No Rhyme or Reason

Chapter 3

"I keep tellin' myself that it'll be fine.
You can't make everybody happy all of the time"

~Paranoia in B Flat Major - The Avett Brothers 

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Mikey moved the microphone he was holding up to his lips. The DJ started playing some music and the whole crowd started moving their head to the beat. Mikey stared down Jax, looking like he was trying to intimate him, only Jax stood his ground confidently. I stood there, not moving an inch, waiting to hear what they did. And then, Mikey started rapping to the beat.

"Woah," I said out loud. Mikey started rapping freestyle, stringing together sentences and rhyming words on the spot.

"This is all on the spot?" I yelled at Ana over the music, not believing they hadn't prepared the phrases beforehand. She nodded her head enthusiastically. I frowned when he started taking digs at Jax.

"What is he doing?" I asked Ana when the guy started dissing Jax for living in a "trailer home with his junkie mom".

"I think that's what they do in these battles," she said to me. "To win."

I raised my eyebrows and turned back to the battle. So they made digs at each other to win a rap battle? Even though I didn't like what he was saying, I was impressed with how he could come up with rhymes on the spot. 

The DJ cut the music at 45 seconds. "Okay, okay," the announcer said as he stepped forward when Mikey was done. 

"Good job, well done," he said and shrugged. The audience cheered for Mikey. 

"Now J.C., it's your turn," the announcer said and backed away. Jax continued to stare down Mikey as he brought the mic up to his lips and the beat started playing again. 

I had never seen a rap battle before, but even I knew that Jax was way better than Mikey from the moment he started rapping. The crowd was eating every line up, reacting with each diss he sent back Mickey's way. I was breathing fast, enthralled in the way he could string lyrics together on the spot and come up with the most creative rhyming. Not only was he rapping sentences, but at the same time he must have been coming up with his next sentence, and the sentence after that. I was amazed. I had also never heard more swear words and lewd comments at one time in my life than in this battle.

"Ohh!" everyone shouted out at the end of his rap.

Everyone was screaming Jax's name and hollering. After a moment, the announcer walked up to them and put his hands in the air to calm everyone down.

"Okay, let's see who won this battle. We've got Mikey," he shouted out and pointed to him. The crowd started cheering as Mikey was throwing his hands in the air, trying to pump people up to cheer for him. Then the announcer pointed at Jax. "Or J.C.!" he shouted into the microphone. People immediately started screaming Jax's name. I winced at how loud the crowd was. 

"It's unanimous!" the announcer said and raised Jax's hand in the air. A few guys jumped up on stage and surrounded Jax as Mikey jumped off stage and disappeared into the crowd. 

I turned and looked at Ana who was watching me, waiting for a reaction. I could tell she was nervous that I would say I hated this whole experience.

"So?" she asked.

"I..." I trailed off. "I loved it," I laughed. I had hoped that maybe I would have found it unique enough to want to do my project on, but I actually found it mesmerizing what they could do with a beat. What they could do with words. 

"What? Yay!" she said and hugged me and started jumping up and down.

"Oh, get it girls," some guy said suggestively as he walked by, staring at us with a smirk. I stared at him in shock after what he just said and Ana turned me away from him.