Post 6: “Epic Rap Battles of History” & Why I Can Never Escape The Effects of Two Rapping White Guys
One fateful night in 2012, I was on Skype (remember that?) with a friend of mine. We’d been on Skype for a few hours by this point, and I was getting a bit tired. Before I left the call, he sent me a link. This link, actually:
I watched it the next day. Little did I know I would ruin my personality for forever (in maybe the best way?).
I was ten when I was introduced to the realm of Epic Rap Battles of History, ERB for short. It was created by two YouTubers, NicePeter & EpicLloyd, that would, well, create raps about historical and/or fictional characters. I was first introduced to “Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney,” then went onto “Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates” and “Michael Jackson vs Elvis Presley,” and so on. (If you feel so inclined to watch, keep in mind that some of these lyrics are a liiiiiittle outdated being made in 2012 in a very different version of the internet. Not an excuse, but an explanation.) These lyrics are still stuck in my brain, despite watching them for the first time nine years ago.
What is unbeknownst to most, though, is how much of an impact these silly little rap songs made on my life. I was ten and in the middle of transitioning out of elementary school, so everything during that period of time imprinted on me like a newborn baby with regards to my personality.
The first thing these ERBs had on me was that they actually taught me how to curse! Before these videos, I was very much a goody-two-shoes and didn’t even want to know what the words were. I felt I was too young to know them and my line of thinking back then was that I would learn what a curse word was only when it was necessary. Well, to understand these rap battles, it became a necessary thing to me. I remember my mother’s shock after hearing me rap “Justin Bieber vs Beethoven” to myself in the shower and the scolding I got for saying the phrase “my name is Beethoven, motherfucker, maybe you heard of me!”
Another weird impact that ERB randomly had on my personality was their behind the scenes videos! I would watch those videos religiously, since my dad also liked to watch behind the scenes stuff and I wanted to watch those things too so we could have something in common. They… sort of inspired me in a way? I mean, NicePeter and EpicLloyd were just two dudes having fun on YouTube that were eventually able to create a whole brand and a whole production doing what they loved, so watching their behind the scenes videos made me think I could do that too. And now I’m in film school, so. There’s that.
(Side note: in their BTS videos they always had a joke about doing heroin that they have since stopped doing, for good reason. But, despite the drug awareness and education I had in school, those jokes were my introduction to the fact that really bad drugs like heroin existed. Clearly way too young here.)
Kind of going off this, ERB always brings my family together!! In a weird way. Any time a new ERB comes out, my whole family gathers and watches it together (usually in the living room), and we discuss who the winner is. Every. Single. Time. It’s sort of a tradition for us at this point. And if anyone has seen it before the rest of the family, it’s a big deal because ERB time is family time.
And last, but not least, ERB has actually taught me things about history. ERB was how I learned about both Napoleon the person and Napoleon Dynamite the character for the first time. ERB was also how I learned that Bonnie and Clyde were real people that really did get killed like that! ERB literally introduced me to Joan of Arc, and when it came time to be confirmed in the Catholic Church, my confirmation name was Joan. She was a badass, sure, but I pretty much used that ERB as my main source when writing my essay for CCD to justify my confirmation name choice. Still got confirmed though. Not that I’m a Catholic anymore.
So yeah. Is it unfortunate that two random dudes on the internet made such a huge impact on my life? Maybe. But hey it could be worse… right?
Right?
To end this blog post, I will leave you with one of my favorite rap battles that I quote on a semi-daily basis. I really did mean it when I said that these lyrics have been stuck in my head for years. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I did, and still do.
