An Epic Rap Battle Retrospective, Part 1

 

Epic!

Rap!

Battles of History!

For ten years, the duo of EpicLLOYD and Nice Peter have been staging battles, in rap form, between various historic and pop culture figures, ranging from Thanos to Moses.  The sixth season ended in 2020 after a gap of about a year between videos, likely due to the plague that’s trying to kill us all.  The gap lasted so long that their political debate video, Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump, ended up as part of season six rather than possibly becoming a bonus battle or the beginning of season seven.

A seventh season is on its way, but now might be a good time to look back at the series so far. This week, a brief look at the first half of season one of the Epic Rap Battles of History, what worked and what didn’t.

 

John Lennon vs. Bill O’Reilly

Best line: “Well, you can’t buy me love, but I’ll kick your ass for free.”
Runner up: “Help! You’re making my ears bleed…”

Something you might notice about the first few rap battles is just how short they were.  Perhaps there wasn’t enough material to work with when making this very first battle, especially considering they seemingly threw a random Conservative and random Liberal together.

One thing that stuck out for me was that Bill O’Reilly called himself evil, and that’s interesting to me because of my own belief that most of us view ourselves as the protagonists of our own story.  For example, I’m willing to bet that everyone who stormed the Capital Building earlier this month thought they were the heroes and not the villains.

What I find interesting about the Beatles is that each individual member (with the possible exception of George Harrison) is more known for their work after the band broke up than they are for their work as the Beatles.  Most famously, Paul McCartney had more success with his follow-up band Wings, even if the legacy of Wings is largely overshadowed by the legacy of the Beatles.

For John Lennon, his legacy seems to be “Imagine,” “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” (a song which is in direct competition every year with Paul’s “Wonderful Christmastime” as the worst and most overplayed song of December) and his marriage to Yoko Ono.

For a little bit of early installment weirdness, this first battle features no captions at the bottom, and it’s got some of the worst costumes in the entire series (but given that this was the first, I’m sure you can excuse them).

 

Darth Vader vs. Hitler

Best line: “You have the Force to move objects, I am a force truly evil!”
Runner up: “I am Adolf Hitler!” (just because of how the line’s delivered)

This is the video that put the Epic Rap Battles on the map.  The production values of this video are much higher than the first one, the flows are better, but it’s still a bit short.  With as much material that they could’ve drawn from, if they waited until season four or five to do this video, it likely would’ve been a three to four minute epic.

I guess it’s appropriate, then, that Vader and Hitler ended up starring in three of these videos.  The only other character to star in three of them is Donald Trump, so I guess he’s keeping good company.

Given that this is a villains match-up, both Vader and Hitler act like they view themselves as evil, which is curious given my reasoning above.  Another thing that’s interesting about this video is that there’s a clear winner at the end, as Vader freezes Hitler in carbonite.  It’s likely because, even in 2010, Peter and Lloyd realized that it was a bad idea to have Hitler potentially winning in the battle, so they made sure to show Hitler as having definitively lost.

At least Hitler has better facial hair than John Lennon.

 

Abe Lincoln vs. Chuck Norris

Best line: Pretty much every line from both rappers

This is another one of those weird match-ups that don’t make a lot of sense.  The two don’t have a lot in common, and the only thing I can think of is that they’re ideologically opposed like in the first rap battle.

There isn’t a lot to say either.  Chuck Norris pretty much quotes the Chuck Norris facts for the majority of his verses and they’re epic in and of themselves.  Abraham Lincoln educates about his life a little bit, but admittedly, in recent years, as we examine American mythology a bit more, we realize that a lot of the things we know about the Presidents of the United States is wrong.  Even Lincoln wasn’t as perfect as we all would like to believe.  Here’s a video from Knowing Better that talks about Mount Rushmore and the four guys who’re on it, including Abraham Lincoln.

I am so, so sorry for Ted Cruz, everyone.  (Watch the Knowing Better video and you’ll see why I’m apologizing.)

This is one of those odd videos where each line is one of the best lines they’ve ever featured in a battle, but when they come together, the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts.  I don’t know how it’s possible, other than I guess because this is one of the early battles that just threw two people together and hoped for the best.

 

Sarah Palin vs. Lady Gaga

Best line: “I wonder if you even know how to spell the word ‘art’.”
Runner up: “Everything you do is just a rerun of Madonna.”
Aged like milk: “History will regret you like John McCain.”

Remember Sarah Palin?  Yeah, she was pretty much a flash in the pan, but she was notable just long enough for someone to nominate her for a rap battle… against Lady Gaga.  Yep, this is another battle between two people who were ideologically opposed but who had not a lot else in common.

Just like the battle between Abe and Chuck, this one had some very good lines.  Choosing just the two best is very, very hard.  Sarah Palin certainly had just fifteen minutes of fame, didn’t she?

The John McCain line is interesting.  He came up quite a lot in the early rap battles, but never actually rapped in any of them.  Bill O’Reilly was accused of having voted for John McCain and here, McCain’s mentioned as being a regretful part of history.

I wonder how Peter and Lloyd would approach these battles after John McCain redeemed himself in the minds of some when he stuck up for the Affordable Care Act in 2017, an act that was passed by his political rival Barack Obama, then died in 2018 from brain cancer.

 

Hulk Hogan vs. Kim Jong-il, featuring Macho Man Randy Savage

Best line: “Spend less time rapping and start feeding your people.”
Runner up: “You look like Sonic the Hedgehog’s mother!”

Wow, that’s a bad Hulk Hogan costume.

