Flip Top Battle is very popular nowadays to the Filipino youth. Flip top artists are all rap artist that’s why they are expert in playing words. They are considering themselves as a poet because there is a rhyme in every sentence that they deliver and it is very poetic. Flip Top paved the way for some artist to be discovered by major label records. Like Abra he launched an album released by Ivory Records while Basilyo and Looney are already a veteran rap artist and because of Flip top they revived their career.
Absolutely, for the people who organized it, this is a modern version of balagtasan. It has the same concept like what had old balagtasan were the two contenders have an issue to raise. It has also a moderator and judges who will decide whom an argument is strong.
But according to our national artist in literature Virgilio S. Almario, Flip Top is not a modern balagtasan although it has a resemblance to the balagtasan. He believed that this is another form of art, but don’t call it as balagtasan.
We can’t also deny that not all the people are happy with Flip Top Battle. For them, this is just a trash talk or blabbering. They are saying that what the essence of their rhymes is if their words are nonsense. You can’t compare it balagtasan because they don’t have issues to resolve. Flip top artist doesn’t talking important issues at all. What they are doing is insulting each other. They are only throwing vulgar words and dirty words in front of their contender like what they are doing when they were still an underground or ghetto rapper. For them, Flip Top is is a bad influence to the Filipino youth. What they have learned is saying bad words and to insult other people. It has no difference in some comedy bar that the way how they joke is to insult the audience.
Well, this issue is very complicated. For every issue have two sides or different views. One thing for sure, Flip Top will not become famous if there is no YouTube. We like it or not, this is already a part of our popular culture. For the Flip Top artists, they are doing this for the sake of their craft and of course, for entertainment.