Freestyle rap

Freestyle rap(also known as battle rap, battle rapping or battle rhyming) commonly refers to rap lyrics which are improvised through an a cappella or with instrumental beats, i.e. performed with no previously composed lyrics, or "off the top of the head". It is similar to other improvisational music such as jazz - Myka 9 of Freestyle Fellowship describes it as being "like a jazz solo" where there is a lead saxophonist acting as the improviser and the rest of the band providing the beat. Rap battles are sometimes improvised in this way. It is similar in both form and function to the ancient practice of flyting.

Originally, in Old school hip hop of the 1980s, the term ‘freestyle’ referred to a pre-written rap verse that was not on any particular subject matter, but rather was written for the purpose of demonstrating skill. The term is still occasionally used in this way, though since the 1990s, the majority of today’s artists use it to mean improvised rapping.

History

Battling is generally believed to have originated in the East Coast hip hop scene in the late 1970s.^{[citation needed]} One of the earliest and most famous battles was in December 1982 when Kool Moe Dee challenged Busy Bee Starski - Busy Bee Starski's defeat by the more complex raps of Kool Moe Dee meant that "no longer was an MC just a crowd-pleasing comedian with a slick tongue; he was a commentator and a storyteller", which KRS-One also credits as creating a shift in rapping in the documentary Beef.

In the 1980s, battle raps were a popular form of rapping - Big Daddy Kane in the book How to Rap says, "as an MC from the '80s, really your mentality is battle format... your focus was to have a hot rhyme in case you gotta battle someone... not really making a rhyme for a song". Battle rapping is still sometimes closely associated with old school hip-hop - talking about battle rapping, Esoteric says, "a lot of my stuff stems from old school hip-hop, braggadocio ethic".

Some of the most prominent battle raps that took place on record are listed in the book, ego trip's Book of Rap Lists, and include such battles as the Roxanne Wars (1984–1985), Juice Crew vs. Boogie Down Productions (1986–1988), Kool Moe Dee vs. LL Cool J (1987–1991), MC Serch vs. MC Hammer (1989–1994), Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg vs. Luke (1992–1993), Common vs. Ice Cube (1994–1996), MC Pervis & Brand New Habits and LL Cool J vs. Canibus (1997–1998) - all of which include memorable battle rap verses.

Recent history

Battling has been mostly an underground phenomenon since the early nineties, partly due to rap lyrics becoming considerably more complex in terms of rhyme scheme and meter.

In the early 21st century, freestyling (particularly freestyle battling) experienced a resurgence in popularity of sorts as successful freestyle battle competition TV shows were shown by both BET and MTV. In addition, Eminem's movie 8 Mile brought the excitement of the freestyle battle to mainstream movie audiences. Freestyle Friday is a watered-down battle segment on BET's popular show 106 & Park. Two rappers compete in a freestyle battle before the studio audience and three celebrity judges (the DJ sometimes acts as the 3rd judge). Each competitor alternates freestyling for 30 seconds in each of the two rounds (originally only 1 round when the segment first began). The rappers are not allowed to use profanities or sexually suggestive lyrics, punishable by disqualification. After the battle, the judges decide the winner, per majority vote also in Hackney, London, there is a competition called Jump-Off. Professor Green competed and he came up through Jump-Off.

In Cuba, freestyle battles often follow organized concerts and juxtapose composed songs with ‘flowing’ lyrics that are relevant to the present situation. Freestyling can allow audience members to integrate into the performance stage. This provides a forum for up-and-coming underground artists to engage in a musical discussion with already prominent underground Cuban rappers. Freestyle battles often turn political when artists incorporate perspectives on social disparities and issues plaguing the Cuban population.

More recently battle rap has been revived in the form of pre-written battles. King Of The Dot was a key player in this movement. The two most recognized battle leagues at the moment are the "Ultimate Rap League" and "King of the Dot.

In late 2011, Jump Shot Media released a mobile battle rap game, Battle Rap Stars that could automatically evaluate and score a users rap performance without the need of a crowd and majority vote.

