Red Bull Battle Medellín: Puppy champion, Lil White, Gafas, and Airon qualify for the National Final

This Friday, June 6, Medellín was the epicenter of torrential rain. No, we're not talking about the weather, although there may have been some drizzle. We're referring to the storm of rhymes, flow, and punchlines that unleashed the Red Bull Batalla Regional, the freestyle competition that awarded four spots to the Colombian National Final.

The Sportage store, located in the San Diego shopping center, was the venue for 16 freestylers from Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, and Santander, hoping to represent their families, their towns, and their cities.

With the exception of Airon, the experienced MC from Uramita who arrived as the favorite to win the tournament, all the other participants belonged to the so-called "new school" of Colombian freestyle, a group of young competitors, many of them Red Bull debutants, with metric styles, explosions of flow, creativity and proposals that not only fueled the spectacle but also demonstrated that the generational change in Colombia is promising.

After intense battles and a day full of surprise results, the four freestylers who qualified for the Red Bull Batalla Colombia National Final were Gafas, Airon, Lil White, and Puppy, the latter of whom was the regional champion and the undisputed MVP.

It's no secret that the Cauca Valley is the birthplace of freestyle in Colombia. It's in this region that legends like Valles-T and Marithea, two of the country's leading exponents of rap battles, have been forged.

In this regional event, Valle reaffirmed its irreversible title as the top freestyler group by placing two Cali-based MCs in the grand final of the Red Bull Batalla regional event, Puppy and Lil White, right in the heart of Medellín.

Puppy, with an explosive flow, raps with the aggression of someone in a battle, but with the musicality of someone dedicated to rap; Lil White, with fine-tuned rhythms, improvises with the ease of someone who knows he's good, but with the delicacy of someone who dares to create multi-syllabic rhymes without neglecting the subject matter of a battle.

Each one in their own right, they gallantly eliminated their rivals until reaching the final, a final in which we perhaps didn't see their most competitive versions, but we did see flashes of magic from two representatives of the new school.

In the end, Puppy was the one who made the fewest mistakes, had the most stinging rhymes of the battle and was crowned champion. However, in this final, the feeling remained that the true winner was Valle del Cauca, as it will have two great representatives capable of being crowned in the Red Bull Batalla Colombia 2025 National Championship.

When talking about Red Bull Battle in Colombia, Airon Punchline's name cannot be left out.

Since 2016, this MC from Antioquia has managed to qualify for every single Colombian National Final. Whether by audition, by placing on the podium, or by earning his spot in a regional competition, Airon is always there, always making it into the top 16 freestylers in the country, and always fighting for his dream of becoming a national champion.

However, on this occasion, a clarification is in order. Although it may seem like it, this isn't just another qualification in Airon's career; it's his tenth participation in Red Bull Batalla, confirming that he's been part of the Colombian freestyle elite for a decade.

Airon has managed to stay on the scene despite the changes. It's not easy to endure in a discipline characterized by celebrating the new, the ephemeral, and the spontaneous, but this Uramita-born freestyler has achieved it through passion and discipline.

This year he played the role of the veteran whose throne the younger generation wants to dethrone, and that narrative put him at a disadvantage because, as in other sports, the public wants to see the one who never falls fall.

Against Pandora, he had a very close battle in which the crowd leaned towards his rival, but he did enough to convince the jury; against Juan DT, the "you're old, your time's up" speech seemed to put him on the ropes, but he came out on top, remembering precisely that remaining relevant despite the years is his main merit.

In the semifinals, he faced Lil White, an opponent who masters one of the few skills Airon hasn't perfected: metrics. He lost the battle, putting in a strong performance and achieving his goal of returning to Nationals.

Due to life circumstances, Airon has never lifted the Red Bull national championship trophy, but that has never stopped him, and for the tenth time, we'll see him fighting for that cup on October 2 at the Movistar Arena in Bogotá.

Is being a promising youngster a blessing or a curse? On one hand, we have Fat N, a freestyler who, at just 17 years old, became a runner-up in the freestyle world championship. On the other hand, we have Gafas, a 23-year-old who has been striving to make it big in the freestyle world for quite some time, and has succeeded, but major competitions have eluded him.

At first glance, it might seem that in a battle between the two Fat Ns, he has the advantage, having the honor of representing his country in an International Championship and finishing in second place. However, when it comes to actually watching the battle, the reality is different.

Gafas competes with the hunger of someone who has everything to achieve, with the dreams of the man who wakes up every day to be the best version of himself to achieve what he wants and with the certainty that every step he takes is a step closer to his goals.

