agree 100%
I guess what im saying is, so picture...its already agreed beforehand that each rapper may go say, an extra min or min and a half if the situation calls for it, but the goal is to try to stay within the time range
with my suggestion, as the time on the monitor hits zero, it now starts counting the negative integers to let them see how much time they are going over. If it goes beyond the agreed upon time grace period, then you can cut the mic, call time, buzzer, etc...whatever to get it to stop. It would probably work better in a setting like NOME X b/c the reactions in larger crowds forces the emcees to ask for their time to be stopped.