In a rap battle, participants lyrically insult each other as crowds cheer and beg for more. One such battle, in 2010, featured QP, a California-based rapper, against Brooklyn’s Soul Khan (real name: Noah Abraham Weston), a Jewish guy–and one of the few white people visible in the 400-person audience.
Their match begins with a typical level of malevolence, as Khan insults QP’s weak rhymes and masculinity. But when it’s QP’s turn to reply, things turn ugly fast. He first insults Khan’s Jewish nose, then moves on to Khan’s family–and his Jewishness. “His mom’s name is Julie and his father’s name is Judas,” he says. “The same person that betrayed our savior, ’cause that’s the kind of s— a Jew does.”
At once, the crowd, who’s been cheering and jeering, falls silent. QP carries on with his tirade about how the Jews (personified, just then, by Khan) killed Jesus.
“If you strike me down, I will come back like Lazarus,” Khan starts–and doesn’t stop. “F— the Jewish jokes and all your dumb wordplay,” he says. “You know that Soul’s blessed with it/I’m part of the Chosen people. My people wrote the Old Testament, you only followed it with a sequel.” In the final rounds, you can tell that QP’s rattled by his own performance; he stays away from Khan’s Judaism, mostly in favor of more nose jokes.
The following year, Khan retired from battling. He now only performs as a solo rapper. For the most part, he’s moved on to more positive projects–last year’s Acknowledgement is a thank-you to his supporters.
