Music
Parks and Rec: Red Bull Batalla
A coalition of MCs is leading the movement of Spanish freestyle rap in the U.S.—everywhere from city parks to Red Bull Batalla.
It’s September 2023, and the Texas heat is scorching. The sea of patrons at San Antonio’s Hemisfair Park is out in hats and shorts, with fully stocked coolers in tow. Meanwhile, in a circle under the shade of an old tree, a group of rappers are duking it out—verbally—in the throes of a regional freestyle tournament put on by BDM (Batalla de Maestros). In this particular match, Argentine rapper and graffiti artist Zazo Wan is facing off against Mexican tongue twister Arian, spirited barbs flying and beads of sweat rolling down both their faces.
Two months later, a similar scene unfolds on stage at the Red Bull Batalla USA National Final in Dallas, where Zazo Wan is going up against Cuban rapper Reverse in the tournament’s heart- pounding title match. This time, the MCs sweat under the high beams of the popular venue Gilley’s, surrounded by a crowd holding up flags from their respective countries, while beloved host Racso White Lion narrates the match with the heightened gusto of a soccer commentator. But the energy is palpably different. Gone is the laughter and collegiate casualness of the park, and instead each rapper is puffed up and red-faced, like bucks ready to lock horns to the death. Yes, there’s a trophy on the line, but digs about weight gain, betrayal among friends and drug abuse cut deep. Once the battle concludes, the exhausted MCs shake hands and clap for each other, followed by the announcement that Reverse has prevailed over his opponent, to roaring crowd approval. The tension that filled the room minutes ago dissipates into collective elation, capturing the thrill and fierce competitiveness fueling one of the fastest-growing art forms in the United States.
“You need to win on the stage and still hold your own in the park,” says Zazo Wan, zeroing in on the dichotomy between freestyle rap’s clandestine training grounds and the glitzy, cutthroat tournaments attracting legions of fans across the country. In less than a decade, a once-nebulous underground of Spanish-speaking MCs has grown into a nationwide movement with fertile enclaves in Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas and New York City. Trailblazing leagues such as Dioses de la City and Urban Rap Stars have generated buzz with stacked calendars and an organizational structure that pipelines promising local upstarts to national renown. For the artists—most of whom are Latin American immigrants—improvisation circles have also become welcoming communities away from their ancestral homelands. Add to the mix viral rap battles unfolding at tournaments south of the border, plus a galvanized generation of wordsmiths eager to join the international conversation, and you have the makings of a zeitgeist-defining phenomenon. More often than not, that story begins in the park.
The faces of Red Bull Batalla: Chuty, Yartzi, Oner, Reverse.
© Juan Valero/Red Bull Content Pool
“Competing at Red Bull Batalla is the zenith of our industry and comes with unique prestige and opportunities, but you have to pay your dues locally as well,” adds Zazo Wan, who emigrated from the mountain city of Mendoza, Argentina, to the sprawl of Dallas in 2019. “It’s important to hone your reputation in the circuit, because sustaining a long-lasting career requires building relationships with your colleagues. Sometimes it’s not even about competing. Just show up to the park, hang out and exchange bars with friends. Being present and participating keeps the culture moving.” Freestyle culture has been in motion for quite some time. After all, it’s a discipline predicated on ingenuity rather than budget and academic access, which in turn creates a universally leveled playing field. It’s one of the five elements of hip-hop alongside DJing, graffiti, breaking and the oral histories crucial to the movement’s survival. Since hip-hop was born in the Bronx in the mid-1970s, the borough’s vibrant Puerto Rican diaspora brought these buzzy new forms of songwriting and storytelling back to the island, which quickly proliferated across the Spanish- speaking world.
It makes sense that in 2005, Puerto Rico hosted the first international edition of Red Bull Batalla at San Juan’s iconic Club Gallístico, the cockfighting coliseum that would inspire the tournament’s avian branding for years to come. In its maiden voyage, the competition drew buzzy MCs from all over the Americas and Spain, anointing Argentine rapper Frescolate as the series’s first world champion and renewing excitement among the Ibero-American hip-hop community. A tidal wave of tournaments followed—Freestyle Master Series in Spain, El Quinto Escalón in Argentina, Supremacía MC in Peru and BDM in Chile—supercharging the battle scene and fostering some of the greatest talents to ever hold a mic.
Boricua rapper Yartzi (holding mic) battles Venezuelan-born rapper Oner.
© Ian Witlen/Red Bull Content Pool
You need to win on stage and still hold your own in the park. It’s important to hone your reputation in the circuit, because sustaining a long career requires building relationships.
