RAP BATTLE!

TV TROPES VERSUS YOUR LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFE!!

BEGIN!

Freshy Kanal (Real name Dustin, born October 28, 2000) is a German YouTuber and music producer. He is well known for his rap series titled Rap Battle! in which, similar to its inspiration, two pop culture figures are put in a rap battle. Unlike ERB, however, the series is far less focused on historical figures and more often gives the spotlight to fictional characters and current pop culture icons, both well known and obscure.

His YouTube channel can be viewed in the link above. He also has a SoundCloud featuring several unreleased and in-production battles, which can be viewed here.

Rap Battle! provides examples of the following tropes:

• Accidental Pun: Similarly to ERB's battle featuring Doctor Who, the ending catchphrase "WHO WON?" takes on a new meaning.
• Action Dad: "Bowser vs Gru" emphasises both opponents as fathers, with their kids (or underlings treated like kids) being brought up as both boasts and disses.
• Action Girl:
  • Captain Marvel.
  • Wonder Woman and Daenerys Targaryen who go up against each other.
  • Scarlet Witch.
  • Raven from Teen Titans.
  • Undyne, who's put up against Knuckles.
  • Power from Chainsaw Man and Nezuko Kamado from Demon Slayer.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • From Oogie's second verse:
  Decking dicey devil dealing douches dead, that's a D6!
  • From Monika's first verse:
  Okay, everyone! Watch me roast a giggling gullible gauthy Gotham goth!
  • From Kraken's second verse:
  Cultivate a culture based on cults of ancient scum, culminated by an author who was basically a cunt!
  • From Julius Pringles' first verse:
  Created to criticize capitalism!
  • From The Pied Piper's second verse:
  Converted the Celtic culture!
• A Glass of Chianti: This, of course, gets mentioned in "Hannibal Lecter vs Leatherface" by the former.
  I'm the fine mastermind of my gruesome hobbies
  Slip through Chianti as I chew a body
• Anthropomorphic Food:
  • Big Mac. Yes, there's a battle with that burger you can get at McDonalds.
  • The Gingerbread Man is another.
• April Fools' Plot: The series features multiple April Fools battles, featuring purposely ridiculous matchups.
  • The first was between Hot Ones and Binging with Babish. A normal battle for the most part, the joke comes when it's interrupted by "Freshy Kanal's Cooking Show", which doesn't even get two lines out before the battle properly ends.
  • The second was a battle between Bob Ross and Bob the Builder, in which Bob Ross starts out as relaxed like normal before rapping angrily and aggressively like a gangster after Bob the Builder insults his haircut.
  • The third April Fools battle was between Frodo and various ancient Egyptian figures, including Ramses II, Tutankhamun, Cleopatra, and Anubis.
  • The fourth was a battle between Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Paperboy, and Edward Scissorhands as a reference to Rock–Paper–Scissors, with James Gunn appearing at the end to represent the gun.
• Artistic License – History: "Frodo vs. Ancient Egyptians" has Tutankhamun's tomb be inside of the Great Pyramid of Giza, when it was actually at the Valley of the Kings.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Yuri first appeared as an Assist Character for Monika against Harley Quinn. Nearly two years later, she gets her own battle against Toko Fukawa.
  • Similar to Yuri, Natsuki also appeared in Monika's battle and later rapped against Raven.
  • Undyne was briefly seen and mentioned in Frisk vs. Chihiro before having her own battle against Knuckles.
  • Dr. Eggman briefly appears in "Sonic vs. The Flash" and "Knuckles vs. Undyne" before being paired with Jack Horner.
• Ass Shove:
  • Flowey says that Happy Appy is essentially The Annoying Orange with a stick up his ass.
  • Steve tells Sackboy that Sony is sick of LBP's stickers and "shoved them where your seam splits!".
  • Mr. Monopoly threatens to shove his Classy Cane up Julius Pringles.
• Assist Character:
  • Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki appear as this for Monika in her battle against Harley Quinn.
  • Lisa and Mr. Burns for Homer in his battle against Peter.
  • Sans for Frisk while their opponent Chihiro has Yubaba and Lin.
  • Siren Head provides Trevor Henderson's second verse against Corpse Husband.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Flowey's second verse starts off with him transforming into Photoshop Flowey.
• Audience Participation: The matchups come from fan suggestions.
• Auto-Tune:
  • Used in the battle between Taylor Swift and Kanye West by the latter, who even boasts about it.
  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar also has a section using this in his first verse.
• Back from the Dead: Several historical characters and fictional ones who died come back to life to do the battles.
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison: The Penguin makes one when complaining about his matchup with Boris Johnson:
  "You put this criminal menace, mad cynical mayor, the villain they credit with milions of deaths and pending, against the Penguin?!"
• Battle Rapping: Obviously, as this is a channel for rap battles.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Paul Blart, of all people, battles Robocop. Not even the announcer can hold back his laughter. Surprisingly, it turns out Blart has some nasty burns.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: The YouTube vs. Twitch battle has Twitch and TikTok unleash some nasty burns towards YouTube.
• Blade Lock: Neither party uses a blade, but Hollow Knight vs Shovel Knight has the Knights in that pose on the thumbnail and briefly in the battle itself.
• Blue Is Heroic: Sonic, contrasting with The Flash's Red Is Heroic.
• Bookends: Edgar Wright's first and last lines contain the same joke punning on Chekhov's Gun, claiming Wes Anderson "will be fired eventually".
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • You couldn't have a rap battle with Monika without her doing this. In one verse, she exits Freshy Kanal's computer while Kanal is editing the video, complete with an Animation Bump to make this more shocking.
  • Steve Irwin taunts Bear Grylls by saying that "no one clicked on this battle for the boy scout".
  • After seeing that YouTube gets the first verse in their battle, Twitch says "You mean people have to listen to this guy cry first? Please god, somebody comment the timestamp to my verse!"
  • Eleven tells Matilda "I'm the reason why they clicked on this battle."
• Casting Gag:
  • Flecks is a Brit donning a fake American accent to play Patrick Bateman, just like his original actor.
  • Skitzy plays Trevor Phillips' body actor, harkening back to his role as Trevor in SuperThingsOnCups's GTA V vs Ed, Edd n Eddy.
  • "Benoit Blanc vs Hercule Poirot" features Ben Atha as Benoit - much like Daniel Craig, Ben Atha has played James Bond.
• Cast of Personifications: YouTube vs. Twitch is done this way. The two sites are represented by humanoid characters colored accordingly with their logos on their chests, plus some other apps such as Google Plus, Fiverr and TikTok.
• Christmas Episode: The Grinch vs Ebenezer Scrooge, and The Gingerbread Man vs. The Nutcracker.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In Peter Griffin vs. Homer Simpson, the Fall Guys character appears in space during Homer's second verse, after being ejected by the Among Us character in the battle.
  • In YouTube vs. Twitch, the shark Bruce from Jaws and the Loch Ness monster are seen in the background of the ocean in the beginning of YouTube's second verse. Nessie is slowly going to the bottom, seemingly dead after getting attacked by the shark at the end of their battle while Bruce is swimming away.
• Creator Thumbprint: Discussed: both directors in Edgar Wright vs Wes Anderson take potshots at each other's thumbprints.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • A rap battle between Hannibal Lecter and Leatherface should by all means end in a complete stomp for Lecter, but the normally dull hillbilly gets off some surprisingly witty burns on his better-educated counterpart.
  • Even the announcer can't say Paul Blart's name without laughing, but then Blart brings the heat against Robocop.
• Deliberately Monochrome:
  • "Mr. Bean vs. Charlie Chaplin" is in color for Mr. Bean's parts and in black-and-white for Chaplin's, referencing Chaplin's black-and-white movies.
  • Norman Bates' scenes in his battle against Jack Torrance is almost completely black-and-white as a reference to his film being black-and-white, although the blood is red unlike in the film.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Frisk went up against Chihiro the briefly appeared in "Flowey vs. Appy" and "Knuckles vs. Undyne".
