2011 BATTLE WRAP UP

What more can I say, (MKE) play the beat beats…

Oh my god. If you missed the 2011 Miltown Beat Down Finals, I feel sorry for you. This was without a doubt, the best MTBD battle in the 6 year history of the event. The beats we all great, the energy was high, people were having a great time, and it was one of the best looking events I have ever produced. All around AWESOME!

The competition was tough on Friday night. Each producer brought their A game for this final bout. We kicked things off with the sounds of DJ KiKi. He is a 17 year old MKE DJ who came up through the True Skool DJ program. Kiki graduated high school on Thursday, and then rocked Turner Hall on Friday. WOW! Then we turned the party over to Kid Cut Up. (If you want your party kicked in to high gear, hire Kid Cut Up!) During Cut Up’s set, the 2011 finalists joined me backstage for dinner and conversation about beats. We spoke with Young Guru about Milwaukee, basketball, Hip Hop and music.

By 8:00pm, we had a nice number of folks in the house, so we kicked things off with the 2011 Wild Card Battle. This competition was our way to bring some of those who did not make it to the top 8, back into the event. We had Andy Peter battle Bubba in the first round, then Luxi battled her boyfriend, ClassiCal. (That was an interesting battle for sure.) Bubba and ‘Cal made it to the end with ClassiCal winning the 2011 WILD CARD BATTLE.

Then…

We began the battle! This year’s finalists were 40 MIL, GoodWill, AudioPilot, Reason, TradeMark, Sam Winters, Champ and White Russian. These fellas brought their best foot forward for the night’s rounds. Each battle was high energy and very tough to call. Most of the rounds were won by a small margin, 20 points here, 30 points there, a real tough night of judging. When all was said and done, there were two men standing… REASON and AUDIOPILOT.

Before we got down with the final battle, we had a brief intermission with our special guest judge YOUNG GURU.

Young Guru played a high energy set of his personal favorites, songs he’s produced, and wrapped up his live set with an amazing scratch set, breakin’ down the Run DMC classic “Peter Piper”. ( so fresh! )

So then we got into the last battle for 2011.. REASON vs. AUDIO PILOT.

This battle was personally very exciting for me, as we had 2 MTBD veteran producers, who have worked together in the past, and even recorded together, now BATTLING for the crown. They each brought high energy beats, but in the end REASON was victorious.

Reason went home with a Native Instruments MASCHINE, Komplete Audio Interface, Massive sound design plug-in package, Aerial 7 headphones and a $100 MODA 3 gift card. CONGRATS REASON!

If you’d like to hear more of REASON’s music you can download his new album here…

and if you are a fan of his beats… Check out this INSTRUMENTAL version…

For more you can visit REASON’s website at www.4ar.biz

CONGRATS again to Reason and to our runner up AUDIO PILOT. You can follow up on both these producers on www.unifirecords.com

Special thanks to all the sponsors for this year’s event. We could not have produced such a high quality event with out your support. To Kid Cut Up, you are the best DJ in the mid-west, and maybe the world! Thanks to all the producers who put their heart and soul into making good beats so Milwaukee’s Hip Hop scene can be so great!