Beef it up!

The energy in the room feels more like a wrestling match than a hip-hop show. There's excitement, tension. Some rappers hug, others engage in stare-downs.

This is the No Excuses battle league.

The reigning champ goes by Matt K.O. By day, he works as a political-action intern at the Capitol. He studied sociology and theater at UC Davis, and now he uses those memorization skills to verbally destroy opponents in front of a live audience.

“The atmosphere is the real beauty of battle rap,” he says. “It’s this inverted world where you can insult someone and say the most disrespectful things, but it’s actually a compliment.”

Yes. A compliment, like this one K.O. delivered in a battle earlier this year: “My analysis: Your brain is gelatinous, you’re prone to bed-wetting accidents, plus every doctor, girl ever said you have chronic flaccid paralysis—and flatulence.”

It was a quick rap—or “bar” in battle terms—delivered during a 30-minute match. Rappers spend months writing, editing and practicing—K.O. started working on his next battle back in February. Stakes are huge for the champion, who could find himself dethroned on Friday, June 27, at the Layalina Lounge.

“I am more disrespected when they give me wack, bad insults,” he says. “If they hit me with some good stuff, I’m like, ’Yes. You actually put time into battling me. You put time into preparing for me. Thank you. I appreciate that.’”

Battle rap was first popularized by Eminem in the 2002 film 8 Mile as a blend of sport and hip-hop. Lyrical supremacy is the goal; self-expression is the art form. But the culture is aggressive, to say the least: Insults are often laced with homophobic and misogynistic language that may keep it from ever approaching the mainstream.

No Excuses is modeled off big battle leagues such as the Ultimate Rap League in New York, King of the Dot Entertainment in Canada and Don’t Flop in Great Britain. The group puts on live events and uploads videos for endless online debate.

Khalid Ali, who also goes by his rap name Impact, runs the show. He picks matches, books venues, promotes events, edits videos, and at age 20, calls himself a CEO. Earlier this year, he added a No Excuses dance battle league to his long list of projects, even though he works full time for his family in Vacaville.

But No Excuses is his pride and joy—a business he wants to see grow on a national scale. His ultimate vision is similar to professional wrestling: Individual No Excuses battlers will have legions of fans who follow their stats and buy their merch.

Ali unofficially started the league as a 17-year-old at Davis Senior High School, until school officials told him to take the battles off campus. He gathered rappers in parks until he decided to get better organized about two years ago. He started a multimonth tournament to name the first champion of No Excuses. And win a $1,000 prize—Ali’s own money, repurposed from a personal academic grant.

With that hefty cash prize, No Excuses got a lot of interest. K.O. won the initial tournament, but rappers stuck around—the league currently has about 30 regular performers. Some are in their teens; the oldest are in their late 20s. They drive to battle from Davis, Auburn, Grass Valley and other unexpected havens of hip-hop culture.

Events are spectacles, fueled by promotional videos, interviews and other dramatics. The buildup can really work, with the audience totally riled up over perceived tension.

As No Excuses vice president Teddy Graham says, “Sometimes the beef is real. Most of the time it’s not.”

The result is over-the-top, theatrical entertainment, which, apparently, people crave.

“Everyone wants to see so-and-so go at it,” Ali says. “It’s the fight-fight mentality.”

One of the most notorious No Excuses battles followed several months of buildup and shit-talking. Ant Watts, who recently moved to Chicago, came out on top with a performance that exhibited beautiful wordplay and terrifying threats. It flowed easily from a guy who spent much of his teens in and out of juvenile detention for attempted burglary and larceny, and on and off probation, all the while keeping a dictionary and thesaurus next to his bed.

“I like to see what you can do with different words,” he says. “Make ’em bounce off each other, how you can make ’em sound bigger than what they really are.”

Watts has plenty of stories. He’s from Chicago, born into a musical family with 11 brothers. He rapped through childhood and says he even negotiated with P. Diddy’s Bad Boy Records. It didn’t work out, and eventually he moved to Sacramento to live with his mom—on the streets.

After a few arrests, the government gave him an ultimatum: Clean up now, or skip juvenile detention and go straight to county jail on the next offense. Watts chose the former. He graduated from high school, got a job, attended church regularly and even became a father figure. Earlier this year, the 21-year-old lived with his mom and his 12-year-old godson in a small Rio Linda apartment.

Perhaps that’s why Watts finds No Excuses battlers who proudly tout gangster rhymes the most frustrating.

“Nowadays, everybody is a rapper. If you don’t take it seriously, move out of the way,” he says. “Hip-hop is genuine when people rap about who they are, where they’re from, what’s going on in their life.”

Now living in Chicago again, Watts is intent on starting up a Midwest No Excuses league. And Ali is set on expansion, too—he’s been talking about collaborations in other California cities, including Los Angeles.

No Excuses has the potential to reach further, Graham says, because of its diversity in performers. Some are all about cheap jokes and punchy zingers. Some rap in stories or deliver poetry with intentional arcs. Others focus on flow, complexity and multisyllabic rhymes. But the league’s problem in attracting wider audiences is battle rap’s general image.

“Battle rap’s just trying to appeal to people from the hood, or people in this certain culture, and they’re limiting themselves,” Graham says.

Graham is proud that No Excuses draws what he calls “everyday folks” as well as women and children. Though, only two women actually rap in the league.

“There are no female battle rappers who are even famous within the culture,” Graham says. “The bars are just so masculine.”

So masculine—if masculine refers to homophobic slurs and imagery of rape that just might be unprintable. Not every rapper speaks that way, of course. K.O. draws some lines.

“Gay jokes are part of the style, but I think it’s a dark path to go down. It’s offending the wrong people,” he says. “I try to avoid actually going into people’s personal lives, family members, sexual orientation.”

A few regular attendees have taken to booing loudly whenever a performer uses the word “fag.” Sometimes, there’s a lot of booing. Sometimes, there’s a lot of profanity and cringing.

But K.O. thinks most of the No Excuses rappers are like him—busy, normal people with jobs or studies, who find battle rap to be a ridiculously fun creative outlet.

“It’s not all about the hustle,” K.O. says. “For a lot of the kids, they’re just starting their journey of self-expression, creation and art. They’re finding that difference between who they are as an artist and who they are as a person.”