Rush Lingo: aiyo, what up Matt?

KempoMRK: yoooo. Nothing. Just listening to my audio's from my first to my last, I like checking elevation lol

Rush Lingo: i feel you kid. how long you been writing?

Rush Lingo: txting?

KempoMRK: Since May last year. I wrote my first rhyme on some graphics board weirdly. Some dude showed me his verse and I was like fuck outta here I can write better than that. So I wrote a verse and my friends were creaming their pants over it and so was this dude, so I obviously thought I was dope. Then I wrote a like 93 line verse about going to a McDonalds drive-thru that I thought was whack so I thought I lost it lol. Thennn I signed up to B-Boys, posted them, got 1 reply and the dude said I was whack.

Rush Lingo: lmfao@ mcdonalds. that's weird. but i hear you do audio, so what made you make the transition from txt to audio?

KempoMRK: I ain't made a transition as such, as I still text. But I'd wanted to do audio for a while, I just had a shitty mic. So I got some help from some people like Danzeil and dudes on boards and I got a Shure SM58 and this Behringer mixer. My setup is decent enough, ain't amazing quality but it'll do. And yeah, I'm starting to elevate at audio finally. It's fun, the rush of making a track you think is nice is cool. Even if I ain't gonna be making dope tracks for a while.

Rush Lingo: jeah.. what were some of your influences when it came to writing?

KempoMRK: Text or audio?

Rush Lingo: both.

KempoMRK: Text, I dunno. I didn't really have any at first cos I was just doing stuff on my own, but I was influenced by the B-Boys style. I remember I used to go to a shitty proboard and they all had their ~~~{}//\\\//\}{[]~~~ wordplay stuff and I hated that. So I stayed true to the B-Boys style and still do. I guess Fracture is prob a recent influence as his short sharp wording is what I've been using lately. In audio, I don't have any influences really. I just try and be myself even if I do still sound slightly American lol

Rush Lingo: word up.. speaking of America, where you rest at?

KempoMRK: Hampshire, England. I live in a dope place, seems like a huge contrast to where you're at. As my life is pretty easy to be totally honest, the worst part about it is working on a Saturday for fuck sake.

Rush Lingo: we work here on Saturdays too you nut sack. but back to the net, how do you feel about YOUR league thus far?

KempoMRK: Oh yeah course you do, but my job sucks the ass. And I feel that my league is fucking dope. I remember on RapVerse I read constant threads with people being all like "Ah this site sucks cos there's no league on there". So I'd had it in my mind that I wanted to run a league on RV when I was running my shite league over at Emcee Forums. And yeah, it's gone better than I could have hoped.

Rush Lingo: word i would have to agree. as far as other leagues. how do you feel about them?

KempoMRK: I think my league is better lol. I think LBL is way better than PRBA, that's looking whack at the moment. It's better than RBL, cos RBL is a tournament now. LLL hasn't been run greatly recently, at least from what I've checked, but it is probably more popular. And the HBL is just shite. So yeah, I'd say the LBL is definitely one of the best leagues on the net, and it's only been open 13 weeks. The amount of talent in it at the moment is great.

KempoMRK: My leagues are run with everything being done on time in mind. And as long as you do that on a decent site then the league will get good on its own. Running a league is a piece of piss in my opinion. So I don't see why so many people are shit at it. Mags are very important to leagues also, especially regular full length ones.

Rush Lingo: i agree.

Rush Lingo: would you ever sign up for your own league?

KempoMRK: Nah. I'd end up being partial to myself and unconsciously fiddling the rankings so that I get easy matches and shit lol. Only way I'd enter the league was if I had another mod to sort of moderate me lol. And I ain't that great a battler anyway so it don't bother me.

Rush Lingo: i see. this may seem like a dumb question, but would you rather be considered a great MODERATOR or a great BATTLER. i'd like to say theres competition with them both.

KempoMRK: Nah, it's a cool question. I think David Lama is the person who would most fit that. As he is a very good battler, but that gets overshadowed by the fact he's a dope mod. I'd rather be considered a great battler, but that ain't happening for the time being so I'm happy being considered a great mod lol. But it's cool when I see people on other boards complimenting my league. Like I saw some dude on RapBattles who I haven't a clue who he is, like saying my league was really well run with dope mags and stuff. That's cool to me. But seeing someone saying "Ah Kempo is a dope battler" would be better, but as I said that ain't happening for a while.

Rush Lingo: i feel you

Rush Lingo: how do you feel about the PEOPLE in your league?

KempoMRK: Doooope. I was talking to a dude yesterday and he said "your league is good because it has a mix of everyone. it has the dope people, the people who think they're dope but are shit, the people who are on the verge of dope, all different sites are in it and then you also have the newbs to son". So I think thats what makes my league unique. It's a mix of everyone and if you really wanna prove yourself as a great battler, then you should cater to everyone bar like people from HollaFront.

