Lil Gerald: Getting Too Big For His Britches

by Eddie Bailey

Eddie Bailey Blog

 

 

 

 

 

Lil Gerald

 

Hitman Holla has recently unleashed a tirade of vicious attacks on Twitter.  His tweets are directed at the URL and its staff members for putting his battle with Conceited, at NOME3 on June 23, on the back-burner, in favor of Arsonal vs Aye Verb, a main event battle that took place in St. Louis on July 21.  URL, having already released two battles from NOME3 out of the six that took place that night, including two battles from “Ultimate Freestyle Fridays” and one from “Go-Rilla Warfare”, are releasing battles at a steady pace.  While Hitman waits for his turn in the lineup, he is seething with resentment.  To Hitman, it’s his turn to get in the ball game (no pun intended) and everyone else should wait their turn. But why the big fuss?

No one can deny the viewership that Hitman brings to the URL.  He has five battles that have over one million views, two of which surpass two million.  This makes him the most viewed battle rapper on URL.  So, it seems Hitman is attempting to throw around his weight to make things happen according to his liking.  This most likely being the case, he’s approaching this like a volatile, self-centered pre-teen, who wants what he wants when he wants, by making violent threats to URL staff members, if he doesn’t get his way.

The tweet that caught the attention of fans on Twitter was when he said, “Taking food outta my son mouth.. By not putting out my new product.. But drop sumn from a whole new event??? Yea ok try me”.  What’s interesting here is that the normal business practice for URL battle rappers is that they get half of their money up front and the other half of their money immediately after the battle is over.  Considering that Hitman followed the normal procedure of business, exactly what is being taken out of his son’s mouth?  Comments like these calls into question his rationale and his emotional stability.  Unfortunately, this is not a unique situation.  There have been other gripes that battle rappers have had with the URL, the most popular being Arsonal’s fallout with Smack.  Ironically, when Arsonal left the URL to start UW over a year ago, he was the most viewed battle rapper, like Hitman is now.  This draws quite an interesting parallel.  Consider Arsonal, who left URL with intentions of creating his own Battle Rap league that would be URL’s main competition.  His absence was felt but it didn’t make URL miss a beat.  As a matter of fact, they continued to grow in popularity without Arsonal and retained their spot in Battle Rap.  With Arsonal’s newly found success running UW, he’s now a more mature businessman, he has made amends with Smack, and is back on URL.  History is a great teacher and it should make Hitman think twice about burning bridges.

This is what Hitman forgot.  He has absolutely no say in a company that he doesn’t own.  Essentially, Hitman is an independent contractor who is hired for his services when needed.  He doesn’t make any business, financial, logistical, creative, or marketing decisions for URL.  The URL is a machine that will go on with or without Hitman.  The Battle Rap culture is bigger than just one ego.  Lil’ Gerald’s lack of perspective on his position, will prove to be damaging to his career in Battle Rap if he doesn’t straighten up.

 

Eddie Bailey of Savoy Media Group, for War Room Sports

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