Red Bull Batalla also continued to hold its annual jousts, constantly bouncing between various host nations and with only a brief hiatus in 2010 and 2011. However, the tournament would not return to the United States until 2019, when it took over Miami’s Wynwood Factory and drew more than 2,000 attendees. Defeating Mexican rapper Jordi in a riveting duel packed with boom bap and old school reggaeton beats, Boricua rapper Yartzi emerged
"I pretty much created the Spanish-language rap battle circuit in the U.S.,” says an assertive Alfredo Molina, a.k.a Moha, founder of La Liga de la Calle in Los Angeles. Before arriving in California in 2013, the rapper and promoter would hold events called Garage Battles at his grandmother’s home in El Salvador. In L.A. he was met with a primarily English-speaking scene, and even though he occasionally took the stage in front of largely Black audiences, where he was positively received, the insurmountable language barrier dulled the punch of his bars. “I’d vent to my Mexican and Salvadoran friends that the scene here was dead,” he remembers, “and they’d reply, ‘Then we have to revive it.’ They looked to me as that game changer, so I pushed to start meeting [at Salt Lake Park] in 2016.”
Though La Liga de la Calle held its first competition the following year, word of how L.A. organized to form its own scene quickly spread on social media. Soon small crews in other cities launched leagues of their own: Liga Masacre in Houston, Dioses de la City in New York, the Match Freestyle in Chicago, Miami Freestyle League and Indigo FL in Orlando. The snowballing movement prompted the 2019 stateside revamp of Red Bull Batalla and brought in touring tournaments such as BDM, DEM Battles and Misión Hip Hop. And when the pandemic shutdown threatened to stunt the scene’s Herculean progress, online battles were folded into the new normal with ease. These strides have amounted to a rapidly industrializing freestyle infrastructure that did not exist at the top of the 2000s, built through the street-level work and consistency of local organizers.
“I believe the future lies in reinforcing regional circuits,” says Moises Santana Vidal, a.k.a. Green, who co-founded Dioses de la City alongside Dominican rapper El Dilema back in 2017. Since its inception, the league has focused on developing the Northeast circuit, tapping into vast, active hip-hop communities thriving in New York and New Jersey and seeing opportunity for growth in Connecticut. Green highlights distance as one of the biggest reasons the U.S. scene hasn’t fully broken through, since cross-country travel expenses and time away from day jobs and family pose the biggest challenges for MCs who are still on the come-up. To support competitors, his organization records all matches, producing videos that can be added to every rapper’s portfolio. Likewise, sponsorships and enrollment fees go toward awarding competitive monetary prizes, or even flights to out-of-state contests.
Though both founders of Dioses de la City hail from the Caribbean metropolis of Santo Domingo (the capital of the Dominican Republic), the pair transformed their personal passions for rap into a grassroots movement out of Queens, New York. Green recalls the first time El Dilema invited him to one of his “shows,” which turned out to be a cypher among friends on the corner of a local laundromat. Undeterred, they continued to meet, relocating to the verdant Flushing Meadows Corona Park with a growing roster of MCs. Soon they’d be partnering with BDM and Urban Rap Stars for regional events.
A DJ drops the beat at Red Bull Batalla.
© Ian Witlen/Red Bull Content Pool
Chuty and Reverse go head to head.
© Ian Witlen/Red Bull Content Pool
El Dilema diligently fought his way to the top of the country’s freestyle rankings, placing second at the 2020 Red Bull Batalla USA National Final. On the other hand, Green recognized that his lyrical chops wouldn’t cut it on stage, so he pivoted into organizing and judging. He’s since sat on panels at tournaments in Colombia, Peru and the U.S. and built relationships with freestyle leagues back in the Dominican Republic. But evaluating and comparing razor-sharp wits is only half the job when rappers on the stage hail from dizzyingly different backgrounds.
“Judges need to have broad cultural knowledge, since in the United States you’re dealing with people from many different countries, all in the same competition,” says Green. “New York is so diverse, with so many Mexicans, Central Americans and Caribbean people, that immersing yourself in these cultures is how you learn to catch the terminology and references. Slang varies, and so do hot topics, so a judge needs to be aware of all of it.”
Scrolling deep through the archives of the Miami Freestyle League’s YouTube page, videos dating back to 2018 show groups of teenagers gathering at Downtown Doral Park, all fresh-faced and squeaky clean, as if plucked out of a wholesome afterschool special. But the bars are solid, and soon familiar faces begin to appear: Eckonn (third place at Red Bull Batalla USA 2021), Nico B (second place at Red Bull Batalla USA 2022) and Reverse (winner of Red Bull Batalla USA in 2021 and 2023). One especially cinematic clip from 2019 finds MCs Reverse, Huguito and Carlitos engaged in a nighttime battle underneath a jagged rock sculpture called “Micco,” created by Miami Beach contemporary artist Michele Oka Doner. Though Reverse easily bests his opponents, the segment is a strong example of the vibrant youthfulness that has elevated Miami as the new titan of U.S. freestyle.
