We all kinda always knew this thing’s never gonna happen, but always wished it did.
Wonder what that was about? Well, it might be about both — Zuckerberg vs Musk fight or Laure vs Balen rap battle.
Ever since Elon Musk (kinda) challenged Mark Zuckerberg for a “cage match” in June this year, we’ve been reading about it almost every day. Nobody actually expected the fight to happen until even the Meta CEO started to seem interested for the bout. Some day a picture of Zuck training for the fight pops up, the other day Musk announcing the fight to live-stream on Twitter (my bad, it’s X — still need some time to get used to the new name) comes up; so everyday there’s some new update. But all of us pretty much know, it’s not gonna happen.
This entire thing reminds me of something — you know what it is. The “Laure ra Balen ko kaile huncha” period — which pretty much remained a thing for at least a couple of years.
It’s 2013. There’s a new hero who has become the heartthrob after the success of his debut film; son of popular star Bhuwan KC, the young lad’s name is Anmol and his film ‘Hostel’ has done really well. Ever since ‘Loot’ took the film industry by storm last year (in 2012), we are finally hoping for the industry to thrive after some slow years recently.
No complaints about the music, it has always been great. The mood seems to be kinda R&B right now with the rise in popularity of some groups like GX Soul and COD. I think there’s a new boy band called B-8eight as well, they seem like they are gonna do good.
Oh, also the hiphop craze seems to be record high. So many talented rappers are getting in the scene right now. People are still listening to and are talking about ‘Saathi’, a song by Yama Buddha that got released two years ago (in 2011). Not to forget, there’s a new rap battle series called Raw Barz and it’s getting all the attention right now.
Okay, enough of that “let’s pretend it’s 2013” shit. So yeah, that was the year when Balen battled Litl Grizl and Laure had that epic battle against Uniq Poet — and people were like “now we wanna see Balen and Laure up against each other” and that’s how the entire “Laure ra Balen ko kaile huncha?” (when will Laure vs Balen battle take place?) thing started. So many times, it almost looked like it’s finally gonna happen — but well, it never did.
Laure became one of the most sought after artists after his Raw Barz stint and started to travel across the world to perform. He was so popular at that time that people actually thought everything he would touch will turn into gold — so some film people signed him for their movie called ‘Tandav’ — big mistake. He was doing great in music — shouldn’t have gotten into films. He realized that after the film’s disastrous performance at the box office and that was his last film as an actor (as of now). He continued making good music and dropped some big hits, though.
On the other hand, Balen kept doing his thing — both music and his studies. He dropped some good tracks in the mid 2010s and also did some great work as an engineer – especially post the 2015 quake.
In 2017, not Raw Barz organizers but other people claimed that they will make Laure vs Balen battle happen. It had been over a year since Balen’s last release (Mann Yo Udyo), and I wondered where he disappeared. Had a little chat with him back then to check what’s he been upto lately and also about that battle (read here — if you’ve got like two minutes). Turned out, he was in Kavre — working in a project to build 250 houses to be handed over to the quake victims. And about the battle, he said it’s not on the table.
In these six years, there hasn’t been any talks of the battle. Our beloved rapper is now the mayor of Kathmandu after a historical win — which you don’t need me to write about, ‘cos everyone knows.
So yeah, when this entire Musk vs Zuck thing started making rounds, it made me think of those good old days. I know, there’s no point of this entire article — but you have wasted some precious minutes of your life anyway — so I hope you have a more productive day ahead. Ciao!
Cover Photo: @happypunchpromo
