Since September 2003, Rich Seng’s Cherry Bomb production company has released 14 free compilations of local music, music videos, and short films, 6 on DVD and 8 on CD. Seng’s seventh DVD, a new feature-length film called Rhyme Spitters, documents a freestyle battle-rap tournament held in Wicker Park last July–and though the 31-year-old former seminary student admits that 18 months ago he’d never seen battle rapping in real life, he not only directed the film but organized the tournament himself.
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Seng got a whirlwind introduction to the Chicago hip-hop scene, hanging out at the Subterranean Cafe & Cabaret to watch open mikes and freestyle MC battles hosted by Mr. Rexford of the Pacifics. “I was just completely blown away,” he says. “I’d only ever seen stuff like that in 8 Mile–I thought it was really cool in the movie, but no one could ever do that in real life. It was just too rehearsed, too clean, too perfect, with none of the uncomfortable fall-on-your-face moments. I’m a white guy from Toledo, Ohio, and seeing this authentic art form, it just came alive for me.”
Seng had already been kicking around the idea of making a feature-length movie, and he wanted to make his newfound interest in rap part of the project. His first plan was to film Julius Caesar with battle MCs delivering Shakespeare’s dialogue, but he quickly decided to try something less elaborate and labor-intensive. “I thought, ‘How about I just put on a big freestyle tournament myself and film it?’”
Among the crowd’s favorites were underdogs like T-Scar, who almost made the finals, and 14-year-old south-sider EnfaRed, who was competing in his first major battle. The championship matchup was so archetypal it could’ve been scripted: Vitamen D of the live hip-hop band Small Change, with his dangling cigarette and cocky, nothing-touches-me cool, squared off against Jitu, a blustery powerhouse almost twice his size. The audience loved them both, so after their epic-length battle they went a second round to break the tie–but even then it was so close that the decision went to the judges, who finally settled on Vitamen D as the winner.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Carlos J. Ortiz.
