freestyle Fanatic probably the best around
as for corny mcs like Chuck D I shut em down
Scenario - Phife Dog
Was inspired to write about the art of freestyle by these wack mcs I saw on BET today. Challenger and Champion were both terrible but hey what do I know I haven't watched Freestyle Fridays since the days of Jin and this one cat from down south who won 5 weeks in a row.
So freestyling what is it? The art of going off the top of the dome, spitting that hot ish, creating a line on the spot so deliciously inventive that the crowd does a double take.
Yea its kind of hard, takes lots of practice and you just have to have the skillz to be able to think fast and spit faster.
Anyway I youtubed freestyle and came across a half decent Freestyle Friday battle between some cat called PL and another cat. First round PL dropped a line like "Those lines you should hold em in, before you win, Free will come out slap Julissa and host this show again" and the second round well just watch the video and see.
Pretty creative isn't it.
I mean yea a neatly constructed verse a la Rakim or Nas or some old otherworldly, crazy scientific George jetson type Can-i-bus type spitting is hot but watching and realizing that a cat just took what was in his surroundings, what he was witnessing, hearing, smelling or feeling around him and incorporated that into a line that made sense and fit into his rhymes there just aint nothing else in hip hop like that. NOTHING! And it doesn't matter if the cat is a big name artist with the bling or a lil grimy dude with 15 cents in his pocket. Its a gift and those who got it, got it, those who don't don't even try.
And yea plenty big name cats cant freestyle. Don't get it twisted. Just cause the rhyme isn't on their album yet doesn't mean its a freestyle.
And great freestylers do not necessarily translate into great records. Supernats output has been questionable and so has Jins but then a so it a go sometimes.
Anyway in the annuls of great freestylers certain names stand out; KRS-one, Craig G, Supernatural even this newbie Jin so here's a freestyle. Here is one of the great ones Supernat busting it down from the movie Freestyle
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"Every word I write should be a hip hop quotable"
3 comments:
Nice post! I haven't really dug Freestle Fridays since Jin either. Sometimes it seems like freestyling is becoming a lost art...which will be a dayum shame! Love Love Love Supernat but I love even more the freestyle beat down he gets from Craig G and then his vindication against Juice in the docu "Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme".
Aw man now I'm gonna have to dust it off the shelf and check it again...thanks!
Looking for information and found it at this great site... » » »
That line was from Scenario (remix). The original had no such line, if I remember correctly.
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