Life is a BattlefieldIf you had a chance to walk down Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood any time during past couple of years, you'd think that you were walking on a battlefield. Ordinarily, you would have been wrong, because it was just a construction site, but if you happened to be there on Thursday, July 5th, your observation would have been completely on target. That day will go down in history not only as the day of a partial lunar eclipse, but also as the day the last in the series of Battles for LA took place. And it all happened at Bistro West, the new home of The Green.
The home team (Los Angeles Slam Team) faced off with the Hollywood/Miracle Mile team, Long Beach team, and the fourth team comprised of poets randomly picked from the audience, or The 99's, as they called themselves. As it has become customary for The Green, the event was jam-packed. After the introductions and two calibration poets, competition got off to a rather rocky start. Hollywood team's Bridget Gray went first, and although accustomed to scoring in the high 29's, this time she got only 28.3 points. She was followed by Rachel Kann of the Long Beach team who scored 26.1, and Raymond of The 99's who confessed to being a "Rap Whore," but got shortchanged for his services by receiving only 25.4 points. First round of competition was concluded with Poetri of the LA team, who offered a brilliant solution to his dating woes. Still, the judges remained unmoved: only 28 points for Poetri. Just as everybody was thinking that the judges were a little too stingy, they surprised us all with a nice and plump score of 29.5 for the brilliant performance by Mark Gonzales/Besskepp duo (Long Beach team). Azikiwe of The 99's followed by making a "U Turn" and getting 28.9 (and no, that was not the amount of the ticket for the illegal turn!) and Gimel of the LA team had to settle for 28.4 points. The Alternate's Alternate for the Hollywood team, Snowplow, wrote her own joint since neither hip-hop nor the judges had a score to suit her (only 27.7 points). She was followed by Slim's (The 99's) 28 points, and then a miracle happened... The floodgates broke lose... The doors flew off the hinges... In spite of admitting to all his "Insecurities," Sekou tha Misfit secured 29.8 points for the LA team. Nafeesa (Hollywood team) followed with 29.3, as much as the Long Beach's Besskepp. Now, the final round was about to begin, and any of the four teams could still claim the victory. Of course, most of them saved their "top guns" for the very end: Shihan for LA, Tiffiney for Hollywood, R-A-C for Long Beach, and Macho for The 99's. The top scores for the round went to Shihan and Macho - 29.6 points each. That was still not enough to get The 99's out of the fourth place (total of 111.9 points), but it definitely secured the victory for the LA team (115.8 points). However... those who thought the competition was over were wrong. Hollywood and Long Beach teams were tied for second place with 114.4 points each, and tie-breakers had to be called in: Bridget Gray for Hollywood and Mark Gonzales for Long Beach. Bridget read an open "Letter to Hip-Hop" and judges sealed it and put a 29.9 stamp on it. Mark brilliantly proved that Shakespeare was a slam poet, too. Still, it seemed that some of the judges didn't do their required high school reading and could not relate to the subject matter, which resulted in only 29.6 points for Mark, thus giving the Hollywood team second place in this battle.
Now, if you followed our little series of reports, you would notice that each of the three teams won on their home turf. Does that mean Battle for LA had no winner? On the contrary! It had THREE fearless winners. Shihan, Sekou, Poetri, Omari, Gimel, Jaha, Gaknew, Tiffiney, Bridget, Nafeesa, In-Q, Ben, Mark, Rachel, Besskepp, and R-A-C, you guys are awesome! We wish you all the best in Seattle the first week of August!
No matter how these teams place in the Nationals, one thing is sure: Los Angeles will be more than adequately represented. Fruits from our poet-tree are sweet indeed!
Writing hard in WeHo and raving for LitRave,
Jelena aka Helen The Bashful Dragon
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