Fat N competes with the weight that comes with being a world runner-up, with the expectations of all those who saw him shine once and want to see that shine again, and with the uncertainty of whether the next step that the 19-year-old Fat N is going to take is bringing him closer to or further away from the 17-year-old Fat N who achieved a world runner-up position.

The battle between Fat N and Gafas was a battle. Motivated in different ways, both performed sublimely in the Medellín Regional, but only one advanced to the quarterfinals: Gafas eliminated Fat N, rode to the tournament's semifinals, and secured their spot in the National Final.

The Gafas award is well deserved. It's been years of grinding down the ranks, of being patient despite those times when Red Bull didn't qualify or when big opportunities like FMS Colombia in 2022 slipped by. The Gafas award is a reward for effort, talent, and perseverance.

Fat N's performance, on the other hand, isn't a defeat, but rather an opportunity to relieve stress. This Friday, Colombia stopped seeing Fat N as the world runner-up and started seeing a competitor who fights every day to become champion again.

Fat N will have to go down to the squares to fight for one of the last five spots left at the Red Bull National Final, but this time he won't do it with the heavy burden of being runner-up: this time he'll be able to compete, not as the one who once almost became world champion, but as the one who wants to be national champion.

In a regional competition full of new faces, one of the things that generated the most excitement was knowing which debutants would make a statement, who would prove that their name deserved to be among the freestyle elite and that their qualification to the regional competition had not been a fluke.

Gafas and Lil White were the first two to do so, making it into the top four of the event. However, two freestylers fell short along the way who, while they didn't achieve their goal of qualifying for the Nationals, did demonstrate a level of improvisation worthy of this article.

The first of them was Jazz MC, who arrived from Bucaramanga with a low profile, but with the courage of someone ready to seize their opportunity.

Under the spotlight of the Red Bull event, Jazz MC went head-to-head with Urko, one of the freestylers favored to qualify. Without hesitation, Jazz stood before him and dazzled the crowd with incredible creativity, fueled by a unique flow.

The Bucaramanga native eliminated Urko in the round of 16 after a replay and arrived in the quarterfinals ready to deliver the final blow and reach the last four. Unfortunately, he ran into Gafas, who knows exactly how to compete, and ended up being eliminated.

On the other hand, in Medellín, the punchline capital of Colombia, there was a hidden gem notable, ironically, not for its punchline, but for skills like double tempo, fluidity, and metrics.

Juan DT arrived at the Medellín regional tournament to secure his spot in the National Championship; in the round of 16, he comfortably eliminated Damel Hip Hop, demonstrating technical superiority and a greater ability to adapt to the situations a battle can bring.

In the quarterfinals, Juan DT engaged in the most controversial battle of the event against Airon; in terms of argument, Juan DT outclassed him from start to finish. The angles were aggressive: he told Airon he was old, that his time was coming, and that he'd had enough attempts to win the Red Bull without success.

For his part, Airon managed to counter some of the arguments by highlighting his ability to remain relevant over the years, but with less prolixity when it came to improvisation. A couple of off-kilter rhymes gave the impression that the experienced singer was about to fall to Juan DT.

For the judges, the battle was so close that they needed one more round to decide who qualified, so they responded. In this round, Juan DT was overcome by poorly managed anxiety.

His frustration with the rebuttal was reflected in his body language: a scream and a stamp of his foot let everyone present know that he disagreed with the decision.

In the reply, that frustration ended up affecting him, so he stumbled in his double tempo, nailed two weak punchlines and fell to the experienced Airon, who remained calm in the competition until the last moment.

Jazz MC and Juan DT may have lacked that certain something that only comes from competing repeatedly in elite tournaments. Better reading of the battles and maintaining emotional control could have allowed them to advance further in the tournament. What is clear is that these two Red Bull debutants have everything they need to earn one of the remaining spots in the grand National Final.

After the two regional Red Bull Batalla tournaments in Colombia, 11 players have now qualified for the National Final on October 2: Valles-T, Coloso, Marithea, Filósofo, Django, Flama, Ken Zingle, Puppy, Lil White, Gafas, and Airon Punchline.

Five spots remain to complete the 16 participants who will compete to be the best freestyler in Colombia and represent it at the 2026 International Final.

The five tournaments that will award these spots correspond to freestyle spots in Bogotá, Medellín, Costa, Bucaramanga, and Asimétrico (university spot).

Big names in the Colombian underground like Fat N, JM Serna, Urko, Pandora, Ruffaz, and Lit Ignis, to name a few, remain unqualified, so they'll be fighting in the arenas to not miss out on the great opportunity to qualify for the National Championship and become the 2025 champion.