Reviewing and Ranking Every ERB: Cleopatra vs. Marilyn Monroe

Tier List: https://imgur.com/a/GWUjE77

The costuming's great, the visuals are great, I enjoy Cleopatra's dancing and the background cameos for Marilyn Monroe. My only complaint is that I don't care for the music much. The Egyptian-sounding part is nice but I really don't care for the percussion. It's too loud. It distracts me. Go watch the battle and make yourself aware of the percussion, you can't unhear it.

Marilyn Monroe's first verse is short, but solid. Her actress immediately does a fantastic job, love what she brings to the role. In particular the way she drops the elegant voice facade and starts sounding extremely crude is always hilarious. "This ugly hag and Kassem G got matching noses!" Too good.

Why is Cleopatra's actress's dancing so convincing? Goddamn. Cleopatra's verse is solid like Monroe's, though notably longer. It's not the most savage verse(with the possible exception of that last line) but we all know what's to come.

Marilyn Monroe's incest line is a big escalation. I love the look on her face when she says that, the barely-concealed contempt she has for Cleopatra is priceless. The look on Peter-Kennedy's face as he adjusts his tie is also priceless. The rest of her verse is solid, and I love-love-LOVE her SOMEBODY WRAP THIS BITCH BACK UP IN A CARPET. Makes me lol.

The Miss Carriage line is solid, but also incredibly overrated. Mocking someone for their miscarriages is a very low blow, one of the lowest blows anyone's gone to in these. But "Miss Carriage" is also a pretty cheesy play on words. The savagery is there, but is it actually all that clever? It's a good attack, I won't deny that, but it's hardly one of the greatest lines in ERB history like some people portray it as. Beyond that, I love Cleopatra's delivery of "But that's about IT" and the way she delivers her closer in that Egyptian-esque way is a lot of fun. It's a good closing zinger, too. I love the unbridled hatred these two have for each other. It feels so personal.

Marilyn gets a third verse for some reason. I know her first verse was shorter, but it didn't have to be. Maybe they thought the Miss Carriage line was so good Marilyn had to get the last verse to make it fair. Or maybe they just felt like experimenting with the traditional battle structure. Whatever the reason, it's a good verse. The hieroglyphs bit is great and her closer's strong.

This battle really isn't as easy on the ears as I'd like. I like a rap battle that I can pull up on my iPhone and listen to through my airpods and groove to the music like any other song. I've also seen people complain that this battle is just them slut-shaming each other, which is unfortunate for the first woman v. woman battle. And yeah, maybe that's true. But at the end of the day, this is a battle with good visuals, really good performances, and some savage lines that make this feel like the battle with the most personal animosity betwixt the rappers, which is a lot of fun. A Tier, below Elvis v. Jackson.

Whose rap flow's the dopest? Marilyn Monroe's is.