Rap battling
Rap battling, commonly known as Fliptop in the Philippines, is a highly competitive and creative style of discourse whose aim is the verbal domination and embarrassment of one’s opponent through a combination of creative rap lyrics and effective delivery (Fitzpatrick, 2005). It is a rap battle league that was exhaustively enjoyed by many Filipino especially youths. Fliptop is a competition in free-flowing articulations of rhyming thoughts. The participants are called MCs, pronounced as emcees, had given a chance to state their bars or beats to affront his/her opponent within 3 minutes wherein each of the bars may include: rebuttal (line to counter an opponent’s comment), Punchlines (line delivered as the climax to a joke or series of setup bars) and Personals (a verbal attack highlighting details of an opponent’s offstage life). The battle is divided into three rounds. The extemporaneous verbalization is in rap form where creativity, meaningfulness, and rhyme schemes were being critiqued and analyzed by the juries. The MCs who will get the highest number of votes will be proclaimed as a winner. For instance, if the votes are at a state of equilibrium, the juries may request for an OT (Over Time).
