Someone tell us a story about the history of txt
 

Pretty pls

I think I could handle this.

Pls do
Interested in what @sraL thinks as well

Solid thread. Give me time sir.

where would you like me to start?

Beginning pls

@RichardCorey

Okay, so, as far as I understand it originally there were chat rooms on Yahoo Instant Messenger or in programs like Napster etc where people would could use their mics and would freestyle to words given by the other members of the chat. Some would do this in audio to show their skill and that nothing was prewritten. Others who didn’t have mics or their internet was just too slow to do the voices shit (dial up 56k days) would type up lyrics insulting other regular chat members or using nameplays off their screen names etc.

This would be very early on, maybe 1994/1995. I know Yahoo Messenger had a dedicated “hip hop” chat room meant for discussing all things hip hop.

Some time around 1996 the first actual places dedicated to posting stuff popped up. It was all very new and exciting. Keystyling as we know it now was a huge sign of who had the most skill, being able to respond quickly, flipping your opponents shit on them, and battles would regularly go several rounds.

There were many hip hop type places to post, a few of the more notable ones were Davey D’s, Mental Meltdown, Sethro’s Board, ThaLandz, Jamie’s Crackhouse, IGU Board, The guillotine, HipHop Hotlist

You can view some of the bigger crews and names here:

http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/kephusapostle/crews.html

TheRose compiled this list. You’ll see a few names you should probably recognise in KNO, Jugga, Cashmere The Pro, maybe more too depending how into hip hop you are.

Two of the biggest crews around this time, Redline and Sons of Zadok, did a huge battle that is archived here at NC:

http://www.netcees.org/showthread.ph...ighlight=Zadok

There’s other early stuff me, trap and Infiltration have archived here from the likes of Diesel and others you can check out.

I know RapMusic.com was up in Oct 1999 because I was registered there as a dumb ass name. I mainly only remember Jeff/Janitor running it because he had the site for YEARS but i believe it had a few diff owners over time. Janitor eventually sold it and now it’s a ghost site pretty much. At one point though, RM’s battle league the RBL was the biggest online. It would have like 100 people signed in at once. For a weekly battle league. Crazy. It’s topical league, the RSTL, would have at least 40-50 people signed up. Weekly.

UrbanProwlers I think largely consists of people from all over old boards, sort of like NC does now, you’ve got VERY old people like TheRose, trap etc that came from those early initial boards. You’ve got members from HomeGrownHipHopZone, RapMusic.com, MrBlunt.com, UGHH.com which is still running a (largely dead) forum I believe. There are tourneys as far back as 2000 that’s UPN has archived which happened there featuring the likes of Kno, Jugga and Cashmere.

I know RapBattles as we know it now was originally just called RapBattle (no S) in its earliest years - the original board was on some sort of EZ Board format, it gained a lot of popularity, it was run by a guy who went by Shadowz_iLL and eventually it moved to VBulletin and attached the S to the end of its name. There were a lot of dope heads at one time. A lot of it’s original vets didn’t like the admin(s) and eventually created RhymeNReason which was Jay Krupp’s board.

You’re probably talking 2002 at this time and way more boards were around. Jay was basically a vet at RB, a lot of its old guard left with him and went to RnR like The Infinite Flow, Father Flow, Black Flow, listen/chicken, AbolishDaAnatonym, Salvation/ The Illest etc

I remember Jay Krupp and Shadowz_iLL finally battling it out on a neutral board, SOHH and they both went long bar style for it. I forget who won but Shadow continued to post at Krupp’s RnR site after eventually selling RB to The End and his other admin alldig. The two new admins were at logger heads, one wanted to start a new site clean over, one wanted to continue with RB. They couldn’t agree. One mirrored the website, leaving a gateway portal so you could choose to post at the old RB or the “new” mirrored one. The mirrored one became RapVerse.com which spawned DaTrusHurtz and others you may be familiar with. They could have been around before, I don’t remember, but this is where I remember them starting from.

Dope bro
I remember holding the button down to rap in them old chats

Here’s an RB timeline:

August 2000 - Subtrek launches Rapbattles.com

Septemeber 2000 - Shadow purchases the domain name "Rapbattle.com" and immediately makes the transition from his "f2s" (free2serve) UBB forum "Lethal Lyricizts" to Rapbattles.com - Although Rapbattle & Rapbattles were similar in domain origin, the actual development/and user base encompassing both communities varied completely.

Through some odd coincidence, week(s) after the launch of a competing Rapbattle.com site/forum, Mike (Shadow) & Jake (Subtrek), form a friendship. Although initial ill will for one another occurred, it quickly spawned into a little competing love/hate relationship.



*Fast Forward a year plus down the line*

Both communities are still at it, going neck and neck. However Jake (Subtrek), is completely disenchanted with the turnout of Rapbattles. He is currently making beats and enlisting them on MP3.com for revenue. Through the spamming of his beats on various communities, he has a nice little chunk of money earned. With this new found revenue generator, beat making - In addition to a generalized hatred for the Rapbattles.com members, he decides to contact long time buddy Mike (Shadow) in efforts of selling the community to him. Rapbattles, at the time was 900 members strong. While Rapbattle.com nearly double in member count. Shadow agreed to the acquisition terms, and purchased the community immediately thereafter Jake's resignation/sale.



