What would Miley Cyrus say to our patron saint Joan of Arc? What about Abraham Lincoln to Chuck Norris? Ever wonder if Hitler could out rap Darth Vader? Well thanks to the brilliance of Epic Rap Battles, the world knows the answers to those questions, and on Tuesday Lancers had the opportunity to experience it live.
Epic Rap Battles started back in 2010 as a YouTube video series in which Internet personalities, Peter Shukoff and Lloyd Ahlquist, played historical and pop culture figures, both real and fictional, pitted against each other in rap battles. The series has grown immensely since then, winning several Streamy Awards in 2013 and 2014.
Jacob Long, a sophomore, can see why people love the series.
“I feel like their work is clever as well as funny and they do a good job portraying who they are trying to portray,” said Long.
Maeleigh Ferlet, another sophomore, has been watching the series since the beginning. She was excited to see them perform live.
“It was cooler than I thought, because they didn’t just sit there and rap at each other,” said Ferlet. “They had their costumes. They had other people there. They asked the audience which ones they wanted to see, it wasn’t just a set and they did some comedic stuff too.”
She was also surprised at how interactive they were, allowing audience members to actually rap out parts of the characters they knew.
“They had this one guy come up for the Dr. Seuss vs. Shakespeare and he did good on the first verse but the second verse it was too fast for him,” added Ferlet. “So this girl was like really fast and she came up and did it and everyone was blown away.”
For the last act, the comedic group did an improv segment where they asked the audience for suggestions of figures. The students gave them Civil War general Stonewall Jackson and the actor Jackie Chan, resulting in absolute comedy. Both Ferlet and Long said the improv segment was their favorite part of the night.
“It was really funny,” stated Ferlet.
All in all, they said the event was epic.
