LA Magazine: LA Awards: 2016 Edition

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    Posted: 31 December 2016 at 6:17pm
As we close out 2016, it's time to reflect on a standout year in the history of LA. We had 10 categories & were really spoilt for choice. The breadth of nominations and award winners really demonstrates the depth of talent and quality of contribution from everyone in the community.  

Before we get into the winners, I'd like to take this opportunity to offer a heartfelt thanks to all of you guys putting in the work that's taking this community go from strength to strength. Looking back at the Hall of Fame, it's tough to find a year that compares to this. You have to go right back into the early days of the site to find years where we've had anywhere near as many things going on (2004 and 2005 saw 5 tournaments apiece). 

This year we've had 2 Battle Royales (with a new belt introduced), the Audio title change hands for the first time since 2005, the Tag belts change hands for the first time since 2013 - both as part of a very successful Bloodlines III event (shout out to Trizzy Tre!).  We've also sustained the Open Mic King & Word Drop challenges throughout the year, with both gaining evermore entries every time we run them. On top of that we've seen the LA Text title defended multiple times, with Concrete making way for the new champion Spume Corrupt. We've also introduced 2 leagues with great success - both the 1-2 Punch League and the Topical Twist league are proving extremely popular. We trialled a crew battle format in the Crewsades. We've also established a strength in depth in the staff team that's never been seen before in LA history. 

Clearly we aren't going to rest on our laurels, but with the Battle Royale about to commence & another Identity Crisis in the pipeline, 2017 is shaping up to be another great year in LA history. Let's make it the best ever.

People's Choice Award Winners

So these are the awards that are decided by the people, for the people. All nominations were selected by regular members of LA & everyone had one equal vote. LA, these are your winners:

Sick-Witted memorial award for Drop of the Year


Honourable Mention: Exoduzt - Forever isn't real

The 1066 award for Battle of the Year


People's champ award for Member of the Year

Winner: Crimson Juice

Honourable Mention: Cuba

Otis award for Best Elevation of the Year

Winner: DayDizzle

Honourable Mentions: Hi-Z, Sky Scrapur

Class Clown award for Funniest Member of the Year

Winner: Rutter Knows Best

Honourable Mention: Ridley Squat


Staff Pick Award Winners

These awards were largely decided by me, with some input from the wider staff of LA. Obviously staff member of the year was chosen by myself & without the input of the guys who got the nod.

The first two awards are for our regular Open Mic challenges, OM King and Word Drop. You can see a history of past winners here, let us know if you disagree with our choices!! Just so you know, only the winning drops of the month were considered.

King of Kings: OM King of the Year

This was one of the hardest categories to decide, there were loads of great entries & the range/variety of topics makes it really hard to compare. For the winner I went back to February and chose a guy who isn't the most active on the board, but who dropped something that I personally would've been proud to have written. I loved the social commentary angle of it, plus the way the narrative was progressed was sublime. Didn't start off flashy, but it just steadily told the story and allowed everything to unfold at the right pace. I thought it was a superb drop and ultimately a worthy winner in a category packed full of top quality drops.

Winner: Venomonology - The Story of Moses

Honourable Mention: Concrete - Scotty Therapy Session: Vol 1

Word Smith: Word Drop of the Year

This one was a little easier than the OM King, I didn't think there were too many standout drops in here and really I was picking between a smaller number. Again, for the winner I went right back to the start of the game and chose the winner of WD2 as I just felt the way he integrated the words into that punchline hype type verse 

Winner: Rutter Knows Best - Know Ya Roles (WD2)

Honourable Mention: Cuba - LA Times (WD5)

Atom Bomb award: Drop of the Year

On the face of it an impossible choice, the Open Mic is the cornerstone of LA and has been on fire at various points of the year. The task was made easier by leaning on the collection wisdom, both of the general LA population in their nominations for the Sick-Witted award, and the collective wisdom of the LA staff in whittling it down to a smaller number of drops for the ultimate winner to be chosen from. 

Once we had the cream of the crop the decision was quite easy, the winner was the second drop I read in the shortlist and it totally blew me away. I thought it was an inspired interpretation of the picture it was written around and such a unique and creative direction to go in. The lyricism was high quality, without getting in the way of the narrative and the execution of the concept (which btw, was awesome) was unbelievable. For me, this was a really easy choice and the standout drop in the standout year goes to:

Winner: Self Activate - The Pinocchio Complex

Honourable Mention: Chain - Media Blackout

Gandalf Award: Staff Member of the Year

There were two standout candidates in this category. Both take the initiative & have this great ability to translate solid ideas into action to get things moving. Both make contributions of the highest quality. The first candidate, although he hasn't been active throughout the year, made several incredible contributions in the LA Magazine in the early part of the year that really helped turn this board from concept to reality. In the back end of the year he's been the driving force behind a lot of the activity that's been happening in the Open Mic in terms of the waves of feedback people are getting. Trust me, this doesn't just happen by itself. The second candidate turned the 1-2 Punch League from an idea, into a raging success and has diligently put in absolutely fuck tonnes of effort to consistently make these short battles happen, rattling out weekly magazine content which was recognised in the Class Clown category. Since he got the nod in that one, I was tempted to put him as a "honourable mention" here, but actually he has shown the positive attitude, relentlessness, and desire to make the site a better place which are all qualities which make him a great role model. 

