Riff-Off. The life-changing movie Pitch Perfect blessed the world with that epic a cappella battle. Global Medical Brigades at Brown University recently hosted an “aca-steamy” sing-off, “Pitch Please: An Aca Benefit Battle.” I attended the event with my older sister, who is a senior at Brown, and her invite was much appreciated. Just like in the Pitch movies, there was a digital wheel with five musical categories, but the individual a cappella groups sang for six student-judges and did not physically compete with one another. The teams did have the challenge of putting together vocals and beats on the fly and amazingly gave the judges and audience aca-awesome performances.
There were four groups: three from Brown (Ursa Minors, The Bear Necessities, Chattertocks) and one from Providence College (Strictly Speaking). The categories were the following: “Always Rap It Up,” “Sinful Seducción,” and “Otra Vez Jueves or Throwback Thursday.” The Global Medical Brigades team spent time in Honduras, so the categories had a pinch of Spanish. The winner of the battle was the team with the most points.
The groups were rated on a scale 1-5 for each performance.
Brown’s all-female group, Ursa Minors.
Brown’s all-male, all-suspender group The Bear Necessities got intimate for Sinful Seducción
Despite a few audio complications, the four teams brought their A-game and “crushed it” in Fat Amy fashion.