Epic Rap Battles of History (ERB) is a YouTube web series and music project created by Peter "Nice Peter" Shukoff and Lloyd "EpicLLOYD" Ahlquist. The series pits historical and pop culture figures against one another in a rap battle format. The characters portrayed are often determined by suggestions from viewers in the comments sections of the channel's videos. Shukoff and Ahlquist write each song themselves, researching the subject in order to find obscure details to use as references in the lyrics, although certain Patreon subscribers have also contributed to the writing process. Following an extended hiatus, the channel returned with a bonus battle in December 2018, and the sixth season debuted on April 20, 2019. As of February 23, 2023, the channel has 14.9 million subscribers and approximately 4 billion total video views.
The popularity of the music videos has led to mainstream partnerships, such as with Ubisoft, using the "Blackbeard vs Al Capone" episode to promote Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Additionally, "Terminator vs Robocop" in the fourth season was used to promote the upcoming release of the film Terminator Genisys and featured an appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger. ERB's popularity has also led to collaboration with mainstream artists. Shukoff and Ahlquist also created a two-minute rap battle scene used in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
Although early episodes of the series featured only Shukoff and Ahlquist, later episodes have regularly featured guest appearances, and other internet celebrities such as Dan Bull, Lisa Donovan, Timothy DeLaGhetto, George Watsky, DeStorm Power, Jesse Wellens, PewDiePie, Jenna Marbles, Lilly Singh, Ray William Johnson, Rhett and Link, and Smosh. Media celebrities like musicians Snoop Dogg, Chali 2na, T-Pain, Jackie Tohn and "Weird Al" Yankovic, actors J.B. Smoove and Gary Anthony Williams, and the comedy duo Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele have also appeared in the series.
On July 3, 2013, "Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney" became the first of its singles to be certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States. 10 other singles, "Adolf Hitler vs. Darth Vader", "Albert Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking", "Dr. Seuss vs. William Shakespeare", "Master Chief vs. Leonidas", "Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates", "Justin Bieber vs. Ludwig van Beethoven", "Mario Brothers vs. Wright Brothers", "Mr. T vs. Mr. Rogers", "Abe Lincoln vs. Chuck Norris", and "Adolf Hitler vs. Darth Vader 2", were subsequently certified Gold as well.
History
The idea for historical figures rapping against each other was conceived by Ahlquist, who pitched the idea to Shukoff as an improvised show titled "Check OneTwo"; both were working in improv at the time along with Zach Sherwin, who would later become a regular guest on the series. They were met with high levels of difficulty at first and decided that the concept would fare much better as a YouTube series than an improv show. The first three rap battles were each shot on a $50 budget.
Before the web series existed on YouTube, Shukoff and Ahlquist recorded their first song, which was a battle between Child's Play antagonist Chucky and actor Michael J. Fox. The song was freestyle and poorly made; as a result, it was not released to the public.
On September 26, 2010, the first rap battle was uploaded to YouTube, featuring Shukoff as John Lennon and Ahlquist as Bill O'Reilly. The 15th episode, "Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD", marked the end of the first season. This battle pitted Ahlquist and Shukoff against each other with cameos from all of the characters they had played over the 14 prior episodes. At the end of the battle, KassemG arrives and convinces Peter and Lloyd to continue the battles on their own channel. Epic Rap Battles of History later returned on December 8, 2011, hosted on their new channel (moving from Shukoff's personal channel), ERB, with behind-the-scenes videos on their second channel, ERB2. Both channels were created in 2006, however it's unknown what they were used for until 2011, as the oldest video on ERB is from 2011, and the Wayback Machine's earliest record of the ERB and ERB2 channels is from November of 2011, when they were called ERB's Channel and ERB2's Channel, respectively. Shukoff and Maker Studios also created the official website for the series, where fans could vote on winners for each video, and read short comical autobiographies by each character.