In short, I didn't think it was right to pick between them. So I didn't. Therefore we have joint winners of the inaugural Gandalf award. Congrats guys!! 

Winners: Sammy & Rutter Knows Best

Austin Power's Goldmember Award: Member of the Year

Finally, a category I struggled with until I did all the research associated with deciding all the other awards. Then a clear winner emerged. This is a guy who came out of nowhere to win the first Battle Royale against a battle-hardened set of competitors, is the only person this year to have won two Open Mic Kings, conceived of and delivered the first Crewsades event (crew battle concept), he picked up the only nomination for the Sick-Witted award that was an Open Mic King drop, and got himself a whole raft of votes in the Class Clown category due to the verses he drops. His creativity and sense of humour make him a threat both in the Battlefield and in the Open Mic. He has a fun-loving attitude and clearly doesn't take himself too seriously. Which is the type of approach I personally strongly encourage. 

So congrats to the winner & major accolades to the honourable mentions, both of whom put in a great deal of positive activity and high quality output also make them great role models. 

Winner: Ridley Squat

Honourable Mentions: Self Activate, Lord Puente


Annnnnnnnnnnnd that's all folks. Congratulations to all the winners and honourable mentions & thanks to everyone who participated in terms of nominations and voting on the People's Choice awards. Until next time...


Edited by Cuba - 31 December 2016 at 7:14pm
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Nigma Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 December 2016 at 6:35pm
Awesome write up, amazing job recognising the winners here. Some of these categories were so vast but I think we collectively hit the nail on the head. Very happy to see Crimson get his well deserved shine. Props to Daydizzle for having his growth seen, SELF and Venom having some incredible OM pieces get some extra shine, love it. 

Good job everyone, 2016 was a great year for LA
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Trizzy Tre Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 December 2016 at 6:51pm
Nice write up Cuba...

2016 was filled with some amazing work, congrats to the winners.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Sammy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 December 2016 at 7:00pm
awesome job, Cuba! read it from beginning to end despite ADD ha. props to the whole LA fam this past year. 


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Cuba Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 December 2016 at 7:07pm
Originally posted by Sammy Sammy wrote:

awesome job, Cuba! read it from beginning to end despite ADD ha. props to the whole LA fam this past year. 

You'll have to re-read it as I'm going in to fix the typos and grammatical errors now Cry
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P.S. Keep an eye on News & Announcements Wink
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Rutter knows best Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 December 2016 at 8:10pm
Great work cubes. Thanks for the kind words and the shout out.

Props to all the winners and all you less special folk too.
#bananas
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Lord Puente Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 December 2016 at 8:25pm
great write up man, and great job putting all these awards together and doing all the polls.

 
congrats to all of the winners, runner ups, and the honorable non-mentioned. enjoy the awards while they last, 2017 is mine. on all categories.
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Nice write up Cube. 

You guys be grateful, he missed his new year competition for this. 
Go my Minions!


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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote daydizzle89 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 January 2017 at 12:07am
great work to all that earned so RP points here. Well deserved to all you. Great artocle and fun to read
. kudos to Cuba.for doing something positive forbLA. 
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Crimson Juice Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 January 2017 at 12:36am
Cuba you've done a terrific job on this write up,and massive props your way for being a humble and diligent member,and to all those who voted nice one ppl,and also props
to Sammy and Rut's,Stella work guys..peace.
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Oh before I forget, props to the whole community aswell,plus an honourable mention
to Puente,the guy puts in work..peace.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Sky Scrapur Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 January 2017 at 5:57am
Job welldone Cuba. Happy New Year bruh
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Awesome job Cuba, and massive big ups to everyone mentioned.

And cheers bro ...



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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote S Dubb Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 January 2017 at 4:22pm
Nicely done Cuba.....  You done great work here..... I know I wasn't here for most of it, but I definately looked at those mentioned and those who won...... Great job to all......
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote SELF ACTIVATE Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 January 2017 at 12:39pm
Props to everyone involved, awarded, mentioned, and all those that help to make this a fun and competitive community/experience day in and day out. It's been a real pleasure reading you guys' work, feeding it, and collaborating.

Good looking out Cubes. It's an honor, bro. Now I feel like I need to go stick my hands in some wet cement somewhere. lol
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First of all good work Cuba for putting this together. It was entertaining and wrapped up the year well when it comes to scoping out the top verses and which members to look into etc. Congrats to everyone who won an award or even got an honourable mention. They were deserved all around.
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