Music
Mark Grist's tips for rap battle global domination
The former English teacher turned poet and rapper reveals his oral arsenal as he travels to the Philippines in new Red Bull TV documentary Mark Grist Battles The World.
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Mark Grist Battles the World
Poet Mark Grist enters a war of words as he travels to the Philippines to take on legendary MC Loonie.
Mark Grist came to fame as the English teacher who trounced a 17-year-old in a battle rap. Since then he’s immersed himself in the world of vicious verbal jousting, battling some of the globe’s toughest MCs. In new Red Bull TV documentary Mark Grist Battles The World (watch it in the player below), he travels to the Philippines to learn about its rich battle rap culture – and go round for round with the infamous Loonie. Here are the lessons he’s learned about winning at live wordplay along the way.
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1. Educate yourself
This documentary challenges the assumption that battling is all about aggression over craft, purely about the toxic qualities of masculinity. Ultimately, all you’re doing is raising your status and lowering your opponent’s. But there are strict rules: the time limit, using multisyllabic rhyme, constructing punchlines, how to pun… Anyone can follow a rap battle. But there are layers of meaning you pick up once you start to understand the techniques. Some of the most intelligent and literate people I’ve met have been battlers.
2. Speak the truth… then fantasise wildly
The strongest way to attack is to expose your opponent’s deceptions. Battlers have been attacked for lying to their friends, paying other MCs to write material, or having no criminal record when they try to appear really tough. That’s why I wore the suit when I battled Blizzard, to say: I’m not going to pretend to fit in here. But if you get the craft and the conviction right, and everything else about you is solid, you’re also gaining license to crank everything up to 11. You can say you turned up to the gig in a jet made of diamonds. At that moment in time, it becomes true.
Warning: Clip below contains explicit language.
3. Channel that weird energy-spirit-thing
In the Philippines, they told me about an energy that moves out of the battlers and fights above them when they’re battling. Some kids have even made animated videos of what these fighting energies or spirits look like. Loonie’s is supposed to be the most fearsome. I’m not remotely spiritual, but I definitely feel like there’s something a bit lupine about it all. You need to feel like you’re hunting.
Mark Grist goes to the Philippines
© Red Bull TV
4. Find the achilles heel
You can turn anything into a weakness. I’ve seen battlers rinse each other with great content just for the fact the other one quite likes chocolate. Facial features and hair seem to be big targets in the Philippines, so with Loonie I started out focusing on those. Then in the third round I went for him on the success front, suggesting he would betray his country if he had the chance. I hoped he’d feed into that narrative by talking all about himself.
5. Experiment. Baffle
Now more and more people are playing around with the mechanic of battle rap, doing odd stuff. I’ve done rounds using only one vowel sound. Sometimes you’ll get a battler who purely compliments their opponent, or one MC using the battle to ask their opponent out. There’s a US rapper called Carter Deems who wears a jumper with cats on it, and raps about random things his mum told him when he was a kid. One played with the ‘I did this to your girlfriend…’ trope, and told Carter Deems he’d slept with his cat.
Warning: Clip below contains explicit language.
6. Do your research… but don’t hire a private detective
I spent weeks preparing for my battle with Loonie: a boring Rocky montage of me watching YouTube videos, reading interviews, and looking at pictures of his face. But there’s a level you don’t want to go to. We had a massive moment in the UK with Jefferson Price. His opponent revealed Jefferson had been cheating on his fiancée with two other girls. The fiancé was at the event, pregnant, stood next to those two girls. It all came out in the third round, which started with the opponent saying, “Sorry kiddo…” That’s a famous quote now in battle rap. People argue, “It’s battle rap, bitch, you can say what you want”. But a lot of MCs think family is out of bounds. Hiring a private detective? In the US that has 100 percent happened. Personally I think it’s a weakness if you need to use that stuff.
Warning: Clip below contains explicit language.
… And one for luck. learn how to take a (truly painful) punch
A while back I choked battling [Scottish Don’t Flop champion] Soul. He said I was like David Attenborough [legendary British nature documentarian], just observing all these working-class people. If battlers waste time on the suit, me being a teacher – fine, that doesn’t touch me. But Soul was smart. He knew how to hit me on something I worry about a lot. You need to have a thick skin for rap battling. But it’s also a good art form for reflecting on your strengths and weaknesses. You learn the worst that can be said about you, and that’s kind of purging. Being a teacher, you also know no one is a finished project, ever. You’re always trying to find ways to improve yourself – otherwise life gets a bit stale.
Warning: Clip below contains explicit language.
