Stone Monkey
A men's team based in Long Eaton, between Nottingham and Derby, Stone Monkey were founded in 1990 by an unholy alliance of former members of the Kingsmen and Sallyport, and rapidly evolved into the best rapper team in the south of England (n.b. I write from a Newcastle perspective).
Their history largely a series of DERT Premier Own Dance Class victories interspersed with sundry shenanigans, the Monkeys have proved their ability to cope with adversity, such as when having to perform rapper in Romania with locally-made swords (after the airline lost their rappers in transit) or even without swords at all (after Dan left their rappers in a pub).
Stone Monkey's thunder has been stolen somewhat by Black Swan, who were of course co-founded by a renegade break-away element of Stone Monkey (now believed to be hiding in New Zealand), but the Monkeys stoically carry on bringing high quality rapper to the East Midlands.
However, the Monkeys were not about to take Black Swan's apparent dominance lying down, and this year achieved a well-deserved win of the premier class at DERT in Nottingham, although they were denied the Steve Marris trophy by the Kingsmen, whose character marks took them over the 0.1% margin between the two teams.
