Full Story of the ’97 Rap Olympics: Eminem vs. Otherwize
For the first time, read the full story of this epic battle.
The full story of the ’97 Rap Olympics is told in the new book Born a Villain by Riddlore, who rapped in the 5-man Project Blowed team vs. Eminem’s team.
Based on more than a dozen interviews, the Rap Olympics chapter debunks Eminem’s excuses for losing the battle, analyzes his mixture of freestyle and recycled prewritten rhymes, and sheds light on what happened to the missing footage.
Below is a heavily edited and condensed snippet from the full 35-page chapter. Check out the book to get the full story.
THE ’97 RAP OLYMPICS
In October 1997, the Rap Olympics was held in Los Angeles.
Despite being one of the most important battles in hip hop history — launching Eminem’s career and featuring rap luminaries like Thirstin Howl III and Freestyle Fellowship — it is shrouded in mystery. Basic facts about the event are disputed, and you get different answers depending on who you ask.
Were winners decided by judges or crowd reaction? What were the prizes for winning? Was the 5-man battle ended early due to forfeit or overbooking? Was Eminem fairly beaten, or was he robbed by a biased crowd? What happened to all the video footage?
The following investigation doesn’t answer all these questions, but it does shine some light into the darkness.
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The Rap Olympics was the brainchild of Wendy Day. She came up with the idea of hosting a battle rap tournament to showcase Eminem and highlight lyricism in an era of gangster rap.
Wendy Day: “I did a deal with Rap Sheet Magazine. They gave me the space for free to do Rap Olympics during their conference if I organized a standard rap battle for them. So we did the Rap Sheet battle right before Rap Olympics.”
There was a 1-on-1 standard battle followed by a 5-on-5 freestyle exhibition. Day’s team was Eminem, Thirstin Howl III, JUICE, Kwest tha Madd Lad, and Wordsworth. Project Blowed brought a 5-man team of Riddlore (CVE), Rifleman Ellay Khule, Aceyalone and P.E.A.C.E. (Freestyle Fellowship), and Otherwize. And the Blowedians Otherwize, Imperator, Dream Nefra, and Oracle Jayne Doe competed in the 1-on-1 battle against Eminem and dozens of other MCs. (The origins of the Project Blowed crew are perhaps best presented by Ava DuVernay’s first documentary This is the Life.)
The East Coast team might not have realized that Project Blowed had spent years honing their skills in freestyle battles.
Riddlore: “They thought they had it in the bag, that hand-picked team that Wendy Day put together. Everybody on their team was dope. But some of them are much better with the pen than they ever would be off the dome. So the whole idea of the Rap Olympics… This is what we do already. This is what we do.”
Rifleman Ellay Khule: “We all used to battle in private all day — me, Riddlore, NgaFsh, Wreccless, Myka 9, Aceyalone, Pterradacto, Wize, Chu Chu — man, we’d all be at each other’s throats. We’d all call each other on Friday night and all hook up — and battle, in a friendly way. It wasn’t like this Rap Olympics thing was special to us, cuz it wasn’t. It was just a day in the life of what we did every day.”
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The event started with the 1-on-1 battle. Project Blowed was represented by one of their most dangerous battle rappers, Otherwize. His winning streak at the Elements club night (and the Rap Olympics as well) is covered in Where We’re From: The Elements Documentary.
Otherwize: “Lotta motherfuckers walked away from that Elements experience tarnished. Niggas found day jobs. Niggas started figuring out real estate. Just keep him away from me…”
J-Smoov: “When Wize is in pocket, he’s cunning, he’s witty, he’s well-spoken. He never stumbles his words, he doesn’t rap too fast for a new listener. When Wize was firing on all cylinders, there was no stoppin’ this kid.”
Badru Umi: “Otherwize was working the circuit. He literally was paying his rent every month from battling. He was leaving with all the purses.”
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Despite his obvious talent, Eminem struggled to advance in the 1-on-1 battle.
Hines Buchanan: “Eminem almost got served two times before he lost to Otherwize. Dream Nefra almost got him, and Imperator almost got him. He had to do extra rounds to get out of it.”
Dream Nefra, an early member of the Edo G. and da Bulldogs crew, practiced freestyling with WhoRidas and Souls of Mischief in the Bay before attending Project Blowed.
Dream Nefra: “At that time, rap battling was more reserved as a male sport. I think there was only two women in the whole battle — but I’m telling you, I didn’t think about that. Only thing I thought about was winning. I was just trying to go for the gold.”
