Don't Flop

Don't Flop Entertainment is the largest rap battle league based in the United Kingdom. It was founded by longtime friends Eurgh (Rowan Faife) and Cruger (Freddie Scott-Miller) in 2008. Since then, notable performers include Oshea, Sensa,Lunar C, Rizzle (of Rizzle Kicks), Tony D (of Poisonous Poets), Blizzard, Mercury Music Prize nominee Soweto Kinch, and Mark Grist. Several rappers from Don't Flop have also made appearances in the Canadian rap battle league King of the Dot, as well as youth and music broadcaster SB.TV. American rappers Illmaculate and Soul Khan have also made appearances on Don't Flop, both as rappers and judges. Don't Flop events feature all elements of hip hop culture, including cappella emcee battles, freestyle battles (sometimes over beats), grime clashes, DJ sets, live performances by hip-hop/rap artists and more recently at the 'BLAM' events there has been live art and breakdancing.

Format

Don't Flop battles are usually three rounds, with each round being 60 to 90 seconds, although significant main event battles will sometimes have 3 minute rounds, there have also been instances of unlimited rounds. A coin flip typically decides who goes first, and the emcees alternate after each round. Sometimes however, the battlers will decide between themselves off camera who will go first, and in a championship match, the Champion will decide who goes first. A panel of 3-5 judges then decide the winner (there have been instances of a 7 judge format in title matches). Up until recently, an overtime round would settle a draw. However, this has now been removed from most leagues and a winner has to be decided after the 3 standard rounds.

Personal name

A personal name or full name refers to the set of names by which an individual is known and that can be recited as a word-group, with the understanding that, taken together, they all relate to that one individual. In many cultures, the term is synonymous with the birth and legal names of the individual, see below. In many cultures, individuals possess a variety of names, in others they are known by a single name; when a plurality of names occur, some are specific to the individual, distinguishing them from related individuals (e.g., John Adams and John Quincy Adams), while other names indicate the person's relationship to or membership in a family, clan, or other social structure (as for Charles Philip Arthur George and one of his namesakes), or even to unrelated others (e.g., as for Leonardo Da Vinci and his namesake).

In Western culture, nearly all individuals possess at least one given name (also known as a personal name, first name, forename, or Christian name), together with a surname (also known as a family name, last name, or gentile name)—respectively, the Thomas and Jefferson in Thomas Jefferson—the latter to indicate that the individual belongs to a family, a tribe, or a clan. Inserted between these are one or more "middle names" (e.g., Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles John Huffam Dickens, Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise Mountbatten-Windsor), further establishing such family and broader relationships. Some cultures, including Western, also add (or once added) patronymics or matronymics, for instance, via a middle name as with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (son of pater Ilya), or via a last name as with Björk Guðmundsdóttir (daughter of pater Guðmund) or Heiðar Helguson (son of mater Helga). Similar concepts are present in Eastern cultures.

Hip Hop Squares

Hip Hop Squares was an American television game show hosted by New York radio personality Peter Rosenberg, which debuted on MTV2 on May 22, 2012. The show was a licenced format of CBS Television Distribution's Hollywood Squares (King World Productions, CBS Television Distribution's predecessor company, acquired the franchise in 1991 from Orion Pictures) featuring mostly rappers. The show was taped in Brooklyn, New York.

Because of the show's status as part of the Hollywood Squares franchise, the show marked the sixth decade that the a version of the franchise has aired on television, joining Let's Make a Deal and Jeopardy! as a game show that has aired in six different decades. (The Price Is Right has aired in seven decades.)

Setting and format

Like its predecessor, Hip Hop Squares is based on the tic-tac-toe format. A win in the first two rounds is worth $500, and is worth $1,000 in round three. The Secret Square takes place in round two and is renamed the "G-Spot" with a $1,000 cash bonus that does not go towards a contestant's score. If time runs out in the middle of a round, each square on the board is worth $100 and the contestant with the higher score wins. The winning contestant then picks one of the three rows, with each celebrity in that row providing an answer to a multiple-choice question. The contestant must pick the celebrity with the correct answer to win a $2,500 bonus.

Hip hop

Hip hop or hip-hop is a sub-cultural movement that formed during the early 1970s by African-American and Puerto Rican youths residing in the South Bronx in New York City. It became popular outside of the African-American community in the late 1980s and by the 2000s became the most listened-to musical genre in the world. It is characterized by four distinct elements, all of which represent the different manifestations of the culture: rap music (oral), turntablism or DJing (aural), b-boying (physical) and graffiti art (visual). Even while it continues to develop globally in myriad styles, these four foundational elements provide coherence to hip hop culture. The term is often used in a restrictive fashion as synonymous only with the oral practice of rap music.

The origin of the hip hop culture stems from the block parties of the Ghetto Brothers, when they plugged in the amplifiers for their instruments and speakers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue and used music to break down racial barriers, and from DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Herc mixed samples of existing records with his own shouts to the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is credited as the "father" of hip hop. DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, to which he coined the terms: MCing or "Emceein", DJing or "Deejayin", B-boying and graffiti writing or "Aerosol Writin".

Ice Cube

O'Shea Jackson, Sr. (born June 15, 1969), known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper, record producer, actor, and filmmaker. He began his career as a member of the hip-hop group C.I.A. and later joined the seminal gangster rap group N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes). After leaving N.W.A in December 1989, he built a successful solo career in music and films. Additionally, he has served as one of the producers of the Showtime television series Barbershop and the TBS series Are We There Yet?, both of which are based upon films in which he portrayed the main character.

Ice Cube is noted as a proficient lyricist and storyteller and is regarded as a brutally honest rapper; his lyrics are often political or socio-political, as well as violent and aggressive, and he is considered one of the founding artists in gangsta rap. He was ranked #8 on MTV's list of the 10 Greatest MCs of All Time, while fellow rapper Snoop Dogg ranked Ice Cube as the greatest MC of all time. AllMusic has called him one of hip-hop's best and most controversial artists, as well as "one of rap's greatest storytellers". In 2012, The Source ranked him #14 on their list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time. In 2014, About.com ranked him No. 11 on their list of the "50 Greatest MCs of All Time".