  • Mr. Burns goes from having his own battle against Donald Trump to being an Assist Character for Homer.
  • Inosuke has his own battle against Bakugo, then he makes a cameo in Power vs. Nezuko.
• Disowned Adaptation: Norman Bates points out in-universe about how "the author of this author (Jack Torrance)" is really unhappy with the changes that Kubrick made when adapting The Shining.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first videos on the channel were not original rap battles, but recordings of live Epic Rap Battles of History performances.
• Eaten Alive: Happens to The Gingerbread Man at the end of his battle, where the Nutcracker eats 3 of his limbs.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Kraken makes it clear that he's very disgusted with H. P. Lovecraft's racism and sexism, despite being a Card-Carrying Villain who kills humans.
• Evil Versus Evil: Like with Good Versus Good, the way the matchups work mean sometimes two villains are pitted against each other. Specific examples include (but are not limited to) Pennywise vs. Freddy Krueger, Hannibal Lecter vs. Leatherface, and Dr. Eggman vs. Jack Horner.
• Fan Discontinuity: invoked Both Po and Jack Frost mention how fans would rather forget the Avatar movie exists against Aang and Zuko respectively.
• Fan Hater: Both Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson take shots at the other's fanbase.
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • "Angry Birds vs. Best Fiends" was the first episode to feature teams rapping against each other.
  • "Po vs. Aang" has 5 verses, with Po getting two and Aang getting three, his first one being very short.
  • Near the end of "Paranorman vs. Coco", the two start rapping line-by-line.
  • "Aladdin vs. Timmy Turner" was the first episode to feature the arrival of an unexpected third rapper, as Peter Pan shows up after Timmy accidentally wished for him.
  • "Frisk vs. Chihiro" features Assist Characters for the main rappers: Lin helps Chihiro start her verse with a setup line, then Yubaba later appears to rap against Sans, who showed up earlier to back up Frisk.
  • "Eddie Brock vs. Henry Jekyll" has the two characters rap as themselves then as their alter-egos.
  • "Frodo Baggins vs. Ancient Egyptians" (an April Fools episode) ditches the usual format and instead tells a story of Frodo journeying through the Egypt and trying to give the Ring to Egyptians he rap-battled.
  • Part 7 had three sponsored episodes where two characters from the same property battled one another: "Billy Kid vs Von Lycaon", "Furina vs Arlecchino" and "Boothill vs Rappa".
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: "Gru vs Bowser" has the fire/ice variant, with the firebreathing hotheaded Bowser put against a freeze-ray-wielding Gru.
• Fur Against Fang: Part 8's Halloween Episode puts Count Orlok against Wolf Man
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Occasionally, a battle will be interrupted by the arrival of someone with no warning.
  • Peter Pan does this in Aladdin vs Timmy Turner.
  • In Sandman vs. Tooth Fairy, the announcer is about to end the battle when the boogeyman suddenly shows up.
  • In YouTube vs. Twitch, TikTok shows up after the former two finish both their verses.
  • In The Grinch vs. Ebenezer Scrooge, Krampus shows up.
• Good Versus Good: Like with Evil Versus Evil, the way the matchups work mean sometimes two heroic characters are pitted against each other. Specific examples include (but are not limited to) Mr. Incredible vs. Mr. Fantastic, Sonic vs. The Flash, Wonder Woman vs. Daenerys Targaryen, or Zuko vs. Jack Frost.
• Gratuitous German: Krampus' first line is "Gruß vom Krampus", "Greetings from...". It's appropriate because the character originates from German folklore.
• Halloween Episode:
  • King Dice vs. Oogie Boogie was released on Halloween 2021.
  • 2025 had two - "Jigsaw vs Springtrap" released on Halloween itself, and Nosferatu vs Wolf Man released earlier in the month.
• Historical Domain Character: Alexander Hamilton and Donald Trump.
• Hurricane of Puns: All of Sayori's, Yuri's and Natsuki's verses have wordplay alluding to the way they died in DDLC.
