Brackets announced for Christian MC/DJ Skills Challenges at SXSW Music Festival

How’s your bracket looking? It’s a phrase you’ll often hear during this “March Madness” season of the NCAA basketball tournament.

But here, we’re talking about the brackets for the MC skills competition during the DaSouth.com Hip Hop Hope Unity Conference and CityTakers at SXSW this weekend. This is an official part of the massive music festival and an opportunity for Christians to display their God-given rhyme skills and talents.

The matchups are listed above. Here’s how it'll all go down.

When/where:

• Saturday, March 17 / 3:30 – 4:30pm
• The Carver Cultural Center – 1165 Angelina Street, Austin, TX 78702
• Cost: Free and open to the public, limited seating so first come, first served

The competitors:

Need an introduction? Click the links on their names to visit their official SXSW profiles where you can get bios, audio samples, and photos.

Group A
• Jerrell Johnson – representing Tampa, FL (@jerrelljohnson)
• Too Phliy – representing Washington, D.C. (@toophliy)

Group B
• Omega Sparx – representing Charlotte, NC (@OmegaSparx)
• J Kwest – representing Chicago, IL (@MrKwest)

Group C
• Gifted da Flamethrowa – representing New Orleans, LA (@DaFlamethrowa)
• Enlitement – representing Atlanta, GA (@IamEnlitement)

Group D
• SaulPaul – representing Austin, TX (@SaulPaul)
• Ruslan from theBREAX – representing San Diego, CA (@theBREAX)

The setup:

This is not a battle! Our MCs will not direct any negative lines toward any other MC. However, it is a head-to-head competition.

The two rappers will spit their freestyle and their matchup opponent will do the same. Our panel of judges (taking into consideration the crowd reaction) will determine who advances to the next round.

We’ll start off with a non-elimination, free verse warm-up round. All 8 competitors get to spit a hot 16 bars (written or off the top of the dome) to get the creative juices flowing.

Then, similar to the RedBull EmSee events, we’ll kick off the first round where all eight rappers will be given five words (only given to them seconds before the clock starts) to incorporate into their rhyme segment.

Round 2 will take the four MCs who advanced from the first round and give them a similar challenge – except that this time the topics will be provided with images instead of text.

And then, the two last MCs standing will match up against one another in a round that uses both text and images - but they’ll only be on the screen for a few seconds. This will mean our MCs will have to rely on both their memory and creativity to try and incorporate all five clues into their verse.

The judges:

• bigAL
• R-Swift
• A surprise guest

The spinster:

• DJ Promote

The prizes:

• SXSW Weekend Skills Competition trophy (see above)
• $300 cash
• $300 advertising credit with DaSouth.com
• $300 advertising credit with HolyCulture.net
• $300 advertising credit with WestCoastFiya.com
• $200 advertising credit with Z180radio.com

Also, don’t forget to join us before this contest (at 2pm) to see Kingdom-minded DJs display their skills. That set will take place between DJ Aslan, DJ Vow, and DJ Stibs and be judged by DJ Wade-O. The winner there also gets a trophy and $300 cash prize.

So, who do you think will take home the title, trophy, and cash? Post your picks below.