Competition

An ambush wins the battle

By Sam Pfeifle

WMPG’s “Iron Mic” competition last Sunday at the Skinny was a success by all accounts. The crowd was solid, estimated at around 300 kids. The competitors were 28 deep. And the talent, if spotty in parts, was clearly good enough to have warranted the battle.

Though a few MCs were clearly reciting scripted lines, they were quickly weeded out when their number was reduced to eight in the second round. And the crowd quickly picked a favorite in ADeeM, a New Hampshire-based rapper who’s done work with Anticon, the Non-Prophets, and has three releases to his credit. ADeeM was also the winner of Scribble Jam ’98, the most respected MC, DJ, and B-Boy and -Girl competition in the country, held annually in Cincinnati.

ADeeM squeaked by the local Dynamo, before unexpectedly meeting his match in the semifinals in the Providence-based Linguistics. Linguistics was up first behind the mic, “and it was so weird,” says ADeeM, “he knew everything about me. He knew my last name, all my discs. He kept bringing up all this stuff about my music. I was like, who are you?”

ADeeM tried to respond with a few disses on how Linguistics looked, and tried to use his releases, and Linguistics’s lack thereof, to his credit, but to no avail. “My music’s out there enough,” says ADeeM, and “people knew I was going to be there, and he was just ready for it. It’s almost unfair, he knew everything about me, and I didn’t know anything about him.”

Which is not to say ADeeM was a sore loser. “I was like, ‘Wow, you’ve done your homework,’ ” he says. “I think he deserved to win.”

After Linguistics won the whole event, he approached his vanquished opponent. “He was so nervous,” says ADeeM, “saying ‘I listen to all your music.’ I said, ‘You’re a bit of a stalker, but that’s OK.’ ”