“Spit a freestyle!”
If you are an aspiring hip hop artist, chances are you’ve heard this phrase yelled out at shows, parties, and in some cases the university cafeteria as you are trying to eat. What do you do? Well let me tell you. You freestyle on command as if you were a dancing monkey given a direct command by the man with the music box.
“But what if I can’t freestyle?”
Then you darn well better start listening to my diatribes and learn yourself something. If indeed you want to progress in the world of hip hop then there are expectations that need to be met. Memorizing lyrics and stage presence are important, but they are only pieces of the puzzle to success. Sure you may be great at stage performances and writing lyrics, but there is an expectation of being able to “flow” or freestyle off of the top of your head that is held as a marker of ones skill level in hip hop as a whole. This expectation may indeed be ridiculous or plain unnecessary to some people out there. However, the community as a whole has a stigma attached to the overall skill of a rapper including how well they can freestyle.
“But how do I get better, Weird?”
PRACTICE! Freestyling is not something that a person just magically produces without practicing first. When you get it you will know. There is a “flow” that one enters when they are in a particular mental state where words seem to appear out of nowhere and form coherent thoughts. This is not just a state of mind that rappers have the pleasure of experiencing. This creative “flow” is experienced by musicians of all types and athletes as well. Don’t believe me? Google Ted Talks on flow theory. Freestyling is like a muscle. It must be used over and over again until the “flow” can be entered at will.
You will start by rhyming the same words. Everybody who starts tend to go to the same rhyme patterns that are particular to that person. In order to transcend this you must work on expanding your vocabulary and make a conscious effort to avoid using the same rhyme patterns. Have a friend (or better yet enemy) yell at you and try to distract you as you freestyle. This will get you better at concentrating as well as speaking with conviction. Truly adept freestyle artists speak with conviction. They know that what their brain comes up with and throws out into the world is worthwhile and speak as such.
The last piece of advice in this diatribe is to get to the point where you can freestyle without swearing. This is not some preachy moralistic high horse I’m speaking from. We all tend to rely on swear words when we start out. This is a sign of a truly amateur artist. If you can work on rapping off of the top of your head without swearing it shows that you have a command of what is coming out. This will translate into you being able to string together ideas in a quick manor towards some sort of coherent thought.
So until next time,
Practice!!!