The footage shows Eminem’s first round against Dream Nefra. He said, “I never battled a female before.” As far as we know, Dream Nefra is the only woman Eminem ever battled.
Eminem told her, “Don’t take your period out on me.”
Dream Nefra’s off-the-chain response brought the house down. (It’s so hardcore that she would rather it not be online… you’ll have to check out the book.)
Dream Nefra: “The whole fuckin’ place exploded. Mufuckas was like, This chick just said what she said! Cats was like, Okay! Didn’t even think you was gonna be talking like that! I was just out of pocket, I was just letting my style be free. I was just going in, I was going for the jugular.”
J-Smoov: “She almost canceled Marshall. She was freestylin’. He almost didn’t even make it past her.”
Imp the Great (then known as Imperator) also nearly defeated Eminem. Imp was kind of stalking him and getting in his face, so Eminem said Your thug style is one big sike.
Otherwize: “Imperator tried to use a tactic that most niggas use — you act like you bigger and you shake your head like You ain’t got this.”
Despite initially declaring Imp the victor, the judges then decided he had to come back for another round.
Imp the Great: “So we go at it again. Eminem beats me the next time, and they declare him the winner. I was like, Hold on, how am I kicked out of it now if he won one and I won one? Shouldn’t we have a tie-breaker? And that wasn’t even happening. I didn’t even complain. I went back to the bar and got me another drink. I wasn’t trippin’.”
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Jizzm High Definition: “From what I remember, Otherwize and Eminem ran through like 12 MCs apiece. They were eating up MCs left and right. You could kinda assume watching the battles that it was gonna end up being Otherwize and Em at the end because they were so heavy.”
Eminem was a formidable opponent. He was in his prime as a battle MC, seasoned after a fierce battle with JUICE at Scribble Jam that summer. He was hungry — not hooked on pills yet — and he direly needed the $500 prize money to avoid a looming eviction from his place in Detroit.
J-Smoov: “Eminem was excellent. He was fantastic as an MC, period. He had everything necessary. He had flips, he had chops, he had stories — he was on point.”
Riddlore: “It was a good battle. But Otherwize was like egging him on while he was rapping out on stage. He was being a target, out on stage too. I’m like, Don’t give him no ammo, just fade out of sight on him. Just play the wall in the back, don’t give him no energy, don’t give him nothin’. I could tell that he was feedin’ off him.”
Jizzm High Definition: “In one of the rounds, Otherwize dipped into the crowd or something. He dipped until Em finished his verse. Eminem was just bustin’ without Otherwize being there.”
Otherwize: “I wanna say I went to the bar — it just sounds fly. It’s a cowardly technique, but it’s genius. When you stand in somebody’s face, they can be like, Look how big your nose is, your breath stink. But if you’re not there — Who is he rapping to? What’s wrong with this nigga on stage battling no one? Then you wait for your turn and you just appear.”
This technique of removing yourself from the battle so the other person can’t feed off you was later displayed in Eminem’s movie 8 Mile during the final battle, where Eminem’s character walks away and crouches down to get away from his opponent.
Jizzm High Definition: “When they went at it, they both murdered it. At the end of it, Otherwize took the crown. Otherwize won fair and square.”
Otherwize: “During his battle era, Em was on a tirade, bro. He was rippin’ everybody, with the exception of me and JUICE — nigga, that’s a hell of a record. Without Eminem, I think hip hop would be worse than what it is right now.”
Eminem has never been quite so gracious. In 1999, he said “I was robbed.” In a chat room interview in May 1998 shortly after being signed by Dre, he accused Project Blowed of racism.
Check out the book to read more about the East Coast team rapping onstage at Project Blowed’s venue, the 5-on-5 team battle (Eminem, Thirstin Howl III, JUICE, Wordsworth, and Kwest tha Madd Lad vs. Riddlore, Rifleman Ellay Khule, P.E.A.C.E., Aceyalone, and Otherwize), and what the hell happened to the missing footage…
Otherwize: “We gotta go into Dr. Dre’s vault and dig it up, next to his Keith Sweat and R. Kelly sex tape.”
Riddlore’s Born a Villain features 55 song lyrics and an oral history that covers Chillin Villain Empire, the origins of gangster rap, the Good Life Cafe, the LA Riots, the ’96 police raid of Project Blowed, the full story of the Rap Olympics, and much more. Parker Pubs also published Myka 9’s My Kaleidoscope and 2Mex’s Word Murder — dope verses and underground hip hop history for the heads.