*New Era: The combining of communities*

When I last left off; Shadow had purchased the Rapbattles.com community. After a few days of maintaining both - Rapbattle.com & Rapbattles.com - It became very overwhelming. Shadow, at the time, favored Rapbattle over his latest venture. After all, he had started Rapbattle from the ground up. Thus, he did not want to allow someone else to run Rapbattle.com - So, he decided to appoint a new admin for the Rapbattles.com community. The appointed admin was Andrew Bareknuckles, Luciano at the time. Mike (Shadow) has known Andrew from his earlier textcee (1999) days on Network 54 forums. Thus had the utmost trust and confidence in Luciano running the community. After a month or two, Rapbattles.com just became a hassle to run. Additionally - It was a complete waste of effort to grow each one individually, when you can grow as one and form one of the largest rap communities online. With this in mind, Mike redirected the domain name Rapbattles.com to Rapbattle.com. Tension immediately arose, between the two budding communities. Eventually it died off and the forum had maintained some unity. However this wasn't the only thing to die off - Mike/Shadow's passion to running the site slowly descended, as did with his counterpart Jake, just 8 months prior.



*New Era: The split*

Mind you, although a bit wack - Due to it's long stemmed roots (online), Rapbattle.com slowly emerged as one of better text battle boards. As must of the members had time to grow over the years with the forum. However, with Shadow's disinterest in the forum, he slowly developed an animosity issue. He figured if he could somehow, run the forum with an iron fist - He could possibly regain interest. After various attempts, the straw that broke the Camel's back occurred - Mike (Shadow) banned, at the time, short-time member Jay Krupp. Outraged by his careless banning techniques, and argumentative banter, a number of the forum vets (the best at on the site at the time), finally took a stance against Shadow & left the community. Although, this was one of the many turbulence that effected the overall quality of the forum. Rapbattle.com still strived on - The popularity and notoriety of the site could not be deterred by scorn members who left the site. It continued in growth, and after reaching a milestone in it's self. Rapbattle.com reached 9000+ members, and over 500,000 posts.



*The crash*

Rapbattle.com strong as ever -- hit it's new low, a complete forum meltdown. All and everything Shadow worked for had slowly went up in flames (Karma?) . All members and all posts were lost. The entire community vanquished.



*Rapbattles.com: Resurrection *

Shadow, furious, yet with some glimmer of hope - Decides to rebuild what was destroyed. This time however he decides to devote his once lost interest in another direction - A direction of which involved a complete site turnaround. Rather than rapbattles.com point to rapbattle.com - Rapbattle.com instead pointed to rapbattles.com. The site starts off slow, however begins to get back it's userbase. It yet again grows past - 9000 members. However, as history will do, it repeated itself yet again for Shadow. He began his iron fist tactics, and slowly started to form more hatred for the site. His decision was to allow - Luciano, Rapbattles.com run the site on his own. As Shadow pursued other endeavors. Eventually - Luciano became a bit overwhelmed with a community of this size. After a suggestion brought on by Luciano, and some consulting with one another - Luciano appointed RB's fourth Admin in History - Kris, aka Syntax Mastery. A very dope emcee, who had the respect of many of his peers.



*Rapbattles.com: The untimely death*

Syntax (Kris) & Luciano (Andrew) continued to run the forum, as Shadow (Mike) sat on the sidelines pursuing other areas. After running the community as well as anyone could (two amazing admins, best in RB history) for months? If not over a year - Shadow, out of nowhere, underhandedly sold the forum to another Mike (also known as Alldig). AllDig had no direct interest in the community nor even visited the community once, however took on the venture - After realizing it's potential in growth was enormous. He found the community posted up for sale via the webmaster forum GeekVillage. After his purchase, he de-adminned Luciano/Barknuckle as well as Syntax....



Well, that's it. Of course I left off much detail - But all in all, this is the history of RB. All contributed to by four people - Jake, Mike, Andrew, and Kris. And a never dying community of Internet emcees - Making this one of the best forums online. Who knows the future - This site has endured so much, I wouldn't be surprised if this site goes through 10 more ownership changes - And people claiming they're vets since 2006. It's cool though, as long as this shit is kept alive.

Nonetheless take this thread for what you will.

@sraLs where does strobe come into this? Is he one of the people you mentioned under a new name?

What about when RB was overcome by bots and it switched to RIA for a minute.

I only bring this point up because that's when I was killing everyone in front of me, that was my prime, I mean I killed it on RB, but on RIA I went like 12-0.

I am quietly egotistical.

Yeah, what the fuck happened to you last week?

I didn't have time to post. That's a lame excuse, and I feel lame saying it, but my time was better spent elsewhere.

My apologies. I enjoyed your verse.

We can get it in the BA if you want.

Hey I’m just glad someone enjoyed my verse

RIA lmao

Opener was lit tho

Basically alldig sold it to Kelvin, then kelvin sold it to Cprogress and strobe. Ironically a lot of it’s members didn’t see progress under cprogress. /lulz

After Jay Krupp was banned and the talent pool dropped with a lot of its members headed to RhymeNReason, admittedly I wasn’t as active. I myself continued to post because I’d been a member a long time but I started seeking out other boards and posting there instead. Before RNR popped up I remember there being a site called HipHopTerms come around ran by a guy called Fluid. They had some guys who were RB vets, I believe Fluid was originally from RapBattles, and some guys had battle records with 100+ wins in their sigs which was pretty impressive. One guy I remember from this time was SPIRITZ who later became Hypnotik/H. Notik at RnR and MrBlunts - though later on he pretty much just wrote topical verses and turned his back on text battling. I don’t think I saw him text battle again after it which has always struck me as odd considering his record at that point.

Here’s some screenshots from RapBattle, 2001:

http://web.archive.org/web/200104270...c&f=1&t=000224

http://web.archive.org/web/200104050...ultimatebb.cgi

http://web.archive.org/web/200104090...ubb=forum&f=12

Im about to grab this text battle and archive it here. 2001 and it’s somehow survived to this day!

http://web.archive.org/web/200104111...&f=12&t=000018