A Morning Show Hosted the World's Most Cringeworthy Rap Battle and They Don't Want You to See It

This article originally appeared on VICE Canada.

On Monday morning, one of the most cringeworthy rap battles to ever grace live television aired on Canada AM, CTV's morning show. This thing was so bad that the station had to apologize for it multiple times and refused to post the footage online. Thankfully, someone else stepped up to the plate.

The segment in question was promoting Blackout6, an upcoming Toronto rap battle being hosted by a group called King of the Dot.

"It started in the streets?" This was the question unassuming CTV host Marci Ien asked Organik, MC and founder of King of the Dot. It was a reference to the battles.

"In the streets, yes," said Organik, describing a rap battle as "two people competitively attacking each other with poetry."

Ien then introduced rappers HFK and Charron and green-lit their performance, saying, "Go at it, guys." Those words will likely haunt her for the rest of her career.

What followed was offensive on multiple levels but primarily because it was so terrible.

The guys, who are godawful lyricists, made gay jokes, trans jokes, fat jokes, and slut jokes. No jokes were funny. On a show whose viewership is primarily made up of suburban parents and their kids (it was Family Day in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan), they quipped about jerking off, blowjobs, and "virgins in Oshawa." They also dropped references to "true dough," Dion Phaneuf, and Michael Cera, giving this shit-pile of a performance a distinctly Canadian flair.

HFK opened the battle, referring to himself as "Hugh Hefner going up against Bruce Jenner." He continued, "Please save all your comments. Before I grab your girlfriend and turn her O-N, like the Canadian province. I spent my Valentine's Day with a girl who's incredibly awesome. But you spent yours alone in your room, looking at pictures of Beverly Thomson." (Beverly Thomson, the woman who HFK suggested his opponent masturbated to, is a host of Canada AM.) Ien already seemed pretty uncomfortable at this point and appeared to be looking at someone off camera, but for reasons unknown, the show carried on without cutting to commercial break.

Charron continued the searing hot exchange by teasing HFK for being fat and looking forward to Ribfest. Very timely. He added:

"I'm from the nation's capital. You gotta girl in T-dot with woof [?!]. But I had her move from Toronto to Ottawa. Dion Phaneuf."

Then there was some back and forth that implied people in Oshawa, Ontario, have a lot of sex. In fairness, there might not be all that much else to do there.

"Chances of you being a gangster are about as low as finding a virgin in Oshawa," said HFK. Charron responded, "It is hard to find virgins in Oshawa, especially cause your girlfriend lives there."

In an incredibly ironic diss, Charron said, "It's funny you say I look like Michael Cera—but your rhymes are super bad." (At no point did anyone else mention Michael Cera.)

Incredibly, the four-minute battle continued uninterrupted. Personally, I think this soundbite from HFK summed it up nicely:

"And since I got the spotlight, and I'm on TV, there's something I want to say: Just cause Charron gave me head, it doesn't mean that he's gay. But hey, happy Valentine's Day."

When it was done, a somewhat stunned Ien thanked her guests and said sorry to viewers.

"Because we're a morning show, and this isn't the streets, we gotta apologize for some the language right there," she said.

The men were reportedly then escorted out of the studio by security before they could hurt anyone else with bad poetry.

Canada AM followed up with a Facebook apology that said "the lyrics were unexpected and not reflective of our beliefs."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.