Gocci crowned Japan’s top MC

Gocci crowned Japan’s top MC

4 January, 2008 | 9.36AM

• Written by: Yuko Asanuma
• Filed under: Music News: hip hop, lunch time speax, mc, mc gocci, umb

An experienced MC finally saw his dream come true when he was crowned Japan’s No.1 MC at the 2007 Ultimate MC Battle Grand Championship.

The winner MC Gocci, was the most experienced and the eldest (36 years old) of the 16 UMB finalists, and it was his second time participating in the championship final.

He only made it to the second round in the 2006 Grand Championship, and had to prove himself again from the beginning of the preliminary heat in his region, Mito city, then at Ibaraki prefecture, before making his way once again to the final in Kawasaki city.

Gocci is a member of a group called Lunch Time Speax, one of the very first hip hop groups based outside of Tokyo, and one of the only crews to have been signed to a major record label (Sony Music).

Although they have been quiet for the past few years in terms of material releases, they’ve never left their home town to this day.

Therefore, it must have been something very special for Gocci to represent his home town and prove to be the best in Japan.

Grand Final: Review

Last Saturday, approximately 1500 people (mostly male, and possibly half of them aspiring rappers...) crowded the venue Club Citta in Kawasaki city, and the event started around 11pm with a performance by the two of the most skilled and respected freestylers in Japan, Kan and Hannya.

Two masters of ceremony, Taika and Sharlee (both of them brilliant beatboxers), then appeared on the stage, and the battle began.

The highlight of the first round was the match between Bes (Tokyo) and Hidaddy (Osaka), as they were both considered potential winners, but happened to been drawn to fight each other in the first round.

Their performances were so even, that they had to battle a further three times to show that Bes was slightly better than Hidaddy.

Bes made his way through to the final round to fight Gocci.

And both of them performed just as dope as each other, but the audience supported Gocci’s performance for the passionate and emotional content he managed to fit into the total of 32 bars. 

However, there was no doubt that Bes made the strongest impact on the audience by showing a completely new way of outplaying the hard rhymers.

2006 was the battle of rhymes, but 2007 was the battle of style.

Both Bes and Gocci didn’t rhyme as much as others did.

Gocci had the passion and the persuasiveness that young ones didn’t have.

Bes had the dopest and the most original flow.

This final round of the Grand Championship made many of us realize that Japanese freestyle rap has entered a new phase, a time when you can’t win if you keep doing the same as you did last year.

2008’s Grand Championship is already scheduled to be held at the end of the year at Namba Hatch, in Osaka city for the first time.

Regional preliminary heats will start again from next month.

Good luck to all the participants and congratulations to Gocci!

Some photos from the night can be seen @ the UMB official site.

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