I’m a rap battle nerd. Have been for awhile. I was the kid in high school who would listen to the Juice vs. Supernatual battle on the way to school in the morning. Right now my recommended video’s on YouTube consist of seven rap battles and a video of Adam Morrison being ignored by Will Bynum.
Fortunate for me, battle rapping’s popularity is currently at an all-time. This is thanks in large part to match ups between SMACK and Scribble Jam artists. The two styles were both successful on their own, but until recently there had not been match ups between the leaders of the two divisions.
Okwerdz, now most famous for battles on Grindtime, is one one of the artists from the Scribble Jam era to help start this trend.
“I’ve been battling since I was 17, and battling a certain style of rapper the whole time,” he said. “When I saw the SMACK DVDs for the first time, I immediately wanted to try it because it was something different. Arsonal, at the time, was the pretty much the hottest rapper coming out of the East Coast, he had just won Fight Club, so I figured he’d be the perfect target.”
Okwerdz will be performing in Eugene, Oregon this Friday at John Henrys and in Corvallis on Saturday at Cloud 9. He is one of the few artists who has successfully translated his popularity through battles into a career in music.
“When you start getting a lot of YouTube hits for the battles, the object is getting the people to your channel instead of only seeing you on the Grindtime channel. You get them locked in from the battles and then you introduce them to your music and grind hard on doing the shows.” He continued, “A lot of people don’t take advantage. They have a bunch of Twitter followers but they never book any shows, they just put out free mixtapes or whatever. There’s a lot you can do with this attention, and you have to take advantage of it because once you get bodied a couple of times it can all be over.”
Okwerdz stays active on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, building new relationships and giving fans a consistent stream of content. His YouTube Channel, www.youtube.com/okwerdz , is regularly updated with behind the scenes footage and a Freestyle Vault that has featured Mistah Fab and Andy Milonakis amongst others.
“I’m not a baller by any means, but I’m definitely making more now than I did at my last job.” He continued, “Once I learned how to hustle off the internet and make things pop, and use the attention I’ve been given off the battles I started making more off of music than I did at my job. So eventually I was at work like, ‘Fuck, there’s no reason for me to even be here’.”
The shows in Oregon were organized by Payne, out of Salem, who originally heard about Okwerdz because of his posts on Twitter.
“Someone reposted something about getting in touch with him for booking and doing feature, so I sent him an email seeing what he was about,” said Payne. “From the first time we talked he was super down to earth, and not super Rap Life.”
Okwerdz has three projects he is currently putting the finishing touches on, including one with Illmaculate and Only One of Sandpeople.
“We’re going to put it out ourselves. I don’t really see a reason to put music out with a label at this point. Especially now that I have a decent following. And because I know how to push the shit myself. I know the outlets I need to get it to and I have good relationships with certain websites that get a lot of traffic.” He continued, “Plus it’s really better to do it yourself, so you can keep your money and all that.”
For more information on the shows and Okwerdz visit www.okwerdz.com.
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