Aric yuson biography templates

About 20 years ago, hip-hop in the Philippines was considered riffraff—a want-to-be black act that promoted violence, gang culture, and vulgarity.

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Alaric Yuson, then a year-old university student, was aware of that stigma but chose to dive into the world of hip-hop anyway, rapping and fraternizing with others in the local hip-hop scene. Before graduating from university, the young rapper had an idea for a rap tournament. That tournament would go on to transform the local perception of hip-hop and rappers for years to come.

FlipTop consists of several tournaments in which rappers, otherwise known as emcees, insult and outwit each other in a series of timed rounds, mediated by a host and decided by a group of judges in front of a live audience. Emcees battle alone, in pairs, or in teams, and the winners of each round battle each other until a champion emerges. Unlike other battle rap events in the country at the time, which adopted the freestyle-with-a-backing-track format popularized by the movie 8 Mile , FlipTop emcees write their rhymes before their battles and deliver them a cappella, or without an instrumental track.

Freestyle, of course, is not dead. But preparing rhymes allows some rappers to better articulate themselves without having to hide the fact that they write rhymes in advance anyway. The first FlipTop event happened in February of It was called Grain Assault. Two hundred people gathered to watch hip-hop veterans battle each other in a cafe in Makati City, in the format that Anygma was just about to introduce to the local scene.