Students in Everett dorm began a hall-wide rap battle in the fall

Tonight, at 10:30 p.m., in the first floor lounge of Everett Residence Hall, about 30 residents will kick off their second community-wide rap battle of the year.

The group of first-year residents said the fierce competition started out casually between two of the rap battle’s founders – Cameron Fulton and Henry McKeand. It all started with the word “arbitrary.”

McKeand said one night, while he and Fulton were in the lounge, “arbitrary” came up in conversation.

“I was like, ‘That’s a fun word, I wonder how many things I can rhyme with arbitrary’,” McKeand said.

Fulton said he put the word into a random word generator, and the two decided to have a battle with what they came up with.

They got their friend, Michael Bono, and some hallmates involved, but it quickly got bigger, turning into a bracketed competition with a champion and the community-wide rap battle it is now.

The competition begins with drawing up a bracket, and then whoever is battling that week prepares their rap. Those who are matched up battle it out, and then the winner of each is determined by a popular vote among the participants and audience, Bono said.

Bono said initially there would be a random theme, word or letter for the rappers to base their rap on, but as the competition grew, it became more freestyle.

McKeand said the competition can get pretty fierce, with the rap battles sometimes becoming roasts with tensions rising between friends.

“Michael and I are roommates, and we were against each other in the championship last semester,” he said. “It was pretty tense.”

Bono won.

The two roommates said many nights they both stay up just writing their raps, and they have seen their friends and hallmates do the same.

“Sometimes, I’ll just be sitting in bed and a word will come to me, and I’ll just write a five-minute rap based off of it,” Bono said.

Bono said there is even more rapping outside of the main hall battle and bracket. Residents on the hall will just write raps — performing them in exhibition matches against someone they did not get to go against, or if they were not part of the initial competition.

Bono and McKeand will not be participating tonight, but after their championship battle on the last day of classes in December, Fulton said he will be, and he hopes for the best.

“I’ve demoed my rap to my roommate,” he said. “So hopefully it will be a dub for room 112.”

Hannah White, a first-year who lives in Everett, said she got involved in the rap battle just through hanging out in the lounge. She will be participating in the kickoff battle tonight as well.

“I’ve had my rap written since the championship last semester,” she said.

“I’m ready.”

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