  Hang on, all your marriage attempts had loose ends. Tighten up your lines if you're gonna be a nuisance
  I hate to spill the tea but your options crushed down. Either as self harming love or getting cut out
  Put another crew together and soon you'll be gone. The audience would snap next if your movies went on
• I Banged Your Mom:
  • Happy Appy says he's going to "Nick [Toriel] and make some new Juniors".
  • The Spy makes several jokes about banging Robbie Rotten's mom.
  • The cymbal chimp also boasts about banging the garden gnome's mom.
  • The Front Man boasts about banging MrBeast's girlfriend.
• Identically Named Group: A few matchups are based on the characters sharing a name:
  • Billy the Puppet versus Billy the Dummy.
  • Bob Ross versus Bob the Builder.
  • Big Mac versus Little Mac.
  • Scarecrow from DC versus Scarecrow from Oz.
• Implied Death Threat: Both of Mr. Bear and Freddy's ending lines:
  Freddy: The night's coming to an end, it's almost 6 am. I'll leave Mr Bear in the backroom. NEVER. TO. BE. SEEN. AGAIN.
  Mr. Bear: Your fans will never know the ending of this battle. Let me give them a hint: Mangle.
• Interrupting Meme: Naturally gets referenced in the battle with Kanye West, who interrupts Taylor Swift's first verse to begin his second one.
• I Resemble That Remark!: Anubis accuses Frodo of constantly needing Sam to bail him out of fights. Frodo responds by asking Sam to finish the battle for him.
• Joke Character:
  • Freshy makes a cameo As Himself in "Hot Ones vs. Binging with Babish", but only gets to say a line and a half before Sean sprays hot sauce in his eyes and the battle ends.
  • Morbius is portrayed as a Small Name, Big Ego who spends most of his rap bragging about things he never actually did.
• Kraken and Leviathan: The connection between the Kraken and Cthulhu, both being sea monsters.
• Living Christmas Tree Topper: In the "Santa vs Satan" rap-battle music video, Santa brings up how Satan was the bringer of light and that he has a job for his bottom at the top of his pine tree.
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Snakebite126 has played a lot of characters with distinct voices, including Robbie Rotten, Flowey and King Julien.
• Metal Scream: In Jeff the Killer vs. Jason Dean, the former ends his first verse with this, complete with a sudden metal rift.
• Mic Drop:
  • Ghostface threatens Samara Morgan with a knife near the end of the battle, then drops it.
  • Eleven does this at the end of her battle against Matilda.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Plentiful. To name a few:
  Greetings and salutations, name's Jason Dean and I'm out of patience....
  Welcome to your final test, I'm MrBeast...
  I'm Dr. Crane, and I'll be at your service...
  I'm Paddington, pardon my manners, or rather the lack of them...
  Uh, m-my name's Bean...
• Mutual Kill:
  • King Midas vs Medusa ends with both parties Taken for Granite by the other.
  • Jigsaw vs Springtrap has the latter kill the former, and then die burning to death in the former's Death Trap.
• Nightmare Face: Really, this was inevitable with Flowey.
• Non-Indicative Name: "Slasher Rap Cypher" actually has horror in general as its theme, not specifically slashers; out of the ten rappers, three of them^*Pennywise, Pinhead, and Hannibal Lecter are from non-slasher works, while Norman Bates is from a film that helped codify the slasher genre but isn't usually considered one.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: This is shown in Frisk vs Chihiro during the former's verses, they turn into Chara for a split second.
• Precision F-Strike: "Norman Bates vs. Jack Torrance" is mostly swearing-free, so Jack's first two swears ("Now they sent me both cases with one goddamn person" and "Then, fucking play with me, Norman!") hit much more strongly, especially since he is relatively calm at first and starts being more direct with his insults after the second one.
• Rewatch Bonus: Like ERB themselves, the amount of work that goes into the writing and visuals in Rap Battle! means that a lot of episodes have lines or shots that you might only catch much later.
• Rhyming with Itself: Homelander uses this to diss Derek Zoolander.
  Trust me! All I need is one look!
  Meanwhile, all you've got is one look!
