Joel Bauman Has His Eyes Set On Conquering Battle Rap

The Most Viral Man In His Field Is Branching Out To Battle Rap And Calling Out The Most Viral Man In His Respective Field, Daylyt.

By Walker Van Wey • Oct. 5, 2022

One of the most viral fighters in UFC FIGHT PASS history is at it again, but this time, Joel Bauman wants to take his knack for the spotlight back to the world of battle rap.

Bauman is known by fight fans as the 6-2 Jackson Wink product who has finished his last two opponents and gone viral for intentionally controversial post-fight interviews.

After his Fury FC 61 victory over Reese Forest, Bauman declared that he fights to eradicate childhood malnutrition before mentioning recent herpes outbreaks to expose what buzzwords the masses will flock to. After his most recent victory over Anthony Ivy, he delivered an even more controversial interview.

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The unapologetic middleweight has made a career with his fighting skills and even stronger microphone skills and, as it would turn out, long before his LFA and Fury FC career, Bauman was just as known in the local battle rap community.

“I have more pride in battle rapping than I do fighting,” Bauman explained. “All these battle rappers, they fear me. That’s why nobody talks s*** about me. If you’ve listened to my music, people know I go in. They know I’m an incredible rapper and they don’t want problems with me because they can see my mind and my intellect, so when the mainstream media took the bait, they f***** themselves because now they’re dealing with King Bau.”

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The battle rap journey began in college, when the Golden Gopher went to a local venue and far exceeded expectations. The promoter and crowd may not have known the kind of skills Bauman possessed, but they sure didn’t want his exit that night to be the last time he ever walked through the doors.

Bauman was off to a hot start, but the lack of competition led to slight boredom. It wasn’t long before he was more excited about entertaining himself than he was the battles themselves.

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“This one guy, his name was Ed Stark, I do remember this one,” Bauman laughed. “He would just talk about guns and he wasn’t talented at rapping at all, so I made him posterboards and I put my verses on there and I read him my verses because I didn’t think he was worth my time. He was terrible. I’m not going to battle these people and give them the good s*** and then it doesn’t do anything for me. That’s stupid.”

A few years after Bauman was known for his rhymes and onstage antics, a Watts battle rapper rose to worldwide fame in the battle rap community for nearly the same shtick.

Daylyt has made himself known as one of the biggest “can’t miss” rappers in the history of battle rap. As skilled as he is lyrically, there’s an even bigger draw to his on-stage antics.

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Whether it’s pouring water on opponents’ sneakers, getting his entire face tattooed years before it was common for rappers and showing up in headless costumes, among many other things, you never knew what you’d be talking about when the battles ended.

In a lot of ways, Bauman is the Daylyt of MMA and he strongly feels he was the Daylyt of battle rap as well.

“I did a couple battles where I just did antics and people were pissed, like, ‘this guy’s actually really talented, this guy’s actually really the s***,’” Bauman said. “I was Daylyt before Daylyt. In Minnesota, that’s how people knew me.”

The battle rap flame dimmed out for Bauman and he turned his attention towards many other ventures, but the itch is starting to come back.

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The dream of being big enough to pay battle rappers out of pocket and host the event himself are upon us. It’s only a matter of time before Bauman has the means and the platform to entice the A-List of the community to come make history.

“I’ll create my own s*** where I can actually battle the people that I want, give the performances that I want and it matters, and that’s where Fight For You comes in, that’s where my NFT comes in,” Bauman said. “Now we’ll be able to give these performances to those battle rappers.”

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While Bauman has always been one of the biggest fans of Daylyt, the tinfoil thong-donning entrepreneur finds no threat in his battle rap stripes.

“Nobody realizes how calculated I am,” Bauman said. “That’s why I know I would f*** Daylyt up in a battle because I’ve been sitting back all these years studying all these guys. Studying what they do. What can you say? I’m the alpha. A lot of these battle rappers are unhealthy, they’re broke, they have no way of talking s**t to me because of my posture. That’s the thing about battle rap, it’s all about posture. Some of these guys get shaken up.”

The MMA world is ready for Bauman to get back into the cage and the battle rap community may latch on to the new and improved King Bau, but there’s only so many hours in the day. Will we live to see the kings of microphone antics collide?

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