Why I Never Did Another RapOlympics After 1997

For those of you who don’t know, RapOlympics was an event I conceived one night when I could not sleep when I lived in Brooklyn in 1996. I was watching the labels veer away from signing lyricists to sign entertainers, commercial radio rappers, and gangsta rappers. Since the lyricists were my favorite rappers, it was disheartening to see the industry going in this direction.

I decided to do an Emcee Battle. But I wanted it to be the battle of all battles. The smaller MC Battles I had been involved with, and the ones where I was just an attendee, were not effective in bringing national attention back to the lyricist. Basically, the events which were about two a year (kind of like now) drew the same folks. We were preaching to the converted, and not drawing in any fresh blood or any attention from the labels or industry. So I was watching the same 30 Battle rappers travel around the US competing against each other in front of the same crowds at the New Music Seminar years earlier to the Rap Sheet Battle to the Zulu Nation Battle to Scribble Jam (which still goes on every year, by the way). Same faces, same battles, leading to the same outcome: the artists wanted record deals and were not getting signed.

So, I decided to contact different crews in rap who I knew believed in lyrics and asked them to form teams: KRS-1, Sway & Tech, Wu-Tang, Diggin’ In The Crates, J Smoothe, Ras Kass, Canibus, the GoodLife Café, and a few others that I now can’t recall. I also formed a Rap Coalition team. But what made our team different was that it was all unsigned artists, and they were from all over the US (Eminem, Juice, Thirstin Howl III, Wordsworth, and Kwest Tha Madd Lad—I had originally had RhymeFest in place of Eminem, but the other members of the team voted him out and Eminem in—a move that would go on to change Em’s life). The other crews were hesitant to step up. Signed artists would have a lot to lose if they lost. The prize was an appearance on the Sway & Tech Show (radio Mecca for lyricists) the following night. Ras Kass became my host for the event (and had we made any money, he would have become my 50% partner, only he never knew that).

So RapOlympics came down to my team, J Smooth’s Project Blow'd team, and WuTang’s team (who never showed up). The event took place directly after the RapSheet MC Battle that I coordinated, and was a complete failure. Every promise made by the sponsors was broken. RapSheet (the promoter) did not supply a DJ (I called Shorty from Da Lench Mob and within 2 hours he had a DJ do the event for free) or enough hotel rooms; Interscope never paid the $5,000 they pledged as a sponsor (which is ironic since they signed one of the artists afterwards); Do Or Die never paid the $5,000 they pledged as a sponsor. RapSheet also reneged on the prizes, leaving me to run to a local bullshit jewelry store to buy what I suspected was a fake Rolex as the prize (which we always billed as a fake Rolex, but it sure did look real).

At 11 PM, I was informed the club was kicking us out in an hour because it had only been booked til Midnight even though I was told by the promoter we had it til 2 AM (and I advertised my event til 2 AM). We had one hour in which to fit three hours of events. The crew that filmed the event ran off with the footage and the money I paid them upfront (quick lesson: never pay anyone everything upfront even if they cry about having to rent equipment). A big FUCK YOU to him, oh and by the way--$1,000 to the first person who beats his ass badly (you get paid when I see the anonymous police report or a hospital confirms his stay).

This left me with $10,000 in debt on my Visa credit card which took many, many years to pay off. The RapSheet Battle ran overtime because the event was so poorly promoted by the promoter. The fans finally trickled in for my event, RapOlympics, but we had not yet even started the RapSheet Battle (which I had agreed to coordinate for free in exchange for airline tickets, a DJ-- that was never booked, and hotel rooms for my RapOlympics team which turned out to be 2 rooms for 8 people). My team, who won, were at each others throats the whole time (except for Eminem who did not stay with the team, he stayed in Paul Rosenberg’s room) because one of the team members drove everyone else nuts with his incessant whining and pointless lying.

I did a horrible job of keeping the event on point and lost control of the flow and timing after the first round. I also should have kept a better eye on the promoter to verify that what he was saying was true. I felt myself give up near the end of the night and say "fuck it; what happens, happens" which is out of character for me. I was so angry afterwards I couldn’t speak to anyone for days (except Eminem’s manager). To this day it still costs me thousands of dollars to slap lawsuits on anyone caught using the RapOlympics footage I paid for but never received. So let’s just say that the memory of RapOlympics isn’t a pleasant one.

It was not a happy loss for me financially or emotionally, but at least if I had achieved my goal, it would have been a bearable loss. My whole reason for doing the event was to bring industry attention to lyricists, and get the record labels to see their value and sign them. While all of the mainstream press covered the event (like M-TV and the major music publications) and gave it outstanding reviews (miraculously, because the event was nothing like what I had planned), none of the artists got record deals except Eminem. Em’s camp says that Interscope had his demo tape and when a savvy A&R scout saw him at the event they finally passed his demo to Dr Dre. My memory is a bit different of his discovery: I recall that Em was rhyming on the Wake Up Show (which was the prize) and that Dre was listening to the show in his car. I recall that he went up to the radio studio and scooped Em up and brought him to a hotel room where he kept him writing and working for days. Sadly, to this day, there are no outlets for a lyrically gifted rapper to put out his CD successfully--the few indies who do sign these underground MCs seem to disappear after selling around 15,000 copies further verifying the majors' fears of this genre.

So while fans of MC Battles remember RapOlympics fondly, I recall a disorganized event that cost me tens of thousands of dollars personally (credit card debt that lasted for years), a lesson in dishonest promoters, and bullshit promises from sponsors. With a real budget that event could have been outstanding! But it still wouldn’t get artists record deals and that’s why they were doing it. Very few rappers were there for the Battle. Most were there for recognition and a record deal. To continue doing Battles would mean I’d have to keep allowing these artists to believe that they could build a real career as a Battle Rapper. Eminem was an anomaly. He has the ability to think quickly in a battle, is witty enough to say some shit that would make a dead man laugh, and most importantly has the ability to write songs that can sell CDs. In almost ten years, not one other label has signed another artist like him.

I look at the trail of Battle veterans like Craig G, Supernatural, Juice, Wordsworth, Thirstin Howl III, Jin, RhymeFest, Canibus, Ras Kass, and many others. They are worthy of the fame and financial success of a Master P, or Ludacris, or 50 Cent, or Cash Money. It makes me angry and disappointed that they are not. When a young rapper calls me and asks me to help him get a deal because he won this battle or that one, I cringe. I know the truth of the matter is that when a major label hears the word Battle, they run in the opposite direction. And very few MCs are still doing it solely for the art form. I refuse to mislead them into thinking it’s anything but…