A battle rap competition staged in New York City is coming to live pay-per-view and on-demand outlets on July 12. The event, called Total Slaughter, will take place at 8:00 p.m. ET in the Hammerstein Ballroom, as prominent artists from the battle rap scene will compete alongside lesser-known contestants.
The telecast of the event is co-produced by Electus Digital’s WatchLoud.com, where it will be available for live streaming, and Eminem’s Shady Films. The event will also feature a matchup between Hollow Da Don and Shady Records’ Joe Budden, who is currently a member of the hip-hop supergroup Slaughterhouse.
Slaughterhouse and Shady Films recently formed the Total Slaughter rap battle league in order to increase the competitive activity’s exposure. Eminem’s longtime partner Paul Rosenberg explained that this pay-per-view marks the first widespread telecast of a live Total Slaughter rap battle event.
“We are really happy to bring Total Slaughter into the homes of millions of fans through this deal. This will be a game-changing event and having In Demand as our Pay-Per-View partner provides us with the opportunity to expose competitive battle rap to a much larger audience and raise the profile of the sport, which is exactly what we’ve set out to do,” said Rosenberg in a statement.
Eminem (Marshall Mathers), who also serves as a producer of the event, began his career as a battle rapper and elevated the art's exposure in his semi-autobiographical film 8 Mile. Ben Silverman, Drew Buckley, Evan Bregman and Montrel Mckay of Electus will also serve as executive producers of Total Slaughter, which President and CEO of The City Drive Daniel Catullo will direct.
