Topic ClosedHeat Wave: HW Topical (Rd 2) - Cuba v King Soul

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Direct Link To This Post Topic: HW Topical (Rd 2) - Cuba v King Soul
    Posted: 10 August 2015 at 9:25pm
Quarter Final: HEAT WAVE

Topic = You are a criminal on the run & the police are closing in...

Max 24lines
Best of three votes from nominated JUDGES
Deadline = midnight, 23rd August

Edited by Cuba - 24 August 2015 at 10:25pm
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 August 2015 at 10:49pm
They casting out their net in all known ways and angles
Yeah you think you're safe behind code names and handles
There's a cold rage in scandals, and I was deep undercover
Making connections, vaguely suspected by bleak mother fuckers
But all that changed when I cracked the government mainframe
And discovered the eight phase plot, shuddering brainwaves
All that painstak-ing work, all the hours that I slaved
Never cowered to their power, out those cowards on a page
But the backlash was mad fast, could've caught me by surprise
Had I not jacked the wifi, how I'm tortured by those cries
They struck in the night & now I'm haunted by those eyes
Ruthlessly disregarded his wife and daughter's lives
Those walls were thin, so I slipped out the back yard
Moments later the signal blipped on my flash card
I tripped as the blast charred, but that's flour on the scales
Diversion didn't work so now they're on my trail
But I won't let them do me like Snowden or Assange
Coz you think they're outcasts, but that's only a mirage
And when the world is Disney it's lonely as Jafar
Taking a huge risk even meeting Brody at the bar
The loss of human contact leaves a truly shallow void
Now every single glance makes me hugely paranoid
Walls are closing in, feel the granite on my skin
In the end what do I want more, answers or to live...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 August 2015 at 11:47pm
Sprinting down the street, pretending I'm still living the dream,
sirens warn me of violence, my eyelids feel like their lifting concrete.
Shin splints driving me insane, limits pushed by striving through rain,
I wish I could silence the tyrants that keep thriving off of my pain.
Explode through walls of debris, hope I don't get caught by the police,
bullets hissing by the culprit, it's bullshit, all I did was rob groceries!
Broken ribs and hopelessness, ocean's winds make it hard to breathe,
blood filling up my lungs, an empty gun and shrapnel shards in my knee.
Praying to god but he's asleep, playing cops and robbers makes me weak,
being gangster makes you a stranger, puts you in danger, escape's outta reach.
Trapped in an abandoned house, like a cat waiting for the stranded mouse,
every door awaits a storm, like locust swarms or sulfur fannin' it out.
I keep marching back and forth, inside glass and boards like it's a cage,
they can come inside and take my life, I go outside and it ends the game.
What more can I do? Before this ruse I was just a kid attending school,
Now I'm the fool on Channel Two, confused with injustice, defending my truth.
It's now or never, do I go down like a clown or live on forever?
I put the gun on the ground, tuck my hands in and give up for the better.
Walking outside slowly, helicopter light's so holy but they didn't know me,
blood in the sky as every iron sight pierced my skin, militant clips unloading.
Seventeen years old, everything parents fear showcased on the television,
nobody listened, "sorry for the explicit image," one mistake dismissed with
the death of a suspect, no regret as the rest of the fire squad roared?
Another name on a tombstone, who'd know I'd die before a loss in court...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 September 2015 at 4:09pm
Another very dope close battle in the topical arena..... wow this is a good drop!

Cuba the execution and the ability to drag in your reader and make them feel as if it were them.. the little disney reference so we all can understand the situation. I loved it from start to finish i can see why the character choose to do things the way he did and i felt as if i were there the whole time... BRAVO.


KS- this is the first i am reading anything you've dropped so on that note DAMN good shit for a topical bro. you killed the topic you have a very vast vocal that drags in detail and i think that you put a very creative spin on the topic as well. Only thing i would say is it was a little predictable and you could have developed the character differently (for my personal taste) however... i can see how you could win this.

unfortunately for me i have to go with CUBAs verse as i enjoyed the story more through his interpretation.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 September 2015 at 1:20pm
Cuba - I thought the story was pretty dope, I liked the twist a bit towards the beginning when he cracked the governments mainframe. The imagery and descriptives was dope, you had very nice word usage to paint the picture of what was going on. I loved the closer, puts a good end to it. Makes the reader wonder what would have happened if he decided to get more answers or just to live his life in a state of solitude. As for critique, I didn't think your flow in this piece was %100 percent flawless. There were spots that just awkwardly read, at least for me. Example, is the ruthlessly bar.

King Soul - The storyline was pretty straight forward to the topic. You took the generic approach, however, i did laugh at the character robbing the groceries. You as well had very nice imagery and used writing techniques to further that as well. Cat/mouse line was an example of that. And I thought you as well were a bit off with flow in places which tends to happen more often with the longer lines. Some of them are just small fixes. Like the police line something as small as removing "the" would make the line so much smoother. 

"I wish I could silence the tyrants that keep thriving off of my pain.
Explode through walls of debris, hope I don't get caught by police,"

That's just one example. Besides that the flow was good, you used the internals and the extra rhyme to carry your flow across. 

MVGT: King Soul - It was a tough choice. I really liked cuba's story better and King Soul's took the typical approach of with the storyline. But at the end of the things, I thought king soul did a hell of a job with his descriptiveness. I felt at times when I was reading his that I actually knew his character. He was  just a kid in school and robbed groceries which turned into this mess. Gotten shin splints from the running, and was out of breath. The way he portrayed it all and fed you background information later on the verse rather than right at the beginning was well done. As far as that 'feeling character' aspect, I thought cuba could have done more with the emotion when they raided the home and killed his daughter and wife. I didn't really suck in that characters emotions until the end when he was alone in the world and paranoid of every stranger. This was an awesome battle on both ends.
Go my Minions!


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 September 2015 at 2:21am
Two very different verses with contrasting pros and cons.

Mechanics goes to Cuba by a fair margin. Flow was tight knit throughout. Technically sound, no complaints. You even stepped outside your standard [setup/punch/transition] format at times which was nice to see.

Soul, the weakest part of your writing is how you stretch your lines. Flow comes in 4's, remember that. The number 4 is psychologically proven to be pleasing to the human brain in terms or music, and to a greater extent, rhythm. (4x4=16, as in 16 bars). When you read your lines you should be able to nod your head 4 times and keep a rhythm, but you cram a few too many syllables in consistently. Aside from that, you used internals to good effect and your end rhymes were solid for the most part.

Content wise...

Cuba, you did a good job setting the mood and creating a believable scene. My only qualm was that there was no definitive climax in my eyes, like you were building up towards something that never fully came to light. The references and storytelling were spot on throughout but I feel you needed something with more impact to close out on.

Soul, I was on the fence about your direction in the opener with the gunshots and stuff and was really quite hopeful that you'd somehow tie it together later on, and with about a quarter of the verse to go I understood your direction and appreciated the foreshadowing at the beginning of the verse. I thought your angle was very creative and relevant due to the amount of police violence as of late. 


Overall, a very tough vote to cast. Both had essentially contrasting pros and cons. After some deliberation I'm going to pass the vote to the verse I felt came with the fresher angle of the two and that left a more memorable impression after several reads.

+1 King Soul

PS: Soul, if you ever randomly 4 star an OM of mine again I will slit your fucking throat

Good battle to you both, one of the hardest decisions I've had to make in a long time.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 September 2015 at 8:37am
King Soul advances.
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