ERB Recent Video Stats

Last YouTube Access: 12:22 am Aug 31st, 2011

Age: 35    Gender: m   
Home Town: Los Angeles
Location: US
Occupation: Rappers, Epic.
Company: Maker, Venkman, Westside Comedy Theater

The Epic Rap Battles of History was born in a bedroom recording studio in the summer of 2010 in Los Angeles. Nice Peter had just started working at Maker Studios as a songwriter and developer of original music content for Youtube. Epic LLoyd owned and operated a comedy theater in downtown Santa Monica, CA. Lloyd had planned a hip hop comedy show, featuring improv, sketches, and games centered around rap music. The show was conceived by Lloyd and MC Mr Napkins (later to play Albert Einstein). In it they planned a freestyle battle rap improv game: get two suggestions from the audience of two famous people, and battle it out. Lloyd came to Peter's home studio that night and told him the idea. They switched on a mic, picked two random characters (in this case, Chucky and Michael J Fox) and freestyled relatively terrible raps. It was a awkward matchup, but it planted a great idea for a video. Nice Peter asked his small but growing audience on Youtube for suggestions, Lloyd and Peter combed through them all and chose "John Lennon VS Bill Orielly" for no particular reason other than it made them laugh. "I never would have thought of that" says Peter "but I'm glad someone did, it set the tonefor the whole series."

Lloyd and Peter were set to film their new idea at Maker Studios with a director/editor named Dave McCary. Dave had made a name for himself directing and editing all the videos for the sketch comedy group, Good Neighbor. When Peter told Dave his hair brained vision of a trans-dimensional Mortal Kombat arena of battle rapping historical characters, Dave got it instantly. Lloyd, Peter, Dave and Mickey on camera (later to play Dr Seuss) filmed that first battle with a
budget of $200 in an office, with a piece of Green Cloth on the wall, and with John Lennon climbing through a window wrapped in Green paper.

The first battle was well received, but nothing compared to the success of number 2: Darth Vader vs Hitler. Another audience suggestion, Peter and LLoyd started writing late at night at Lloyd's theater. In John Lennon vs Bill ORielly, they used no accents, but when Lloyd shouted out "I am Adolf Hitlaaaah!" in that screeching German lilt, everything made sense. The rest is... well.... history.