So back in July I worked with the folk over at GtP to develop the prototype for a game, SHOWDOWN, to simulate an MC battle. Our test case was the classic Jay-Z vs. Nas battle using the lyrics from “The Takeover” and “Ether”. We broke the songs up line by line and gave them rankings based on somewhat objective characteristics. Then using one of my instrumentals GtP built an application that allowed users to play as one of the rappers, in a simulated battle using those lines. For the time it was up all of the data from these battles were recorded. In total over 600 battles were simulated creating a substantial set of data from which the battle could be analyzed.
In an effort to round off this phase of the project GtP built another app for the results of this cycle. From it users can not only see the data we used to evaluate these MC’s, but if they don’t agree with our evaluation, they can go in and change the data. Then recalculate to get the results based on their battle data. As I said, we tried to use objective characteristics, like how many rhyme words are in that line, or how many metaphors were used, but even the analysis of that can be subjective, I mean who’s to say what is and isn’t wordplay.
The point of the exercise in this case isn’t to lay out the definitive winner of the battle, but more to provide the grounds for how that could be determined. If it were more of an official project with time for more stages, the lyrical analysis itself could be done in an open manner from the onset, averaging user data, so as to remove some of the subjectivity of it. At the end of the day though, the data itself isn’t the jewel of this project (though it can be pretty cool), but rather the crowd sourcing of the simulations.
The truth of the matter is that the simulations themselves could have been fully automated and run thousands of times by a computer to produce results. What that would have lacked however was the x factor for the battle MC which can be best understood as the choice of weapons. By putting this in the hands of the fans a level of authenticity to the data is added which could never have been accomplished with the randomized simulations.
But you really want to know who won right? I am going to tell you, but I want to make sure it’s clear that if you don’t agree you can go change the data, and then simulate all of the 600+ battles for yourself to determine who your winner would be.
To pull you along for more of a ride about our results though, I want to talk about the fact that we’re starting to publish some of the data from the SHOWDOWN on Many Eyes. What this means is that you can download that data and process it yourself however you please. I’m looking at all the visualization folk out there to really go in on this. In the meantime though you can use the Many Eyes engine to pull together some pretty nice visualizations like these.
Also worth noting is that we’ve made the whole SHOWDOWN application with the game and the result data available as a desktop application. When you check it out on the web, go to the “Extras” page where you’ll find a link to the media drop (or just click here). The drop includes the application and a download of the music from the game. Not for nothing, the real winner of this battle is the beat. You may miss it with all the MC braggadocio thrown on top, so there’s an instrumental version in there just for you.
What else can I talk about to keep from declaring a winner. Oh yeah the future of SHOWDOWN. To be honest, I’d love to see this developed further, but considering what we’ve done in the prototype the next logical step is much bigger than the side project status it has right now. In other words there’d need to be some money on the table to go beyond this point. This is actually less about my need to be paid, but more about the scale of the platform. The platform is ripe for a contemporary MC battle instead of a historical one, but in order for that to work there needs to be the audience to support it. Attracting that audience means having those MC’s be somewhat established with a following. It could happen by example if one of those hip-hop magazines that like to do MC rankings used the platform to really put it to the test.
Okay I don’t think I’ve got anything more I can delay with. By points Nas is the winner. But by wins Jay takes the crown. Alright now that is out of the way, go look at the results, change the data and play the game some more for yourself here:
SHOWDOWN: Fort Apache – Jay-Z vs Nas
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Published under: ArtTags: battle • data • data visualization • download • game • Jay-Z • many eyes • MC • music • Nas • showdown • simulation • visualization
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