By Christian Pinto (Phillippinto) ‘13 and Alex Liao (Snake Eyez) ‘13, Staff Writers

April 11, 2011.  A day that will forever live in infamy.  On this historic day at exactly 1300, the first unofficial “rap battle” of Newark Academy history began.  How did it start? According to legend, the dispute was instigated when sophomores Ned Harwood and Charley Wallach got into a heated argument about whether Chris Webby was a better rapper than Mac Miller.  From this point on, the rap virus spread throughout the school, and numerous sophomores began rapping, with varying degrees of success.  All participants gave themselves “rap aliases,” with clever names such as Eazy-D (Daniel Eatroff), Yung Phalcun (Ned Harwood), Har-money (Ned Harwood), and Tha Nasty Ninja (also Ned Harwood).  Tommy Tink (Thomas Kovar) can now add rapping to his list of just over 1,000,000 hobbies, which includes, among others, completing Rubik’s Cubes, juggling knives, and raising Tanzanian parakeets.  T.I. (Tucker Iverson) was subsequently sued by the “real” T.I. for copyright infringement.

The resulting epidemic has ultimately caused the ears of many innocent bystanders to bleed due to the horrible rhymes that have been “spit.” One that was particularly terrible was Yung Phalcun’s line, “uh uh yo yo eh uh eh uh yo” that went on for about 5 minutes.  Later, in an extremely poor attempt to freestyle, Yung Phalcun repeated the word “yeah” 27 times before finally rapping the line, “I’m so white, born and raised in Nantucket ya heard….” Though this was the only line in his freestyle, peers surrounding Mr. Phalcun freaked out and one even exclaimed, “OHHHHHHH THAT WAS DOPEEEEE” in appreciation.  The bystanders then began the “Phalcun Call,” an odd ritual in which participants shriek like birds in honor of his mad skill.  One bystander was later heard saying, “I actually considered throwing myself through a window in the pure joy I felt at that moment.”

Recently, everybody all over the world has been chiming in about the recent events. Nick Lawler ’13 was quoted as calling the raps “worse than Rebecca Black,” and fellow sophomore Elron Robinson claimed that the Newark Academy rap trend was “the saddest thing to happen to hip-hop since Biggie Smalls died.”  In an interview with BET, critically acclaimed artist Kanye West was asked about the new prep school rap game. His response?  “What the hell is prep school?”

Well Kanye, the Newark Academy hip-hop scene consists of 2 main groups: Phalcun Squad (consisting of Yung Phalcun, Lil’ Oriole, and MC Swallow), and the Blue Crew (featuring Big Poppa $murf, Co-Ballt, and Blue.I.Am).  Although you may have not heard of these two groups, you soon will.  Around school, the Blue Crew is known for “spitting sa-pphire,” while the Phalcun Squad has been known to “clip the rhymes” of their opponents so they can’t “take off.” These two groups will soon fight to decide once and for all who the “master of the rap game” truly is.

Due to the intensity of these battles, tensions have arisen, leading to violence (no not really) and some sharp lines. In an attempt to demoralize $lumdog Millionaire (Arjuna Siva), Snake Eyez (Alex Liao) rhymed “I’m a snowstorm, you’re just a flurry/ I wake up in the morning and your momma makes me curry.” Thankfully, Siva realized the stupidity of the rap game, and the fact that his mother would never make curry for breakfast, and continued on with his globally aware life.

Luckily for the rest of us, the rap game has dwindled down in these past few weeks.  This is mainly in part due to the sophomores moving on from this phase. They are now battling over who can get the highest score on the popular game Tiny Wings.  Unsurprisingly, Thomas Kovar is the champion with 317,000 points and is looking to break the legendary 1,000,000-point barrier next week.

Pray for the sophomores.