BEAT Klub Battle
at Fight Klub Studios, NYC.

Story THE UNDERDOG | Photography URSULA MANAF

This is the way it should go down and, all praises due, it still does. Fight Klub Studios ain’t pretty, the raw space is the perfect dungeon-like atmosphere for machine warfare. The re-animated sibling to its own parent, Fight Klub (see issue nine, Nas/Preemo), is a room filled with smokers and sippers that were reminiscent of the soon-to-be old school days of the early ’90s, when nobody cared what you had or what you looked like. At Beat Klub when you push play on your weapon of choice, you’d better blast nothing but fire.

Hosted by Rek and Vaughn Jeff, DJ DWI from 91.9 NYC’s Next Up radio dropped nothing but head-knock to whet the crowd’s appetite. The judges for the evening were Agallah (FKA 8-Off the Assasin), Chip-Fu (who subbed in for sponsor Omillio Sparks), and Phantom of Da Beat. It went down like this...

Undercard
J-Cardim (Beantown)
vs.
Doc Stone (Illadelphia)
J-Cardim rocking Soundforge and an MPC2000, came out the gate with a clever sped up sample and muddy sub bass. He definitely threw down a slow flo, dirty Dip Set sound. Dude’s sound wasn’t crazy original but had a good mix and a rare sample that grabbed folks’ attention. His ghetto pass was validated. Doc Stone suffered some equipment issues in round one [Ed note: always load your weapon BEFORE walking the 10 paces]. Doc’s misstep allowed J-Cardim to come up out the holster with a second slow-writer. While Doc rebooted, Mahogany (Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey) said, “Dude better come with something nuclear... some ol’ stupid never-heard-before shit.”

What followed was the highlight of this bout. Doc, rocking a 61-key Triton keyboard, pushed play and answered with an 80-yard Hail Mary reminiscent of his fellow Illadelphian, his majesty, The Magnificent Jazzy Jeff. The oozing subs and tweaked out modulated synths begged for an ignorant Busta/Andre 3000 lyrical beatdown.

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