Venezuelan visionary Sebastian Avendaño created the Miami Freestyle League when he was 16, inspired by the battle videos he would watch on social media with his high school friends. As Florida’s first Spanish-language league, its contests became a rite of passage for any local rapper worth their salt. Reverse would come down from West Palm Beach, while Red Bull Batalla USA 2022 winner Oner commuted from Tamarac. Both MCs were 19 the first time they won the national championship. Word of Avendaño’s growing organization crossed state lines, and eventually Red Bull Batalla tapped him for promotion and talent selection for the tournament’s fateful 2019 return. Amusingly enough, the same youthfulness that put him at the movement’s vanguard kept him from attending the event, since he was underage.
Zazo Wan is a leader of the freestyle scene in Dallas.
© Roger Ho/Red Bull Content Pool
“As we grew up, so did the scene,” recalls Avendaño, noting how swelling numbers led to noise complaints, which drove the league out of the park and into enclosed venues that helped formalize their dealings. This year, however, Red Bull Batalla USA returns to South Florida and Avendaño will attend, representing DEM Battles, the meteoric Chilean league that merged with his own in 2022. The success of Miami’s freestyle scene has also dovetailed into the financial and cultural capital of parallel happenings like the Miami Grand Prix, Art Basel and III Points Music Festival, producing unique regional synergy drawing audiences and tastemakers eager to discover the next global trend.
“The arrival of Red Bull Batalla made people look at us differently,” says Avendaño, reflecting on Miami’s fortified reputation. “We’re no longer kids rapping in plazas, but rappers freestyling at important tournaments. Back when I started, a good date used to draw 15 or 20 guys, but my most recent event had 70 MCs and 300 spectators. We’ve even pulled heavyweight stars like Nicky Jam, Tiago PZK and Micro TDH, and I’m sure industry brass is also coming through looking to scout talent.”
Clearly, the next step for U.S. freestyle is to begin launching its own stars, which will require an active and disciplined social media presence and carefully selected labels and collaborators who can contribute to an MC’s growth. These are time-tested strategies; just look at how Duki, Trueno and WOS parlayed victories in Argentina’s iconic Quinto Escalón circuit into critically acclaimed, stadium-filling artistic careers. The same goes for Mexican FMS legends Aczino and Yoiker, who are celebrated among Spanish freestyle’s all-time greats. Both took the stage at the 2023 Red Bull Batalla World Final in Colombia, performing in front of a sold-out crowd of 14,000 people at Bogotá’s Movistar Arena. The event also marked the international debuts of Oner and Reverse; in fact, the most promising U.S. candidate for a crossover career is Reverse, who has already signed a record deal and begun teasing cuts from an upcoming, genre-voracious project.
“There are so many Latinos who love this scene and feel that because they’re away from home their shot has passed,” says Racso White Lion, one of U.S. freestyle’s most emblematic voices. Synonymous with Orlando’s powerhouse scene, the Venezuelan rapper and organizer co-founded Indigo FL alongside his business partner Scarface in 2020, frequently meeting off the lake shores of Eagle Nest Park. However, Racso shifted from competing to hosting the events, earning the moniker of Mr. Pasión for his electrifying stage presence and eventually becoming the de facto presenter at Red Bull Batalla USA.
Oner—with trophy—cut his teeth battling in the Miami Freestyle League.
© Jeremy Deputat/Red Bull Content Pool
Jordi (right, battling LinkOne) will be competing at the National Final.
© Juan Valero/Red Bull Content Pool
Racso underscores that the audience holds more power than they know, able to turn the tides of a competition by getting behind a floundering MC, as well as supporting their career long after they’ve snatched a trophy. But for U.S. freestyle to transcend, the connection between audience and artist must be cultivated, as the art form evolves to accommodate new voices. Organizers would also be wise to encourage a larger presence of women at their competitions instead of relegating them to the sidelines. In 2019, Canary Islands rapper Sara Soca unleashed an impassioned diatribe against femicide while competing at a Red Bull Batalla tournament in Mexico, going viral and proving that women are an untapped market that could catalyze the movement’s next chapter. But again, that change needs to begin in the park.
“A lot of people have asked where we were, but we’ve been in the same plazas for eight years,” says an emotional Racso. “It’s been a matter of getting the word out and making noise, and now that we’re reaching more people, they know we’re here to stay. Forever.”
