An Epic Rap Battle Retrospective Side Quest, Part 1

The battle rap style of rapping originated in the 1980s on the East Coast of the United States, but most of the Internet probably got introduced to it through the film 2002 film 8 Mile.  8 Mile starred Eminem as an aspiring rapper who got his start performing battle rap, was based on his life in Detroit, and brought the format of battle rap into the mainstream.

It’s a bit ironic that it was a white guy who popularized the format, because it was two more white guys who found success with a series about historical figures participating in battle rap and who slightly changed the format’s name by flipping the words.  Nowadays, everything and everyone calls them “rap battles”, and that might only be because of how the words flow better in that order in the title of the Epic Rap Battles of History.

Ever since Peter and Lloyd made rap battles Internet famous, there have been a number of imitators who came along and did some rap battles of their own, with varying quality and success.  Despite how rough the early costumes were in the Epic Rap Battles, the special effects were almost always top notch and the lyrics were usually pretty good (but there were admittedly some rather bad rap battles in its history).  This is true, not just of the Epic Rap Battles, but especially its imitators.

Unless something like six or seven more battles in Peter and Lloyd’s series were to debut within the next month or so, these next three articles will be the last installments of the Epic Rap Battle Retrospective for a long while.  Starting this week, I wanted to focus on the battles that were created by fans of the format, starting with…

 

Epic Pony Rap Battles of Equestria

Spotlight: Big Macintosh vs. Prince Blue Blood

Because of course there are My Little Pony versions of these.  Why wouldn’t there be?  The fandom surrounding My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic attracted a plethora of creatives who were inspired by the show to make things that probably would not have otherwise been made.  This is not the only rap battle series made by the Brony fandom, but as far as I can tell, it’s the only one that was ambitious enough to do its own animation as well; the rest were of varying levels of quality and usually weren’t that great.  Sadly, this series fell off very quickly, and the third battle released, between motivator guru Iron Will and shaman Zecora, ended up being released without an accompanying animation.  The series died after that, and I assume it ended up being too much work for those involved.  It’s a shame, because that third battle was the best one of the three, and would’ve been my spotlight if they had produced an animation for it.

The fourth battle was set to be a community spotlight episode, featuring two Bronies “randomly” chosen to battle one another.  If you’re reading this article and are thinking, “I don’t really care about the Epic Pony Rap Battles of Equestria at all,” then congratulations, you’ve stumbled upon the biggest problem with this idea.  It would not have been relevant or even interesting outside of the fandom and definitely would not have aged well.  It’s probably for the best that I couldn’t find any evidence of it actually happening or who the participants would’ve been.  Not that it would’ve mattered more than a decade later.

The fandom did produce some lasting successes, though.  Pony musicians in general continued to make music and achieve success, and many have even branched out of the pony fandom and into more mainstream endeavors.  The founding member of the band The Living Tombstone began his career in music by remixing a song from My Little Pony and would eventually ride that success into the video game industry, where the band (which now featured a lead singer who was added a few years after the pony remix) provided the soundtrack to the independent psychological horror game In Sound Mind.  Their lead singer recently also found success working on the music for both Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss.

There were a couple prominent success stories in the field of video games, as well.  Them’s Fightin’ Herds probably would not have existed if not for My Little Pony, as it was originally created as a fighting game where the six main characters from Friendship is Magic would fight one another.  Judging by the game’s story, it’s likely that the original product had a similar premise, with the ponies from the show needing to compete with one another to see who’s the strongest in order to fend off a threat to Equestria.  We’ll probably never see that version of the game thanks to legal action from Hasbro, although other fans cobbled together an approximation of that version of the game from leaked assets.

Hasbro’s legal action is the best thing to have happened to the developers because they turned the pony game into a non-pony product that they were able to sell for money.  It’s just too bad that the publisher they partnered with ended up screwing them over late last year, leaving the last DLC unfinished and buggy.

If you want a happier ending to the story of a plucky independent developer creating a pony game, look no further than Super Lesbian Animal RPG.  Not only did it get its start as a pony fan game, that pony fan game actually also saw the light of day and can still be found if you look for it.  The concept of the game was remade with original characters and released late in 2022 (which unfortunately means that it missed most people’s “best of” lists, of course), but has since become somewhat popular among LGBTQ gamers, many of which played the game in 2023 on Twitch.  The developer has been busy throughout 2023 squashing bugs and listening to feedback, and it sounds like they really care about their game.  Even if they don’t ever release a sequel, hopefully they continue developing games in the future.

 

Princess Rap Battle

Spotlight: Mrs. Claus vs. Mary Poppins

One of the things one notices about the early Epic Rap Battles is that there were very few ladies participating in the battles, and one of the first battles that did feature women cast a man in one of the roles.  Even today, most of the characters in the series are male, although they usually have done a good job casting women who fit their intended roles.  Their Lara Croft, for example, is the best live action Lara since Angelina Jolie.

I don’t know if the Princess Rap Battles were a response to this lack of feminine representation, but it’s definitely filled a hole that desperately needed filling in the YouTube rap battle scene.

The Princess Rap Battles were created by a YouTuber named Whitney Avalon, and just like Peter and Lloyd with the Epic Rap Battles, Whitney plays many of the characters and somehow feels like perfect casting for many of them.  She works so well as Maleficent, Mary Poppins, Katniss Everdeen… I could probably name nearly every character she plays in the series.  She’s the Lloyd of the Princess Rap Battles, a chameleon who can seemingly fit every role she casts herself in without just sounding and looking like herself.

The writing of these rap battles are also fantastic, so it’s tragic that the series slowed down significantly since its debut in 2014, with twelve episodes total over ten years.  The twelfth and so far final episode is a Genshin Impact tie-in released near the end of 2022, the only battle released in the COVID-19 era; although the eleventh was released February 15, 2020, it was obviously filmed and released before lockdowns and social distancing became a thing.

Also, despite not having “epic” in the title of the series, most battles contain a lot more material than a typical Epic Rap Battle, often delivering three verses each, sometimes four, when an Epic Rap Battle only contains two verses, more often than not.  Many times, a character is accompanied by characters who are either from their story or tangentially related, which must be hell for the costume budget, especially in the battles where they function as glorified back-up dancers rather than rappers themselves.  That, plus the pause between verses really makes it feel like these are truly battle raps instead of the fast paced rap battles that the Epic Rap Battles made famous.  I also appreciate the use of real sets instead of the green screen special effects used in the Epic Rap Battles.  It makes these videos feel more real, like a lot more effort went into making them.  The green screen special effects also took a lot of effort, naturally, but there’s definitely a distinctive visual style to the Princess Rap Battles that sets it apart from the Epic Rap Battles of History.

The writing makes it seem like Whitney and her co-writers know and understand the material they’re basing their battles on, and I appreciate that as well.  There’s a much more genuine feel to these battles, as if we really are watching these characters battle one another.  Admittedly, a few of the Epic Rap Battles have felt like a series of pop culture references without enough additional substance to flesh them out.  Many of them are lyrically creative, I wouldn’t have written more than a dozen articles about them if they weren’t, but when it comes to good writing and acting, I think the Princess Rap Battles are probably some of the best on YouTube.  The only reason I spotlighted the video I did is because it’s one of the few where both characters appear on screen together during the battle.  They’re all fantastic videos and I highly recommend all of them.

Next week: probably the most prolific Rap Battle series outside of the Epic Rap Battles, and then the week after, I’ll be mopping up the rest, including one from a fandom that I would consider to be the successor to the Bronies when it comes to online creativity.