Lloyd Leonard Ahlquist (born January 18, 1977), better known by his online alias EpicLLOYD, is an American internet personality and rapper best known for the YouTube video series ''

Epic Rap Battles of History ''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 ...

'', along with Peter "Nice Peter" Shukoff. Ahlquist has performed as an MC, actor, improviser and writer. In addition to the rap battles, Ahlquist, along with Shukoff, appeared in a cameo in '' The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water''.

Comedy and theater

Ahlquist was formerly the general manager and artistic director of M.I.'s Westside Comedy Theater. Ahlquist also studied at

UMass Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the Ma ...

and later trained in Chicago (where he met his frequent collaborator Peter Shukoff) at

The Second City The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise. It is the oldest improvisational theater troupe to be continuously based in Chicago, with training programs and live theaters in Toronto and New York. Since its debut in 1959, it has b ...

Improv Olympic iO, or iO Chicago, (formerly known as ImprovOlympic) is an improv theater and training center in central Chicago. The theater teaches and hosts performances of improvisational comedy. It was founded in 1981 by Del Close and Charna Halpern. ...

and

Annoyance Theatre The Annoyance Theatre, or Annoyance Productions, is a theatre and associated ensemble based in Chicago, Illinois, that deals mainly in absurd and outrageous humor. Many people who have performed with the ensemble have gone on to become successf ...

. Ahlquist was one of the founding members of Mission IMPROVable, and continues to perform with the group weekly in their show "The Grind" while serving on the Board of Directors of M.i. Productions. He founded the comedy troupe after dropping out of the

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the Public university, public university system of the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes six campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell ...

with five classmates. In August 2014, Ahqluist hosted YouTube's first live-streamed improv comedy event, "Off the Top." A trailer for "Epic Studios", a show starring Ahlquist, was released in 2015 and the first episodes were posted to his personal YouTube channel in April 2017.

YouTube

Solo channel

Lloyd runs his own YouTube channel that launched on April 20, 2011. Ahlquist has a staple series on his own channel, titled "Dis Raps for Hire", which features Ahlquist taking a user-submitted comment asking Ahlquist to lyrically "destroy" or insult another person that is bullying or harassing the user. To date, 20 "Dis Raps for Hire" have been produced. Season 2 of "Dis Raps for Hire" started on March 11, 2013. On July 17, 2012, Lloyd's channel hit 200,000 subscribers. As a "thank you" gesture, he produced a parody of the

Cinnamon challenge The cinnamon challenge is a food challenge that gained viral recognition on social media in the early 2010s. Participants generally film themselves attempting to eat a spoonful of ground cinnamon in under 60 seconds without drinking anything. Th ...

. In 2016, Lloyd hit 400,000 subscribers. By 2021, he had 495,000 subscribers. Starting in 2017, EpicLLOYD has also run the series Epic Studios, where he portrays a fictional version of himself as he struggles to keep the Canadian music studio he inherited from his father from being turned into condos.

''Epic Rap Battles of History''

In 2010, Ahlquist partnered with singer and rapper Peter Shukoff to create ''

'' under

Maker Studios Maker(s) or The Maker(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''The Maker'' (film), a 1997 American drama film * Maker Studios, now part of Disney Digital Network, an American multi-channel TV network *''Makers'', a 2014 British documentary seri ...

sometime after Ahlquist, Shukoff and Zach Sherwin (a guest in the rap battles), were playing Check OneTwo, a

freestyle rap Freestyle rap, also simply known as Freestyle, is a style of hip hop music where an artist normally improvises an unwritten verse from the head, with or without instrumental beats, in which lyrics are recited with no particular subject or structure ...

improv game Theatre games are structured activities and exercises designed to train actors, that was developed in the 20th century by practitioners such as Viola Spolin and son Paul Sills, Joan Littlewood, Clive Barker, Keith Johnstone, Jerzy Grotowski and A ...

where they took suggestions from the audience of famous people to

battle rap Battle rap (also known as rap battling)Edwards, Paul, 2009, p. 25. is a type of rapping performed between two or more performers that incorporates boasts, insults, wordplay and Diss (music), disses originating in the African Americans, African-Amer ...

off the top of their heads. Ahlquist has played several characters in the successful rap battles, and has specialized in playing villains such as Bill O'Reilly and

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

. Epic Rap Battles of History received four wins at the

3rd Streamy Awards The 3rd Annual Streamy Awards was the third installment of the Streamy Awards honoring streaming television, streaming television series. The awards were held on February 17, 2013, at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California. It was hos ...

, with Ahlquist receiving one of the four awards. By October 2014, the rap battles accumulated a total view count of over 1 billion, excluding the hundreds of millions of views earned by the season 1 episodes. As of early 2020, the Epic Rap Battle channel had over 3.4 billion views. Epic Lloyd4

Personal life

Ahlquist grew up in

Exeter, New Hampshire Exeter is a New England town, town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. Its population was 16,049 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, up from 14,306 at the 2010 census. Exeter was the county seat until 1997, when county ...

, and graduated from Exeter High School. He married Josie Hutchinson, a student affairs educator, on 18 October 2009 in Malibu. They live in Los Angeles.

Discography

Albums

* ''Dis Raps for Hire – Season 1'' (2013) * ''Here'' EP (2016) * ''Dis Raps for Hire – Season 2'' (2018) * ''A Bad Name for Rappers'' (2019)

Songs

* Dis Raps For Hire – Charles * Dis Raps For Hire – Southwest High School * Dis Raps For Hire – Christian * Dis Raps For Hire – Jennifer * Dis Raps For Hire – Justin * Dis Raps For Hire – James * Dis Raps For Hire – William, Reshad, and Tyrance * Dis Raps For Hire – Daniel * Dis Raps For Hire – Joan * Gift Raps For Hire – Momma Metcalf * Dis Raps For Hire – Glasscock * Dis Raps For Hire – Jason and Ramone * Dis Raps For Hire – Steven, Lucas, Mark, and Nelson * Dis Raps For Hire – EthanAlways * Dis Raps For Hire – Diamond * Dis Raps For Hire – Jerome * Dis Raps For Hire – Katrina & Cheyenne * Dis Raps For Hire – This Guy * Dis Raps for Hire – Cory * Gift Raps for Hire – Brandon * The L-Verse * Coming Up Short * Pawn * Ninja * Mr. Nothing * I Aint Got No Watch (I Aint Got No Bling) * New Things * Holding The Seams Together * Scars * Cheap Beer * Space * Pops Over the Falls * Goodbye

Filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahlquist, Lloyd EpicLLOYD EpicLLOYD American comedy rappers American male comedians EpicLLOYD American music YouTubers EpicLLOYD Comedians from New Hampshire Epic Rap Battles of History EpicLLOYD Nerdcore artists EpicLLOYD EpicLLOYD EpicLLOYD YouTube channels launched in 2011 YouTubers from New Hampshire YouTubers from New York (state)