Ruritanian Rapper Doubles Down on Diss, Sparking Freedonian Backlash

HOGMERZK, Freedonia. It was, as far as hip-hop invective goes, pretty tame stuff. At the League of Fictional Nations Rapfest last week Ruritanian hip-hop star Klazk Novrkrk strode to the front of the stage, his “rap sidekick” Llotto “Icepick” Kl’ona next to him wearing his signature weasel fur coat, and launched into a five-minute diatribe against the citizens of Freedonia, the host country for the semi-annual event that is typically marred by non-violence.

“Freedonians drive Chevy Vegas, they smell like rutabagas,” Novrkr chanted in the melody-free sing-song with awkward near-rhymes that is standard fare in the genre. “They eat lots beets, their piss is purple, they can’t afford meat, they’re plagued by crop circles.”

Unfortunately for the duo, an official of the Freedonian Anti-Defamation League was in attendance, and she filed a complaint with the League of Fictional Nations Tolerance and Diversity Office. Swift action by a local prothonotary, a quasi judicial official with broad power to enjoin breaches of the peace and forgive gas credit card debt, resulted in an attachment on microphones, amplifiers and other electronic gear, and a court appearance this morning for the chart-topping Ruritanian entertainers.

But Novrkrk was unrepentant, declaiming on the courthouse steps here that “Freedonians have cousins and also sisters, who they sometimes marry or make their mistresses.”

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The crowd roared in competing strains of scorn and approval after Novkrk and Kl’ona made bail and were released, and street-fighting broke out between supporters and detractors of the Ruritanian rappers. The group has since parlayed the controversy into a public relations bonanza that has juiced their record sales and streaming revenues, with a twenty-city tour now scheduled for this fall.

“Rap battles are for the most part pretextual, as was World War I,” says European historian Milozk Ofkal-Woosk, professor at the University of Freedonia’s Glrzk campus. “If the threats were genuine, the two sides would simply kill each other, which would goose sales of commemorative t-shirts and other tchotchkes but hurt concert revenues.”

Ruritania and Freedonia have been at odds since the 15th century, when the two nations sparred as to which was closer to the middle of the Middle Ages. “It is a fight with as much logic as a couple of toddlers fighting over space in the back seat of a car,” says Ofkal-Woosk. “A fraternity hazing ritual is a deliberation of Nobel laureates by comparison.”

Freedonian apparatchiks say they won’t back down, however, and hope to leverage the incident for geopolitical gain. “Ruritania has been trying for many years to gain admission to the United Nations,” says Freedonian Minister of Umbrage Salsha Duvik-Klingwort. “Given the bad odor this affair has generated, they’re not even getting into the International House of Pancakes.”

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