Documenting the Gravestones: A Collaborative History Project
 

History fascinates me. It is a labyrinthine network of questions and answers, where the revelation of an answer only brings more curiosity. The maze can be traveled eternally, and yet its unfortunate wanderer shall never find its end; for some questions and answers are unknowable, washed away by the passage of time.

The history of Internet rap battling is a minor facet of this, but still interesting. The oldest rap website which I have personally seen is GoldMic, and then only through archives and screenshots. I have heard rumors of a predecessor to GoldMic, known as OpenMic, but its nature eludes me.

I think it is fitting that, for posterity, we bring our collective knowledge to this thread and enumerate all rap battling websites that have ever existed... as best as we can.

I am doing this for historical reasons, not to advertise websites. If you do not want to be advertised to, then don't read the list.

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For inclusion on the list, the following criteria must be met:

1. The website must have been a dedicated rap-battling website, or at least had rap battling as a primary concern. Therefore, the following are not allowed: Facebook groups, forums that had a rap battling section of low quality and little activity, and poetry websites.

2. Some proof, or at least evidence, that the website in question actually existed must be given.

3. What websites shall be admitted to the list is at the discretion of Sovereign.

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I've formatted the list as follows (I have no idea how to make tables in vBulletin):

Website Name / Link / Year Founded - Year Ended (if applicable) / Shortbar or Longbar?

I use years instead of specific dates, as dates are difficult or impossible to obtain for some websites, and I prefer consistency. Specific dates might later be added in a footnote.

?s have been placed after values that I am uncertain of, or in place of unknown values. I'm not 100% sure of what Shortbar and Longbar mean, but I think my guess is accurate.

~~~

OpenMic / ? / 1999? - ? / ?
GoldMic / goldmic.com / 2001? - 2013? / Shortbar, later transitioned to Longbar
Netcees / netcees.org / 2001? - Active / Shortbar
LetsBeef / letsbeef.com / 2005 - Active / Longbar
Lyrical Assault (is this one word or two?) - lyricalassault.co.uk / 2003? - Active / Shortbar
RMBVA / rmbva.com / 2013? - Active / Shortbar? Holy shit. This site is immense. I don't know why I've never heard of it before.
SixShot / sixshot.com / 1997 - 2010 Seems to have existed since 1997, but not in its most popular form until later. The site displayed the same "We'll be back soon!" message from 2010 to 2015, but is now just a hosting page. / ?
BrickCity / brickcity.net / ? - "Active" The site is still reachable, but has been laid to rest activity-wise. Might make for an interesting archive-binge. / ?
BodyBags Entertainment (BBE) / 2011? - Active On the dying side, though. / Longbar

Other sites that people have mentioned that need to have their existence verified, be checked out, and added to the list:

Hollafront.com
Itshiphop.com
Rapdogs.com
Nobodysmiling.com
Rapflava.com
Hip Hop Ave (link unknown)
Rapoetry.net
Ave Emcees (link unknown)
Rapbattles.com
Raproyalty.com
Rapverse.com
Urban Prowlers (link unknown)
Aznrap (link unknown)

LB was always as long as long bar could be haha.

Also, if guys are into this thread you're about to be destroyed with knowledge cause NC don't fuck around with history. Dudes around here have been battling since Urban Prowlers and b-boys, back when I was in fucking nursery.

History is history, it needs to be documented. It's a minor crime against humanity to do otherwise as far as I'm concerned.

It's too bad the old NC site went cause the other-tournament archives when it was full was incredible. Absolutely loved that idea but if there's ever a chance NC gets wiped again, it's not worth the time to put it together.

This is one of the times that I wish I knew how to code so that I could make a script which saves it to my computer.

Hollafront.com
Itshiphop.com
Rapdogs.com
Nobodysmiling.com
Rapflava.com
Hip Hop Ave.


R.I.P


Very known sites at the time.

Thanks for the mentions, I'm a bit busy right now but I'll get them on the list when I can. If possible, could you post the URLs so that I'll have an easier time finding backups?

I've heard of Nobodysmiling before because Rohaan mentioned it, but I figured that it was some shock site or weird rumor that I couldn't find. I wasn't able to discover the slightest trace of it.

All of them are all down except rapdogs.com but it's not active.


I also forgot to mention Rapoetry.net

I'll come back to this.

Beyond used to battle there under the name of Lazarus.

nobodysmiling was huge from what I hear, but I think it was gone before I hit the scene in 2007. It was up I think until later but long down.

I'm not mentioning live ones in case that gets frowned upon but Ave Emcees is another one.

Also BBE went by different names before 2011.

Rapbattles.com
Rapverse.com
Raproyalty.com

It died late 2007 or early 2008. If I'm not mistaken.

Rapforums.com
@Knucklehead

urbanprowlers
aznrap