Lord Of The Mics has been creating a buzz amongst the scene throughout the last 5 months ever since Jammer confirmed that it would be returning and Desperado dropped the first hype session.
Over those 5 months Jammer, Ratty and Cameraman Sketch have been travelling throughout the UK to bring us the latest hype sessions, interviews and arranging the battles that will take place in the Dungeon (Jammers Basement).
As a fan of Lord of the Mics, and when I say fan, I mean someone who sits there, lights off with Morley’s Medley in hand and hoodie on, it was with both excitement and fear that the news of LOTM 3 hit me. The fear of it not being able to live up to the previous instalments, where artists such as Wiley, Kano, Crazy Titch, Scratchy and Skepta staked their claim to fame yet excitement at the fact the new wave of MC’s had the chance to show us what they were made of. My fears were squashed as soon as we hit the LOTM preview night.
We all knew how excited Jammer was beforehand, going mental on Twitter, so when we got there and saw him with the biggest smile ever we could feel something special was about to go down.
The worst part of the night was the news that we would only be allowed to watch 4 of the 8 battles! But what we saw was fantastic, so allow us to run through the battles very quickly (we will not give away anything that has not been put out there as YOU NEED TO BUY THIS).
The first battle that Jammer showcased was Tre Mission and Jendor. With the introduction of Tre Mission to the scene, we can now say that Grime has gone international. This was actually a great battle. Personally I thought Tre Mission would have this in the bag from the off, but Jendor gave a great account of himself with plenty of laugh out loud moments.
We then got pushed into the D Power and Wariko battle. I thought that this would be a one sided affair, it wasn’t and I more than anyone was pleasantly suprised. This battle was a lot of fun and D Power deserves a lot of credit.
Jammer then put on the battle that we ALL wanted to see, the one with the most hype around it, the battle which will go down in Lord of the Mics history! Kozzie vs Sox was next. The battle kicked off and into his second set of bars SOX had what can only be described as a breakdown, now I have never been an MC, my level of spitting equal to that of nursery rhymes but when your appearing on Lord of the Mics surely you must know what to expect, look at youtube the biggest battles have had millions of views, anyway as SOX was having a break down, which included a moment of vulnerability when he took of his glasses, an almighty wave of sympathy hit the room, however this was short lived as everyone laughed at Kozzie bubbling in the background. With everybody still in shock at the scene’s we had just witnessed we were then told that there was a rematch.
The rematch was ridiculous, Kozzie patronised the hell out of SOX, Kozzie looked like he didn’t even want to waste his time with SOX, even questioning him mid flow. I like SOX, but it’s hard to see how he will be regarded when this hit the shelves in the next week.
Jammer then dropped the final battle, Marger and LayZ. How could this possibly top the last battle? It would be with great difficulty. The first couple of rounds saw each artist going in at each other, with the second round seeing Marger go mental, an acappella that was reminiscent of Eminem in 8 Mile. It was so raw that you just knew this was Grime. We then had the third round which was followed by a bonus round. Credit has to go to LayZ as he repped Boy Better Know well with his flow and content and in the bonus round really got under the skin of Marger, how do we know? Well we saw Marger switch and land a punch on LayZ and a scrap ensued.
So in just 4 battles we had it all, laughter, LOTM going international, breakdowns and fisticuffs and that’s without seeing what Rival, Merky Ace, Desperado, Tez Kidd and the rest had to say.
A week is a long way away to see the rest of the batlles! (We accept freebies Jammer!).
All that’s left to say is a BIG THANKS to Jammer, Ratty, Cameraman Sketch and 360 Records for bringing back the institution that is Lord of the Mics and for allowing us to hit the preview and watch the biggest thing to hit grime this year.
You can purchase LOTM3 digitally on December 11th and physically from December 12th.