Anyway, this battle is probably most notable in that everyone who participated were still alive at the time the video was made, but since then, both Randy Savage and Kim Jong-il have passed away.  I don’t know if John McCain counts since he was merely shown in Sarah Palin vs. Lady Gaga, but if he does, then each rap battle video features someone who has died, and if everyone was alive at the time the video was made, at least one of the people featured have died to maintain the balance.  Both Sarah Palin and Lady Gaga were relatively young at the time their video was made, so John McCain ended up suffering for a few years before dying.

In some cases, like Vader vs. Hitler, both are canonically dead.  Hitler having claimed his own life, and Vader having sacrificed himself for his son.  Both John Lennon and Abraham Lincoln were shot dead.

This is also only one of two rap battles which gives the replacement rapper a title card.  Everyone else joining a battle since then (with the exception of the five-way Ivan the Terrible vs. four Greats battle) have joined without a title card, which is how come Abraham Lincoln has been featured in the most videos, but has only received one title card.  He also raps in two of the presidential debate videos, giving him three appearances like Hitler, Vader and Trump, but he has only received titular credit once.

Given that this video killed both Randy and Kim, should we be worried about Hulk Hogan’s health?

 

Justin Bieber vs. Beethoven

Best line: “You want to be a little white Usher?  Here, show them to their seats.”
Runner up: “I would smack you, but in Germany we don’t hit little girls.”

This is another one with some very good lines, including some from Justin Bieber.  I also appreciate that the beat of the song models itself after Beethoven’s Für Elise, although only the most famous part of it.  There is a little bit more to it, but most people don’t realize.

After Bieber’s meteoric rise to fame, it’s interesting that he’s had to struggle to get the same amount of success these days, which actually is more of an indictment of the music industry in general than it is of his own music.  Whether you enjoy his music or not, it’s clear that music seems to come and go at the whims of its promoters.  Bieber’s “My World” was heavily promoted on the strength of the story of his humble YouTube beginnings.  A lot of music is like that.  Paul Potts and Susan Boyle won big on talent shows and their first albums saw decent success, but follow-up albums haven’t proven as popular.

I also remember when Savage Garden was on top of the world.  Their two albums were promoted very heavily and they sold millions of CDs, but then after the band’s break-up was announced, no one was interested in promoting Darren Hayes’ solo efforts, and it got to the point where, when his first single “Insatiable” proved to be too popular among his Canadian fans, it was actually forced off the air and he was blacklisted from at least one Canadian music video channel.  All because he wasn’t supposed to be popular any more.

One could imagine Darren’s song “Pop!ular” was, in a way, firing back at the music industry.  Justin Bieber, meanwhile, still attempts to play the game, and his biggest successes lately have been in collaboration with other, more popular artists.

 

Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking

Best line: “I’m as dope as two rappers, you’d better be scared.  Cause that means Albert E equals MC squared!”
Runner up: “I’m a super computer, you’re like a TI-82.”

The transition from the more politically-inclined battles early in the series to match-ups like Bieber vs. Beethoven and this one improves the quality of the series, since participants actually have something to do with each other.  In this case, two of the greatest scientific minds in human history face off against each other.

Something that I noticed in the earlier battles is that Nice Peter’s characters are more defined as their own people, so it’s easier for him to slip into those roles.  Something you’ll begin to see later is that he’s not as good a chameleon as Epic Lloyd is, and certain characters (Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Luke Skywalker, for example) sound very similar to Nice Peter and not enough like the characters he’s playing.  Epic Lloyd seems to be able to get into character a lot easier, and even with the seasons one and five finales for context, it’s still a lot harder to see Lloyd in his characters than it is to see Peter.

In this case, Peter mainly sits in Stephen Hawking’s chair while a computerized voice raps.  I don’t think they were happy with having to compromise like that, especially since Stephen Hawking’s condition leaves it very difficult for him to emote.  Peter tries his best and it doesn’t quite work out for him.  Stephen Hawking is a very tough role to play and perhaps someone else might’ve been able to portray him better.  Peter may not have been talented enough to play him, but I do feel like the deck is stacked against him this time.

There are a couple roles he takes in season two which I feel he doesn’t make the right decisions with, but I’ll get to that soon enough.

Something to note about Stephen Hawking is that despite his condition, you could tell when he was having fun or not.  He himself was very emotive, and as just one example, here’s his interview with John Oliver.

 

Genghis Khan vs. Easter Bunny

Best line: “Come on!  Your bunny ass about to feel the wrath of Khan!”
Runner up: “You’ve got two giant ears but can’t hear that you suck.”
Worst line: “My little tail swinging and my big ears flopping.”
Why?: Just why?

Wow.  This is such a bad match-up.  This is probably the worst one they’ve ever done, since I can’t think of any reasons the two would ever be paired up together.  You might as well produce a rap battle between Samson from the Bible and Snoopy from the comics.

There isn’t even a lot that’s canon to the actual Easter Bunny.  He’s basically Santa Claus without a backstory.  Every piece of media that features a version of him (Hop, Rise of the Guardians, The Santa Clause 2) all just do their own version of the character without building on anything that came before.  This likely made it hard to figure out how to portray the character, and what they came up with was Nice Peter in a cheap fursuit.

Even Santa Claus has evolved over time, but I think I’ll wait until the Santa Claus vs. Moses battle to elaborate.

All that was definitively known about the Easter Bunny a hundred years ago was that he goes around while everyone’s asleep and hides eggs right before Easter Sunday.  All that’s definitively known about the Easter Bunny today is that he goes around while everyone’s asleep and hides eggs right before Easter Sunday.  There’s been speculation that he has ties to a Saxon goddess that may or may not exist, and even if she did, most scholars agree that there’s no evidence this possible goddess even liked rabbits.

Not counting the end credits, this is the shortest battle in the entire series.  Even the announcer sighed when he had to read the match-up out.

Ugh, that was terrible, I need to take a break.

 

 

Part two of this retrospective series coming Monday!