FlipTop Rap Battle League is the first and largest running professional rap battle conference in the Philippines founded by Alaric Riam Yuson (known as Anygma) in 2010.^[1][2] The league promotes Pinoy hip hop. FlipTop is heavily influenced by the original rap battle leagues in the West founded in 2008 – Grind Time Now (US), King of the Dot (Canada) and Don't Flop (UK), which inspired the creation of FlipTop and other battle leagues around the world.^[3][4] The league also branched out into several divisions after its success.^[5] The league is currently under management of a self-produced events and artist management company, FlipTop Kru Corp which was established also by Yuson.

FlipTop has three different battle formats which sometimes combined with Freestyle

• Written – This format allows use of written lyrics along with freestyle and is now the standard format used in battles.
• Freestyle – At first the most common in all FlipTop tournaments, this format is now rarely done and has generally been replaced by the written format. Lyrics must be thought of during the battle.
• Old School – Is essentially the freestyle format but is accompanied with an instrumental and is commonly used on tryouts.

There are also different variations of rap battle within the FlipTop tournament:

• Dos por Dos – Tag-team freestyle rap battle. It can be Emcee or Femcee, Freestyle or Written.
• Five on Five – Five-member team freestyle rap battle. It can be Emcee or Femcee, Freestyle or Written.
• Femcee Battle – All-female rap battle. It can be Freestyle or Written.
• Intergender Battle – Male vs. Female battle.
• Royal Rumble – A rap battle consists of more than two emcees randomly attack or bash each other.
• Secret Battle – Same as the other battles but with limited audience. Sometimes it surprisingly appeared in the day of the tournament unannounced.
• Won Minutes – Strictly one-minute per round format.
• Promo Battle – A rap battle without any judging occurred. For theatrical performance and entertainment purpose only.

Notes

Notes

Yelshawn and Bogchick faced and won against El D'No and 2Khelle for the 16th slot.

FlipTop initially gained criticism for its use of strong language, mockery and bullying, prompting the city government of Makati to ban rap battles in the area.^[8] As time passed, the events gained acceptance with the help of official FlipTop YouTube channel^[9] gaining more than one million subscribers for which they received the Golden Play Button Award, and over two million likes on its Facebook fanpage.^[10][11] Some emcees in the league recently are more focused on line delivery, hyping the audience in the battle, and gimmicks rather than dissing to attack the opponent; emcees also improved their penmanship.^[12] After it gained success and reputation via social media,^[13] many amateur and other rap battles arose such as Sunugan, Word War, Bolero Rap Battles, Bahay Katay, Flipshop, Flipcap etc. Due to its freestyle and rhymed content, some academics consider it as modern-day "balagtasan" although some rap artists discourage the idea. Some educators consider FlipTop as 21st century Philippine literature.^{[14][15][16][17]} Some emcees involved in FlipTop have gained commercial success like Abra,^[18] Dello, Loonie, Smugglaz, Shehyee, and others, which caught media attention. Some lines spoken by the emcees in battles became popular phrases used in the Philippines.^[1][19]