Jack ‘N for Beats is a competition sponsored by Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey. It made its stop at Reggie’s Rock club in Chicago recently. This competition is out to find the best rapper and they will win $10k and a studio session with DJ Khaled. Those are some pretty high stakes for a competition that was created by Johnnie Franklin four years ago in Chicago. Since then, it has grown into a national campaign bringing out thousands to compete.
The room was filled with rappers from front to back. All of them were there for their shot at $10k. Just 65 rappers were chosen from a previous pool and tonight was their night to be whittled down to the top five rappers from Chicago. The rules were plain and simple: each rapper had 16 bars and they could not say the “N” word or curse. After hearing those rules, I knew 65 contestants would go to 5 contestants really quickly. To be honest, most of the contestants stuck to the rules and in some cases if someone had a slip up they were allowed a chance to redeem themselves. It was quite impressive how organized the competition was. The host of the event Jeff Mimms kept the crowd in good spirits and moved the contest along. The top 20 contestants were lined up on stage in the blink of an eye.
Aj Ahmed, the A&R who was on hand to make the final choices, was fair and direct, reminding all the rappers not to forget what was at stake. He told them not to leave anything to chance and to come with their A game. The top 20 came and went, and then there were 5.
The top five from Chicago are listed below.
1. Young Kahn The Don
2. Damon
3. Patton
4. OG
5. D2G
D2G was voted the best of the top 5 and was awarded $500 for his skill. That’s not bad for a night of rhyming. They all move on to the next round. All the winners in the past have been from Chicago. Let’s see if they can keep the streak going.
For more details about Jack ‘N for Beats, visit www.jacknforbeats.com
Instagram/Twitter: @precise_chi
Eddy Lamarre aka Precise is a hip-hop artist-writer-actor from Chicago. The Chicago Reader recognized “Ladies Love Mixtapes” his latest release as one of the best projects of 2014. Listen/Buy Ladies Love Mixtapes at: https://precise.bandcamp.com/album/ladies-love-mixtapes-the-ep
