I remember it clear as day when we used to get out of school and ride around and bump Canibus. I remember getting pulled over by the police prom weekend in Wildwood for blasting 100 bars too loud. We would sit in my friend’s basement and analyze his lyrics; they were so well calculated and diverse. He would say things like:
“I speak with frequencies Dogs would have trouble hearing,
Canibus is the lyrical version of German Engineering,
Raw metaphors leave you high for months,
Fly around the earth twice without refueling once,
Aint too many categories I could fit in when it comes to spittin’,
Cause I’m over qualified for the position,
The laser guided lyrical hybrid,
Creatin’ scripts so sick I gotta arm wrestle my pen to write it.”
He claimed supremacy in the battle rapping realm and very well earned his accolades. Among the many awesome things he did was the famous Funk Flex freestyle with DMX and Noreaga. Unfortunately for him he had a run in with LL Cool J that didn’t help his career out at all. From what I understand, he was on a song “4,3,2,1” with him and they didn’t agree on something. Some say it had to do with Canibus getting a mic tattooed on his arm just like the one LL already had, and I’ve heard other say it had to do with LL’s verse in the song. Whatever it was it resulted in both of them making dis tracks pretty much trashing the other. To this day there is still a division among the public as to who won. I’d say it was pretty close. Being a Canibus fan I am biased so in my opinion Canibis’s dis track “Second Round Knockout” featuring the boxer Mike Tyson was slightly better but LL had a lot more fans so he won the public. Don’t get me wrong, LL is the man, but like I said I am a Canibus fan.
Now let’s fast forward a bit…… Apparently Canibus accepted a battle with a rapper named Dizaster and went on a Pay Per View event last year. No biggie right? Wrong, it was the toughest thing for me to watch. I’m not sure what he happened, he choked and that’s not something the general public knew was even possible. People can fight and live to fight another day in the battle rapping world but something happened that day that no one could have predicted, well maybe Dizaster could. At the end of the 2nd round of the 40 something minute battle(49:34) canibis shocked the crowd by announcing Dizaster had beat him and then went on to say and i quote “Im not a good freestyler my shit is techincal”. The look on his entourage’s faces said it all. In the beginning they had their heads up with a look of cheerful dominance in their eyes. Round after round as Dizaster pretty much lyrically stomps Canibus and drags him through the mud you could see slight changes in their demeanor. But it wasn’t till the end that when Canibus basically threw up a white flag (4:22)that their eyes went wide open as he handed away his crown in submission that they hung their heads in shame and made eye contact mostly with the floor.
Hold on wait, it doesn’t end there…. Then Canibus proceeds to plead with Dizaster, the referee’s, and the crowd to be able to read rhymes off of his notepad what he had prepared for the battle. I don’t know what you know about freestyle battles but that in my opinion is a big no no. Who does that? I know Canibus is a professional and dedicates significant amounts of time preparing the illest rhymes but I believe proper etiquette says to leave the pad at home to at least leave some mystery and have the crowd speculate as to whether or not it was written or a freestyle. The Crowd pretty much boo’ed him with their lack of response. Canibus getting boo’ed? I never once thought that was even possible. Dizaster did his homework big time and hit all of Canibis’s pressure points like in one of those old school Kung Fu movies. It was the equivalent to a lyrical “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique”. The personal references got under his skin and ate him alive. It made him loose his cool and do something that I bet he regrets to this day. He renounced his title with his own mouth.
However gruesome it was, one can say he kind of had it coming. By that i mean Canibus destroyed many MC’s in freestyle battles over the years and i guess their souls manifested themselves in the most shocking act of revenge through Dizasters tongue. At the battle even Dizaster admits he looked up to Canibus and believed he was one the best rappers ever growing up. I must say he was very classy after his landslide victory and displayed great sportsmanship.
So now where does that leave me and the rest of the hard core Canibus Fans? For years I’ve preached Canibus is the illest. I’d school the young bucks who didn’t know and tell them they aint heard nothing till they hear Canibus. Now if you youtube Canibus that battle is the first thing that pops up. I personally messaged Canibus on Facebook pleading with him to do a rematch. Not sure what good that would do or if it would only get worse. I’m not sure what Canibus is up to these days but I know I wish him the best. He was very inspirational; his lyrical style was stimulating and colorful. My friend had a cassette tape labeled “evidence” with all sorts of tracks on it displaying his immense talent. Unfortunately it was stolen out of my apartment, i still get my balls busted to this day about it because some of the tracks on it were undergound and very difficult to find.
I feel displaced. I feel like my favorite super hero got wacked. It’s like being a Batman fan, going to the movies and the Joker beats him down and puts him in a wheel chair. Then at the end of the movie visits him in the hospital rolls him in an elevator and goes to the top floor and just rolls him off the roof and then BOOM they just roll the credits and your jaw is left hanging and your like WTF just happened? I joke around sometimes and tell people I almost took a day off from the office when I saw the shocking footage because I needed time to mourn. Some of my closest friends refuse to watch the battle with Dizaster because they don’t want to tarnish the mental image they have of Canibus. Part of me wishes I was living in complete ignorance of the events that happened that day. So who is my favorite rapper now? Is it Dizaster by default? Is it like Highlander and Dizaster absorbed his soul in an electrical storm after decapitating him? Tell you the truth, i don’t know… My jaw is still hanging just like the guys standing behind Canibus were when he pulled out the note pad.
Though I don’t know what Canibus is doing these days, I do know what Dizaster is up to. Dizaster is going to battle Cassidy on December 6th on Pay Per View. Cassidy is a rapper from Philly and he is well known for the epic battle with Freeway another rapper from Philly who at the time was much more established than him. Cassidy is a much more relaxed type of rapper with super clever punchlines and off the meter swagger. I believe this will be one of the best battles not only of the year but also in Hip Hop History.
Why don’t we give this a try?
The youre very eloquent .
train bearing a knife. While the young student began to consider his training, the teacher began talking quietly to the angry young man. He kept talking calmly to the y
Comments are closed.