ATLANTA LAPTOP BATTLE II

Laptop Battle II, Lenny's
Monday, February 27, 2006

A few weeks before the second Atlanta Laptop Battle I was approached by Mr. Mipps – one of the events judges – and asked if I would be interested in serving as a judge as well. I didn't really know what to expect, and whenever anyone asked the obligatory question, “what’s a laptop battle?” I laughed it off with a half-assed 8 Mile joke. But behind it all I was pretty excited to have been asked, and very intrigued to see how it would all unfold. How serious is this? The ultimate prize –- a few more battles down the line -- includes a bunch of free gear and a flight to Seattle to compete in a much larger

RobDeth a.k.a. MiniDestroy



competition. Would there really be beef between gamers going on? Kids bucking up over the virtues of East side vs. West side? Bloods vs. Crips? Mac vs. PC?

Not really. What I found was an organized gathering of some talented – some not so talented – young musicians churning out some very inventive beats, clicks, rhythms and noise.

As for judging, the event was handled tournament-style. I was given an evaluation sheet with brackets for rating each performer in three categories: CREATIVITY, TECHNICAL SKILL and CROWD RESPONSE. And no, as many people responded to my 8 Mile jokes, “mouse clicking technique” was not something I was critiquing.


Creativity -- That’s a pretty obvious one.

Technical Skill -- Is the dude/lady dancing around, clicking a space bar and letting WinAmp do all the work?

Crowd Response – This was one of the hardest parts of the battle to evaluate. Everyone on-stage had stacked the crowd with friends and a few foes, and in many
Poppa G


instances the scream offs were the deciding factors on who was to move on.





Sixteen Competitors had signed up to throw down, but when the moment of truth was upon us only 12 people showed up to fight.




Each performer clicked, twitched and stomped





Threv

head-to-head for two minutes before the winner was decided. In the end a scruffy-looking kid named Tricil was the ultimate victor, though it was hard giving to him over RobDeth.


















Tricil, the victor



In the end the results were as such:
1. Tricil
2. RobDeth
3. Merkatroid
4. Re Com Pas









Laptop Battle III is coming up sometime later this summer, though a date hasn’t been announced yet. For more details look online at www.laptopbattle.org




Fourth place winner Re Com Pas is a good sport.