100 BARS MAGAZINE 008 Apr/May 2014 | Page 38

bars Ceas brought were tough. Vader: Y-Not, your latest battle with Shi-Dog showed a tremendous amount of improvement from you. The crowd definitely respected the bars on both sides, making that battle a definite classic. Do you think this was your best performance so far? Y-Not: I really do. I have been trying for some time now to figure out how to shorten my bars and to be able to bring more punches to the table and I feel like I have found my voice and figured out what the people want from me as a battler. Now I am going to continue to just bring an overwhelming number of heavy-hitting punches to every battle I get booked for, to prove why I belong in the top of this culture. Vader: Who will you be up against next? Y-Not: Right now I am in talks with Danny Myers and the AHAT staff to bring a wellknown Smack rapper out to Vegas to battle me. I can’t really release any names just yet, but I will only be battling people at a high level from now on. I am also in talks with Aspect One and Sketch Menace to battle both in California and Canada in the very near future versus some great competition. Vader: Profecy, you and SuperSick were a very good match. Your performance and crowd control 38 was great. Who took that battle? We also got to see some sick rebuttals from both of you: “you know what else rhymes with Hoover Crip/Mr. White?” How important is freestyling to you both? Y-Not are two of the best I ever heard on the freestyle tip. Profecy: I won that. SuperSick got the first round; his first rounds are always crazy. Freestyling is bittersweet. It’s not usually big for me unless its done right. I get drunk and freestyle, but sober, I would rather just write a track. It’s important to have that to fall back on in case I forget bars or in a rebuttal. It can be a game changer. Like the Mr. White rebuttal; it kind of voided his round. (Profecy laughs) I can’t say that I’ve lost a league battle though. I feel like I’ve won all my battles. I would have a longer resume, but my first year and a half I had 11 cancels — day of or before the event — and no shows. Vader: Alright here’s a question straight from the fans, “What sort of recon, if any, do you do on an opponent to prepare for a battle with someone you’ve never met?” Y-Not: I used to only freestyle and at some point, I was considered one of the best in our area. Which means a lot, because Tucson has a lot of heavyhitting guys who can freestyle amazingly, but at some point I lost the love for it, because I was so focused on my writing game. Rebuttals are cool when done right, but can also water down your round if you’re not careful. I do look to add more of a rebuttal game to my battles as I start feeling more comfortable. Y-Not: Same here, I watch a few battles and see what I don’t like about their styles or if something stands out I will shed light on it, but I do like to incorporate a few bars of personals so that way they know I can kill them off with more than just pop culture references. Profecy: I agree. SuperSick and Y-Not: Yeah. SuperSick and the entire MHG team are strong in all aspects of the game. Salute to them; they always hold us down. Profecy: I watch a battle or two, I don’t get very personal usually. Although social media kind of puts it right in your face. (Profecy laughs) If it’s there and needs to be spoke on then I’m going to speak on it, but mostly I’m going in there to bar you to death. I think personals are better left to small leagues where everybody knows each other, but to each his own. I have a kind of assassin way of thinking; I don’t want to personally know the person I’m gonna kill. Vader: Now, we always see you guys looking very fly on camera, wearing your own clothing line — Take A Second To Exhale. Tell us about the idea and where it came from.