• Roger Rabbit Effect: In the Frodo Baggins vs Ancient Egyptians battle, all the rappers representing Ancient Egypt are animated while Frodo, Sam, and Gandalf are live action.
• Rule of Funny: The only explanation for the punchline at the end of "Benoit Blanc vs Hercule Poirot". Six detectives of varying levels of competence needed a seventh to point out the dead guy in front of them... is actually alive and just out cold.
• Sacred Cow: invoked Chihiro tells Frisk that dissing her is risky because her movie is renowned.
• Same Language Dub: A large chunk of the characters portrayed by live-action actors (e.g. Pyrocynical, Count Olaf, Mr Beast, Bob the Builder) are voiced by different VAs.
• Season Finale: Starting with part (season) 3, the outros of the part's final episode display thumbnail-sized videos of every matchup from the part.^note  Similar montages for part 1 and 2 were linked in the last episodes of those parts, Jekyll vs Venom and Hamilton vs Skywalker On top of that, from around that point onward part finales involved either higher production values (Part 6's Star-Lord vs. Captain Jack Sparrow), multiple participants (Part 5's Fairytale Rap Cipher) or both (Part 7's Benoit Blanc vs. Hercule Poirot).
• Sleeper Hit: invoked One of Fall Guys' criticisms towards Among Us is that it took two years to skyrocket in popularity.
• Slobs vs. Snobs:
  • "Hannibal Lecter vs. Leatherface" has the Wicked Cultured Hannibal Lecter facing off against the hillybilly Leatherface, with both backgrounds reflected in their lines and used as disses.
  Hannibal Lecter: Love the suit
  Must be the best thing to come from your entire worthless town
  Leatherface: Fuckin' artsy prude
  Going on trips and shit
  Livin' high class lifestyle
  White meat privilege
  • "Edgar Wright vs. Wes Anderson": Wright is the slob to Anderson's slob, with Wright describing his writing as pseudo-intellectual and his characters as pretentious chodes, and Anderson himself considers himself above Wright's "repetitive parody cheese" output.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: At the end of their battle, the Wicked Witch of the West sends her broomstick flying at the Queen of Hearts, taking her head clean off. They are both silhouetted as this happens.
• Spelling for Emphasis: From Natsuki's second verse: "We'd all be safer off, if this freaky little B-I-T-C-H was offed!"
• Stealth Pun:
  • "So let's see you attract more fans while stuck in zero gravity!"
  • "You put your mom in a cell cuz she had none in her brain!"
  • "And now there ain't no drumming so they don't get reminded but you'll face re-percussions when you feck with the Irish."
  • "Smooth like butter and I'm flyest in the room." ^note The Very Hungry Caterpillar turns into a butterfly after eating.
  • "I'll treat this like chess; you're the crappiest piece! Cuz when I cross a Bishop then he will die agonally!" ^note Saint Patrick was a Bishop, which is also a piece in chess that moves diagonally.
  • "A single cannonball splits The Kraken? You can't deny it, you're that spineless." ^note The Kraken is an octopus, which is an invertebrate.
  • "A sexist and racist, he put a new meaning to catcalling!" ^note Referencing H. P. Lovecraft's racist and/or sexist views and his cat that had the N-word in its name, doubling as catcalling as in verbal sexual harassment.
  • "It's shocking that FG came back from the dead, just to be killed by Homer Simpson again."' ^note Family Guy has the same initials as Frank Grimes, a minor but popular character that appeared in "Homer's Enemy". At the end of the episode, Grimes dies as a result of electrocution.
  • "Notoriously Big and Bad, 'twas not your granny's rapping!" ^note Referencing how the Big Bad Wolf impersonated Little Red Hiding Hood's grandmother after eating her.
  • "You say curiouser and curiouser, I'd say I'm mercurial!" "That just means his mind's a mess!"^note Said by the Mad Hatter and March hare during the Fairy-Tale Cypher, in reference to the fact that hatters in Victorian England frequently got brain damage from regular exposure to mercury.
  • "Didn't know any Morse code so communication was dropped. No wonder your story ended with dot dot dot."^note The ellipsis symbolizes how Amelia Earhart was never found after her disappearance, and it's a double since three dots in Morse code is the letter S, meaning she couldn't finish sending an SOS message.
