Battle Drill: The Oral History Of Saafir vs. Casual's "Wake Up Show" Battle
Twenty years after its origins, Saafir, Casual, Sway and Tech look back on the historic "Wake Up Show" battle that shaped how we view both beef and Battle Rap.
In 1994, Sway and King Tech were in the midst of their success with the Wake Up Show, airing on both KKBT 92.3 FM The Beat in Los Angeles and KMEL 106.1 FM in San Francisco. The Wake Up Show was an anchor for hardcore and underground Hip Hop diehards on the West Coast and beyond. That year, Sway and Tech broadcasted a lyrical brawl with the caliber of a highly anticipated heavyweight boxing title in both of their syndicated markets for Northern and Southern Californians to listen and call into the radio show to decide the victor.
The battle was between two of the Oakland’s most popular underground Rap crews, Hieroglyphics and the Hobo Junction. In February and May of 1994, respectively, both Casual (a founding member of the Hieroglyphics crew) and his associate from across town Saafir (the de facto leader of the Hobo Junction) released their debut albums Fear Itself and Boxcar Sessions. After a misunderstanding over a featured guest appearance on Boxcar Sessions, the two former comrades expressed their pride and aggression via battle raps and squared off with their crews against each other live on the Wake Up Show. This main event helped catapult the momentum of the Wake Up Show to become one of the highest-rated Rap radio programs in the country. The high ratings would also later serve as a barometer for major record labels to scout and sign new undergroundvRap talent that had performed on their show for the rest of the ‘90s and early aughts.
This is the second installment of HipHopDX’s coverage of the Sway, Tech, Hieroglyphics and Hobo Junction’s involvement in one of Hip Hop’s epic battles. After 20 years of minimal documentation on this urban legend, the air is finally cleared straight from the mouths of the sources involved in this story. Casual is currently on tour celebrating his debut album’s anniversary. Having completed a new project, the independently released Mystery School, he looks back on how his childhood friends formed the Hieroglyphics, and how this historic Rap battle began. Saafir details his story of how he became a backup dancer for seminal Oakland Rap group Digital Underground, how he befriended Tupac Shakur and landed his acting role in the street classic Menace II Society. Saafir also gave his perspective of how the battle between he and Casual began as well. Sway and King Tech chime in on how this event happened on their show, and each of them reflect on the codification on the art of freestyling in Hip Hop, and how the “Casual versus Saafir” battle reverberates in comparison to the Battle Rap scene as we know it today.http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/editorials/id.2439/title.battle-drill-the-oral-history-of-saafir-vs-casual-s-wake-up-show-battle