I wanted to start this piece with a winking turn of phrase like, “Though it was a hot night capping off a scorching week, the real heat was in Richmond Music Hall Saturday night.” But that’s the kind of cliche that would land with a thud on the Clash of the Multiverse audience.

Rap battles are sort of like tennis matches in that the spectators stay mute, attuned to every small aural detail. There’s an unwritten contract in effect, an understanding that because battles are typically a cappella, the crowd keeps quiet to allow the rapper to fully inhabit the moment, to dig into their opponent with laser focus. If they uncork a spellbinding string of rhymes or a particularly damning diss, the gallery explodes in approval, giving the emcee a deserved energy boost. But say something corny, like an easy simile or hackneyed punchline, and you’re met with cold, brutal silence.

An electricity sizzles in the air as Richmond Music Hall starts filling up Saturday evening. Rappers sit in booths by the entrance or along the banquette, scrolling through their Notes apps, quietly mouthing lyrics to themselves. Radio B, one of Richmond hip-hop’s foremost patrons, zips around the room, checking in with the event’s scorekeeper and any newly arrived participants. The Clash of the Multiverse is an enormous undertaking, a three-tiered brawl between the Southpaw Battle Coalition, a battle rap league established in 2016, and RVA Rap Elite, a coalition of rappers that’s been sparring since 2018. Ten emcees from each collective are set to compete (though a few never show up), first in a showcase-style cypher where each rapper has two minutes with a beat of their choosing, then in a round of one-on-one battles, and finally in two rounds of five-on-five team battles.

Complicated scoring

If, like me, you haven’t followed all the intricacies of the battle scene, the mechanics of scoring seem hard to untangle. There were online battles before the Clash, so both teams already had points on the board. When I ask one of the organizers to explain how the scoring system works, he laughs, says, “It’s complicated,” and gives me a lengthy breakdown that I confess I couldn’t fully follow.

I decide to trust the process, knowing that it’s in the hands of five very capable judges, all of whom have toiled in the battle rap trenches: Easalio, Big Sty, Big Jinya, Cane, and Virginia hip-hop legend Mad Skillz. And though the points get tallied and an official call gets made, ultimately, it’s the crowd’s stamp that matters the most. A quiet audience makes an impression on both judge and rapper alike.

There’s a theatricality to it all that’s undeniably fun, drawing you in and defining the stakes. One team will emerge victorious, one rapper will be crowned the MVP, and the bragging rights of each are massive. The MVP receives a sizable haul of prizes — $200 cash, free production and studio time — but most importantly, they gain the status of being the one to beat next year.

Games must be stepped up, flows must be tightened. Winners of previous years walk around the room with pro wrestling-style belts draped on their shoulders, warning signs for would-be challengers. Ro$$etti, a Southpaw representative and last year’s MVP, wears two such belts, and I ask how he’s feeling going into the night. “I’m prepared to defend my team’s title and my own,” he says confidently. “I got a lot of raps to do.”

The cypher portion serves as both a team mission statement and an introduction to the competitors, a rapid-fire display of the diversity of talent. Rap Elite’s T.R.I.G. has one of the strongest performances, immediately captivating the room with his sing-song lilt and daring choice of Will Smith’s “Men In Black” instrumental.

Southpaw’s Era Hardaway has an urgent Philly flow that sits just behind the beat, eliciting praise from the house with lines like “I see through all the cap like a trucker hat.” Styck the Scribe, a three-time cypher champion from Rap Elite, exudes an immense, cocky personality and understands how to split the difference between commanding the stage and getting lost in his densely-written verses. There isn’t a clear winner according to the judges, so the cypher proceeds to sudden death, where the winner earns an extra 40 points. Era Hardaway, Ro$$etti, and Styck the Scribe each get a 60-second a cappella verse, and Styck takes it home.

Round one: RVA Rap Elite.

The one-on-one battles

The momentum built by the cypher settles into a simmering, excitable tension: It’s time for the one-on-one battles. Save for a requested rematch between Era Hardaway (RVA) and Rel Lyfe (Southpaw), the rappers didn’t know who they’d be battling until 24 hours before the Clash. Once they learned their opponent, they started working to fill a three-minute time slot with as much potency as possible.

This is the heart of the event; a coin toss decides who raps first, and the two competitors face off. Again, the theatrics are key here: Rappers act like boxers at the weigh-in, staring each other down, prowling around the stage, and coming just shy of physical contact. The best battlers understand the need for space around their words, deploying their most devastating bars in a drawn-out, almost spoken word cadence. When the audience reacts, some of them acknowledge the praise with a sly nod, then repeat the bar to recenter themself. It’s a unique art form that thrives on live energy, weaving together many elements of hip-hop but standing in its own silo.

I didn’t take notes on each battle, as it’d be too much information to present here, and partly because it’s worth allowing yourself to get wrapped up in the spectacle of creative shit talk. But here are a few highlights: Era Hardaway chokes in his rematch with Rel Lyfe, and you can feel the entire crowd’s shoulders rise every time he tries to start over. T.R.I.G. takes his slides off when he steps on stage, and his opponent (whose name is excitedly but illegibly scribbled in my notes) picks them up and throws them into the crowd. Because there weren’t an even 20 rappers participating, Ro$$etti makes the bold move to battle twice, a testament to his confidence. It’s a close call score-wise, and although I can’t figure out how they arrive at these numbers, RVA Rap Elite has 725 points and Southpaw has 726.5. It’s been a wild, competitive night.

The five-on-five battles break that tension. Each team chooses a beat to rap to, fluidly passing the mic between members. It’s more of a showcase of the chemistry these collectives have than strictly lyrical prowess, and it’s interesting to see who steps up and who falls back. The crowd is the final arbiter of these two rounds, and while there’s huge applause for both, the noise is near deafening for RVA Rap Elite. The team wins by 15 or so points, and its star of the evening, Styck the Scribe, who’d been wearing a hoodie all night in defiance of the heat, is crowned MVP. The emcees all gather on stage for a final photo and dap each other up. We’re all smiles, leaving Richmond Music Hall with a greater understanding of why we love this culture, deeply excited to see it flourish.