  • "Won't hold a candle to me, don't you remember his birthday?"^note Nezuko references Power's death at Denji's birthday, while she was holding the cake with candles.
• Stock Ness Monster: Nessie has his battle against Bruce from Jaws.
• St. Patrick's Day Episode: Saint Patrick vs. The Pied Piper was appropriately released on St. Patrick's Day in 2022.
• Stylistic Suck: In Boris Johnson vs. The Penguin, Boris Johnson's lines are witty and clever but rapped awkwardly and offbeat, mocking his real-life speaking. The original audio was a lot more polished, but was not put into the video due to conflicts with Johnson's original voice actor.
• Take That, Audience!: "You think Prince Charming is waiting on the other side but in reality, it's a million nerds gawking at your thighs!"
• Take That!:
  • From King Dice vs. Oogie Boogie: So the devil himself prepared a special hell for the most washed up thing from NBC since SNL!
  • YouTube tells Twitch that they banned words like "virgin, incel and simp" when he got bought by a prick that fits the description.
  • Wonder Woman finishing her battle against Daenerys with "But even I couldn't save your wreck of a final season".
  • Homer takes a dig at the network that runs Family Guy...even though said network also runs his show.
  • Donald Trump and Boris Johnson were put against Mr. Burns and The Penguin respectively, implying they're comparable to a cartoonishly evil Corrupt Corporate Executive and a supervillain.
  • Power compares Nezuko to "Sleepy Joe" before saying she's not qualified to race.
• Team Killer: Both Bob-omb and Creeper get killed at the end of the last verse by their own side - Creeper gets headshot by a Skeleton (as evidenced by him dropping a record on death) and Bob-omb gets armed by his lackey and explodes.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Used by MrBeast in "Squid Game vs. MrBeast", possibly in an attempt to rhyme the line with the previous one.
  "For a 'critique on greed', it seems ironic
  Your show sold out like it's stock from shopmrbeast.com, bitch."
• Throat-Slitting Gesture:
  • invoked Tim Burton does one at the end of his battle while referencing Uma Thurman's On-Set Injury during the filming of the Kill Bill movie.
  • Undyne does one in her title card.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Monika kills her Literature club members even as they help back her up against Harley Quinn.
• Wham Line:
  • From The Grinch vs. Ebenezer Scrooge: Gruss... vom... Krampus... Cue Krampus.
  • From YouTube vs. Twitch: Tick tock, tick tock! Time to get your shit rocked! Cue TikTok.
  • From MrBeast vs. Squid Game: I make the calls in this torture ridden place. Cue The Front Man.
  • From Nathan Drake vs. Tintin: Are you both finished robbing my grave? I doubt it. Cue Indiana Jones.
  • Several of them from Benoit Blanc vs. Hercule Poirot:
    • Sorry to interrupt your skirmish, detectives. Cue Columbo.
    • Just one thing indeed, Lieutenant; I'll have to stop you right there. Cue L.
    • Not quite, but since you play a chess match well, I am the Dark Knight, and I've been following your path, L. Cue Batman.
    • How many damaged fragile assholes does it take to crack a murder scene? Cue Shaggy Rogers.
    • Pass me my pipe and my hat; I got my eyes on the facts. Cue Sherlock Holmes.
• Wham Shot: At the end of L's verse in "Benoit Blanc vs Hercule Poirot", the next rapper makes his presence known through an audio transmission on L's main computer monitoring panel, which displays a familiar bat-shaped emblem...
• You Are Fat: King Dice compares Oogie Boogie to a KKK member that went on too many lunch breaks.
• Your Mom:
  • Sonic to The Flash: "Your mommy kicked the bucket cause you're too slow!"
  • Bean to Chaplin: "You put your mom in a cell cause she had none in her brain!"
  • MrBeast to Gi-Hun: "I'm like your momma: I'm dead sick!"
    • In the same battle, The Front Man to MrBeast: "So go cry to your momma in an ad to pack dough!"