Many of you may have seen posts by now regarding “The 16 Bar Challenge” (or “Ghetto Sweet16s”), a new trend spreading along the East Coast and beginning to make its way nationwide. There have been a few attempts at this in the past in other areas, but this current series is off to a roaring start. Basically, if you’ve been nominated, you take a video of yourself spitting 16 bars (with or without a beat) and then you nominate three people of your own to make videos themselves, then they nominate someone, and thus forward.

The current 16 Bar Challenge began its roots in Buffalo, NY by Ryan “Shaggy” Hanson of Buffalo Juggalos, The Juggalo Outreach Program, and Twizted Deviantz. One day while watching challenge videos on Youtube, Hanson thought to himself, “why can’t I start one of these?” He quotes:

“So I found an old verse of mine…I uploaded it and nominated a few of my homies, and it just skyrocketed out of nowhere…”

Hanson has already started two rounds, and is getting ready to drop a third soon. Here are his original two verses:

Round 1:

Round 2:

Since it’s inception just a few short weeks ago, many NY, PA and OH artists (including myself) have gotten involved, and speculation has it some familiar faces may be popping up soon as well. When I asked Hanson what his overall goal is, he stated “I wanna help showcase local talent…for artists to get their names out there.”

And it’s certainly working, one Buffalo-Lockport artist, Nemesis Poe of Pleasantly Offensive Productions, recieved recogintion for his Round 2 Challenge from NBC affiliate WETM 18 News. Peep his verses at the bottom, and you can also catch Nemesis Poe on Skitzo of NATAS’ new album Butterfly Effect, that just dropped today!

The rules for the 16 Bar Challenge are fairly simple, and Shaggy explained them to me as such:

“Just spit a 16, off the top [of the head] or pre-written, if you mess up, fuck it, start over. That’s all there is to it.”

I also learned from him that there is no official time limit, although many artists participating are giving their nominees 24 hours to complete the task.

If you’re interested in getting involved, just follow the steps above, and be sure post your link to video below so we can peep it out! I’ve also included several 16 Bar Challenge responses below as well.

Nemesis Poe Round 1:

Nemesis Poe Round 2:

Likewize:

Polmar:

King Irish:

Zanny Barz of Sixx oh Seven:

C.H.I.P.S.:

Emcee M.D.:

nimr0d:

Jigster:

Kourt Jester:

Spunky Killa: