The Skimmity Hitchers V Monkey Bizzle: The East/West Somerset Agricultural Hip Hop Turf War!

Forget the feud between Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, this is England’s West Country rivals The Skimmity Hitchers and Monkey Bizzle in a vicious rap confrontation which can only end one way; best guess, a drive-by cream tea headshot….

Seems shameless merch tarts and purveyors of self-dubbed “idiot music,” Monkey Bizzle started it, Mrs McClusky. They put out a T-shirt with their monkey logo copulatory abusing the Skimmity’s badger at the beginning of the month, claiming they were “better than the Skimmity Hitchers.” Real hardcore insults, but not an incredibly high pedestal to pop yourself onto.

As psychologically offended as a millennial watching George & Mildred, and in the spirit of big girl’s blouses, five days ago those bonkers as badgers vegetative veterans of deliberately naff scrumpy and western hip hop, The Skimmity Hitchers hit back, waxed lyrical by what appears to be their mum’s garage, filmed it like the dicks they are, and basically tore apart Monkey Bizzle. In the Facebook video the Hitchers claimed Bizzle stole the term “agricultural hip hop” from its originator, Malmesbury grandmaster Corky, not very famous for the parody track Ginsters Paradise but a legend in his own Tweed nonetheless.

Factually accurate, Corky possibly coined the term and invented the subgenre, but shared the Hitchers’ post on the issue without comment, therefore best to assume he couldn’t give a wurzel’s combine if “agricultural hip hop,’ as a term,  is plagiarised by either of them. Updated: Corky aligned a non-opinion on the usage of the term, but enlightened that “Agricultural hip hop has been around for years before me, and if Monkey Bizzle want to do agricultural hip hop then that’s lush. I haven’t actually heard any agricultural hip hop from them – at the moment they’re doing Scrumpy & Western rap and West Country hip hop, and I do love em.”

While this indicates it’s unclear at this time if Monkey Bizzle have ever even used the term, until they did today in a mock interview pretending this tiff was serious enough to warrant a news channel picking the story up. The interviewer has an earring, for crying out loud, it’s kind of obvious they just scrubbed up a crusty mate, paid him a teenth and put him in a suit.

The only fact we must face is neither the Skimmity Hitchers nor Monkey Bizzle have progressed hip hop as a genre any further than The Holiday Rap in 1986, and MC Miker G & DJ Sven could’ve put them both, and their legal advisors/drummers on their arses, direct into the moistest cowpats in all of Somerset; that’s the point, and that’s why we love them both equally and feel it necessary to state the blinding obvious that the whole affair is banter, and a shameless and mildly amusing self-promotion for both parties. Yeah, impressive crusty dreadlocks or not, I’ll rise to that occasion, fill your muddy jump boots.

As fans and keyboard warriors jump the bandwagon to side online with either band, unconcernedly call for peace, complain their T-shirt is sleeveless, or conspire both band’s members are actually the same people, the war shows no sign of resolution yet. When fans conspire about the musician’s members they know they have a little problem in their hands. 

At the time of publication, the tempestuous testicle is in the Skimmity Hitchers’ court, Monkey Bizzle hitting back from the video with their own rap video, performed by a fluffy monkey puppet, and calling for the Hitchers to stick to supporting B*Witched, which is also not fact checked. As of yet The Hitchers have not responded in song, using a Japanese proverb in a Facebook post calling the Bizzle’s lyrics “vinegar strokes,” and mocked their usage of the stuffed toy, as “hiding from the camera,” and “rambling randomly like a Yeovil Donald Trump.” Seemingly wanting closure, or just the final word, they asked fans if “any further response from The Skimmity Hitchers is really necessary?” 

As a Wiltshire-based blog, we at Devizine Towers are duty bound to remain impartial, and only bring the stupid subject up as a warning to take all necessary precautions not to bum rush the show if you’re planning to cross the border anytime soon to ring-rang-a-dong for a holiday. Though if we had to pick sides in a sinking boat scenario, at least we share a common ancestor with monkeys, whereas badgers are only good for one thing around here; blaming for bovine TB when thick slices of gammon deliberately dilapidated their dairy farm in order to backhand their compensation to their building contractor bestie for a new housing estate on their land…oopsy, too much? Of course, that Pandora’s Box is total fabrication and falsehood which would never happen around here, and I take it all back.

Wiltshire Police have published an announcement that any Wiltshire based agricultural hip hop artists living in Somerset, even Frome, should leave now for their own safety and for the sake of their pasties.

We rebuke the concept there’s any agricultural hip hop artists from Wiltshire currently residing in Somerset, or any at all save Corky. It’s simply not something we do here. They’re not like us over the cider apple border are they? We’re all ‘real ale,’ barbed wire fences and henges, they’re all dry stone walls and tors. They’re as stir crazy as Shelbyville residents in The Simpsons, we’re refined, don’t you know, and thanking you kindly.

We may teeter on the edge of chap hop, but usually if it’s not a folk or electric blues driven wet blanket we’re not interested. Yet, as war often produces positive repercussions, we hope this feud will allow international attention to West Country born scrumpy & western and agricultural hip hop, cos it’s dope, literally. In the manner of fairness, though, tunes both bands are laying down are something simply worth putting up with the agro for, and I’ll drop links to them here, so we can twitch our curtains in disgust at their antics but still enjoy their porangi poetry and wackadoodle wabblings from a safe distance.

We live in hope freestyled spontaneous peace raps will commence, least The Wurzels will intervene, knock their bleeding heads together with a goldie looking chain, and they can settle the issue over a skull shaped bong, or some wacky-baccy laced fudge; you know the sort, with a postcard of the bogs at the Bridgewater drive-thru KFC poorly glued to the box.

“We love our skimmity badger buddies like brothers,” Monkey Bizzle showed the love like a fucking Disney adaption of Fergie and Will I Am, indicating its all showy banter. “Some of them even contain a little monkey DNA in them.” This just eggs the keyboard warriors further into the conspiracy theory they’re one and the same, but even if they’re not, they’re probably related in some form or fashion; weirdos, build a dry stone wall to keep them from gigging in Trowbridge or closer, I say!

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