My name's Archaic, I've been on Jump Off many a time. This is my friend. He entered a tournament called the World Rap Championships in 2006 when I first kind of met him. By the time 2007 came around I was confident enough just about in my freestyle ability to enter with Archaic. To be honest I probably wasn't fully ready because I was like young, I only just turned 18. We did a tryout battle right next to Tower Bridge in central London. By the time the actual tournament came around I was just like well it's like I have to be ready now and we ended up doing quite well. You didn't know what was going to happen after 2007. The World Rap Championships, you spent too much money in 2007 and weren't really doing that much. So me and Kruger were just kind of like let's just film some battles and do it ourselves because no one's filming battles. We know a lot of people that battle that have never been on camera. Let's just film it. There wasn't really anything going on in Battle Rap around 2008 because the WRC was in 2007 and after then it was kind of like nothing for a long while. Me and Earl were just like you know I mean let's just set up our own battles. We can film it, I've got a camera. He just had a camera and I just, I mean like a shitty little camera. We had all these people and we just thought that's enough. Let's just film a few battles and see what happened. Don't flop! Don't flop! Don't flop! Don't flop! It's Earl back here, don't flop! This is don't flop! Fucking love it in China! Make some noise! For the first I'd say at least a year it was just like we are filming these battles because we are filming them and it kind of just transformed into another concept from there on. We just had like a few popular battleers that came through and really took it up to the next level. As we grew as a company we started getting more and more people involved. The battles got better and the footage got better and everything just got better. I think some people when you say about battle rap they'll think you know it's a bunch of dudes in hoods looking intimidating trying to be like angry and aggressive in a room but like in reality like I feel like it's the great equaliser. I feel like in battle rap you can get someone who's got like a fucking PhD or a master's degree who like works as a lawyer or a teacher and you can go up against a kid that has never fucking got a qualification in his life who's being raised on a counsellor state in like a rough area and in that matchup they're completely equal. My name's Liam Bagnell. I'm the creative director of Dome Flop. What I find like interested about writing is how fucking intellectual it is. I mean that's kind of why like freestyle has kind of died out now as well. We still do freestyle battles and they pop off but generally someone can't say something as intellectual or as fought out as they can when they write. The transition from the freestyle to the written. I'd say that's definitely the main change. It used to be a 100% freestyle if you spat one written line people would hate you whereas now it's like if you come and you freestyle the whole battle everyone thinks you're lazy and you haven't tried. I think it's good the way it is now I think it makes you try harder. Every battle is filmed where you know that when you come into battle. I feel like it's something that everyone has always been into and they don't know it. It's humorous. There's an edge of like humor to it that people can just latch on to and like fully understand and grasp. I just think it's going to keep growing. I mean there's been so many points that we've been doing this battle rap shit where I thought it's peaked. And I think like now that we've come into America and everyone's seeing that we're doing we've just got even more fans coming on to it and hopping on and we're starting to build like a global brand of very talented MCs from different backgrounds. We'd always take Don't Flop to other places. It's the same way that kind of in the UK we hit up every city, everywhere we could go. Once we knew we had people out there that could help us with it it was like why not you know, I mean it's a chance to go to America, expand our league because we always used American talent anyway we were flying them over. But really it makes just as much sense to fly ourselves over and do events here. The whole thing in USA is different to the UK because I have to in the age with more people because obviously we don't have like the links out here that we have back home. It's not as easy. I do put a lot of faith in other people to help me promote it. I set up the DC event this time in the same way that I've set up the other USA event. A dude called Maestro, he actually hit me up. I knew they were doing an event in Atlanta with my man Sonny Bamboo. He was open to the idea you know we just kept speaking and speaking and so we both agreed that you know being in the capital of the United States would just be epic. We spoke a lot and he sent me like a few examples of names that I didn't actually know that he wanted to be involved. So once he sent me them I thought yeah okay cool actually this could work out quite well. It was a two-day event. To me it was really important to have an event for the local guys to really get that shine and get that opportunity. But then the major event that everyone was talking about everyone came out to Rock and Roll Hotel in DC it was just... This is Don't Flop USA. We are here in Washington DC. DMV please make some noise for the battle. I feel quite proud like especially at the event there was many moments I had these like big like epiphanies. Just looking around I was thinking this is so crazy that we're in DC and like this crowd of Americans has come out to our event and they are fans of like the battles that we set up from like five thousand miles away. It'll probably just keep growing to the point where we're coming out here with like a busload of people and going around, around, around. That's always been the idea that we can come out here for like a month or two months or three months and have our own like bus with the big decal on the side and the fucking you know I mean and just like yeah that would be the dream. I don't want to go back to an office. I did that shit for like six, seven years to like be able to like afford a camera like I've done that. So my motivation is to just keep building, keep creating stuff to try and make this community that we've built grow and for everyone to be able to get a shot of fame and for everyone to be able to get a shot to get known. I mean if like a cameraman could do it then these ridiculously like intelligent people that I work with who are infinitely more skilled in different ways than I am then they can do it and I want to make sure that that platform is there for everyone and that we're all working together for like a greater cause where we can create just keep creating whatever the fuck we want. I feel like at the moment I can make anything that I want and it would be okay. Like that is liberating. It wasn't like let's start a company that's going to be the biggest ever it was just like we might as well film these battles because we have a camera and we can all battle and it's like cool. I didn't think it could get to this stage where I'd be like I mean come into America do events out here. It's a blessing. We're just accident entrepreneurs you know what I mean? Like we never intended none of us intended it to be this. Life's got super weird in the past couple years.