From GrindTime to the King
of the Dot, the Fresh Coast has
been thriving in the culture. They
have been a platform to various
battles out in the West Coast; more
specifically, in Los Angeles and
the Bay area. The Fresh Coast is
comprised of an entire team that
represents the West Coast division of
KOTD. Lush One took a moment
out of his day to chop it up with
100 Bars Magazine. We talked
about the Fresh Coast movement;
his experiences as an emcee, battler
and host; his bold examples of
individuality and lastly, what battle
rap truly represents to some of its
hugest supporters and fans.
transferring over to YouTube in
the early GT days, I figured that
with all of my resources and the
emcees that I know we could
take this movement to an even
higher level. So that was my
initial interest in it right there.
Still to this day, my passion and
main focus is being an emcee,
recording music and touring,
but it all
battle rap included
just kind of goes together.
Novie Blendz: So a lot of fans
know you from your past with
GrindTime and currently with the
KOTD FreshCoast movement,but
a lot of people don’t know that
you’ve actually battled. Do you
want to talk a little bit about that?
Lush One: The WRCs were
actually pretty cool. They were
kind of the catalyst to the
modern battle scene as we know
it and I’m really glad that I was a
part of it.
The very first WRCs were in
2006 and my homeboys The
Saurus and Illmaculate were the
champions. That year I didn’t
participate, but the following
year, in 2007, I did. The funny
thing is that I was quasi-retired
from battling. I wasn’t really too
keen on entering it.
Lush One: Yeah, my whole
introduction to the game on an
organizational level was spawned
from me first and foremost being
an emcee. I’m old as f***k, and
I’ve been involved in the culture
since the late 90s, so battling
was just something you did as
an emcee; it was just being an
all-encompassing artist. If you
rapped, you made tracks, you
did shows and you battled.
That’s just what we did as
emcees back then. Then seeing
the acapella battle movement
Novie Blendz: You’ve also
competed in the World Rap
Championships. How was your
overall experience with the WRCs?
Then my crew, the Delmon crew,
had just put out an album and I
was just trying to campaign for
that. So then I decided at the
last minute to enter and it was
myself and my boy F-LO; we
entered it. We ended up doing
lush one
cover story
really good and I was nominated
for most valuable rapper.
Overall, I think that the most
beneficial part of that entire
experience was all of the
connections that it made. That
was how all of the original
emcees that were poppin during
the GT era -which was the daddy
of modern battling- met and
became homies through the
WRC’s.
Novie Blendz: So is that how you
ended up meeting Organik?
Lush One: People don’t realize
that I have actually known
Organik way before that.
We’ve been homies for over a
decade. Before there was this
gigantic battle community,
there was maybe a community
of about 100 or less hardcore
battle rappers and nerdy
fanboys that would upload
battle footage;originally most
of it was audio. Organik was
one of those guys, ever since
he was 16 years old. We had
been watching and listening to
each other’s battle footage, via
MySpace, for a while. Then the
WRCs kind of put the both of
us as well as others on an even
higher platform. The biggest
connections for me came at the
WRCs; it was the first time I
met and heard of or saw: Drect,
Dizaster and Hollow Da Don.
Novie Blendz: So basically WRC
was the introduction that would
eventually lead to the existence of
GT?
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