Rush Lingo: what are some of your favorites on the league?

KempoMRK: Hensley, Mets, Shake-Zula, Butler, Nick Fletcher, Glocks, Erel Avent, Phryme. And I thought Mimesis was dope when he was in the league. Tavarez, JTR, SlicKnife and Daubs I also feel. But they're not all that consistent to me. And I think you've come a long long way since you first joined the league, I enjoy your verses now. JUST GOES TO SHOW THE LEAGUE CAN BE USED AS ELEVATION.

Rush Lingo: who you think has the greatest potential?

KempoMRK: Hmm, hard one. I'd say someone who's reasonably new. Roger Glocks, Phryme, SlicKnife, Daubs and Gopha all have potential. Gopha is the newest and he beat Rell pretty easily last week. But Glocks has only been doing this for a year or so and he's pretty dope. Phryme is improving by the week, I remember I was talking to David Lama about the same question and he mentioned that Phryme would be one of the people to come up in 2006. Seems like he's fulfilling that.

Rush Lingo: care to give your top 5, 1- 5 in order?

KempoMRK: Top 5 battlers in the league?

Rush Lingo: yes, your opinion.

KempoMRK: 1. John Hensley
2. Butler
3. Shake-zula
4. Mets
5. Nick Fletcher

KempoMRK: I think Nick has mad potential as well. His concepts are crazy fresh most of the time and he generally always has 3 top punches. Usually near the top 5 punches also.

KempoMRK: And yeah I'm kinda partial to B-Boys. N.Tavarez and JTR follow, but they can drop whack one week and dope the next in my eyes. Like JTR got verse of the week easily one week and it was a doooope verse, same with Tavarez I believe yet over the past couple of weeks they haven't really impressed me all that much. But they're dope still. And generally still win lol.

Rush Lingo: true.

Rush Lingo: anyone you would want in your league that isn't in?

KempoMRK: Yeah. Mimesis for a start, he's still technically undefeated. People like Richard Corey, Classick etc to really bring some credibility to the league. As those people are rarely in any leagues other than the RBL or WBL so it'd be dope to have them in mine. And people from RapBattles to bring credibility from that side, like Mystery Murder, Spitacular etc. I just want this league's future to be rock solid ya know.

Rush Lingo: of course.

Rush Lingo: so kemp, tell us about your txt history

KempoMRK: Welll. As I said I started on B-Boys in like May 2005. I had shitty battles but I managed to get an ok record after a couple of months. After that I went to some shitty proboard and battled there quite regularly for a couple of months before I got pissed at a battle I lost and got pissed at them, which inadvertently resulted in the death of the board lol. Then I started signing up everywhere. 411hype, rapmusic, rapverse, emcee forums, rap leagues, blunts, rhyme n reason, micstage, hhd. I have an account on so many forums. I signed up to a couple of leagues and did pretty shitty in them. Leagues were like RBL and HBL. Then I took over a league at Emcee Forums called the EBL which I ran nicely, but the site was so small I could never get it over 30 people. But that made me enjoy running leagues. Errm...I still ain't at the level I wanna be in text. I can beat good people sometimes but my consistency sucks ass.

Rush Lingo: have you ever won any championships anywhere?

KempoMRK: Yeah. I won the tag team title's with you over at RapWorld. I was pretty happy with my verses there. That was the first time I'd written for like 20-30 line battles which I didn't think I could do before that. Apart from that, nada. I'm very much a midway kinda battler at the moment lol. I can beat average people and sometimes decent people, but never dope people.

Rush Lingo: i get you.. you ever plan on joining a league in the future?

KempoMRK: Oh wait I won the middleweight and lightweight titles in LLL Jr and got to the champ match, that's the highest I've been in a league. I'm joined up to the REBL at the moment on RapExclusive, it's a smallish league but has some nice people in it. I think a good league is hard to come by at the moment. LLL you can't sign up for. RBL is a tournament now. PRBA isn't great, and I can never seem to write nice for it anyway. HBL is still in a stage of whackness, and if you vote against people in it and say you don't like their verse, they call you whack. Which makes me sad :-(

Rush Lingo: i get you.. you ever plan on joining a league in the future?

KempoMRK: In the future, hmm. I'll prob join LLL as people at RB seemed to think I was pretty good. And that league is nice. I also like it how they talk about everything as well, I like getting props from people who aren't the mag writer.

Rush Lingo: do you like audio or text more?

KempoMRK: lol that's a hard question. I really dunno the answer. But I think audio is more long term, you've gotta put in more effort to become good at it than text. So it's hard to compare at the moment after only like 4 months of audio and a year of text.

Rush Lingo: i see. is there anything you wanna tell all the niggas in the league?

KempoMRK: lmao. I'd say make sure you show! Make sure you vote! Tell your dope battler friends to join! Talk positively about the league on other sites so they join! Subliminally advertise the league! Bout it. Peaaace