King of the Dot, also known as KOTD, hosted a 3 day event which had 8 countries participate in it, called World Domination 2 in August 2011. In November 2011, Organik hosted Flatline, an event in which rapper Drake co-hosted the main event between Dizaster and DNA.

Don't Flop is the largest UK rap battle league founded in 2008. Since then, notable appearances include Rizzle, Illmaculate, Mystro, and Harry Love.

Original definition

In the book How to Rap, Big Daddy Kane and Myka 9 note that originally a freestyle was a written rap on no particular subject – Big Daddy Kane says, “in the ’80s when we said we wrote a freestyle rap, that meant that it was a rhyme that you wrote that was free of style… it’s basically a rhyme just bragging about yourself.”. Myka 9 adds, “back in the day freestyle was bust[ing] a rhyme about any random thing, and it was a written rhyme or something memorized”. Divine Styler says: “in the school I come from, freestyling was a non-conceptual written rhyme… and now they call freestyling off the top of the head, so the era I come from it’s a lot different”. Kool Moe Dee also refers to this earlier definition in his book, There's A God On The Mic:

"There are two types of freestyle. There’s an old-school freestyle that’s basically rhymes that you’ve written that may not have anything to do with any subject or that goes all over the place. Then there’s freestyle where you come off the top of the head."

In old school hip-hop, Kool Moe Dee says that improvisational rapping was instead called “coming off the top of the head”, and Big Daddy Kane says, "off-the-top-of-the-head [rapping], we just called that "off the dome" — when you don’t write it and [you] say whatever comes to mind”.

Referring to this earlier definition (a written rhyme on non-specific subject matter) Big Daddy Kane says, "that’s really what a freestyle is” and Kool Moe Dee refers to it as “true” freestyle, and “the real old-school freestyle”. Kool Moe Dee suggests that Kool G Rap’s track ‘Men At Work’ is an “excellent example” of “true” freestyle, along with Rakim’s "Lyrics of Fury".

Newer definition

Since the early 1990s onwards, with the popularization of improvisational rapping from groups/artists such as Freestyle Fellowship through to Eminem’s 8 Mile, ‘freestyle’ has come to be the widely used term for rap lyrics which are improvised on the spot. This type of freestyle is the focus of Kevin Fitzgerald’s documentary, Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme, where the term is used throughout by numerous artists to mean improvisational rapping.

Kool Moe Dee suggests the change in how the term is used happened somewhere in the mid to late ‘80s, saying, “until 1986, all freestyles were written”, and “before the ‘90s it was about how hard you could come with a written rhyme with no particular subject matter and no real purpose other than showing your lyrical prowess”.

Myka 9 explains that Freestyle Fellowship helped redefine the term – “that’s what they say I helped do - I helped get the world to freestyle, me and the Freestyle Fellowship, by inventing the Freestyle Fellowship and by redefining what freestyle is… We have redefined what freestyle is by saying that it’s improvisational rap like a jazz solo”.

Although this kind of freestyling is very well respected today, Kool Moe Dee states that this was not the case previously:

"A lot of the old-school artists didn’t even respect what’s being called freestyle now... any emcee coming off the top of the head wasn’t really respected. The sentiment was emcees only did that if they couldn’t write. The coming off the top of the head rhymer had a built-in excuse to not be critiqued as hard".

Methodology of improvised freestyle

A number of rappers learned to rap through improvised freestyling and by making freestyling into a conversation or a rhyming game which they played often - as described by artists such as MC Shan, David Banner, and One Be Lo in the book How to Rap. In the same book, reasons for freestyling given by K-Os, Bobby Creekwater, Cappadonna, El Da Sensei, and Myka 9 include - for entertainment, as a therapeutic activity, to discover different ways of rapping, promoting yourself, being versatile, and as a spiritual activity. Improvised freestyling is also a skill that can be used in live performance, to do things such as giving something extra to the crowd and to cover up mistakes. Artists will often refer to places and objects in their immediate setting.

Improvised freestyling is also a way of recording songs for albums or mixtapes, as described by Myka 9 and Cashis - other artists such as DJ Quik, T3 of Slum Village, Evidence of Dilated Peoples, Myka 9, Mr Lif, and Zion I discuss the pros and cons of this in How to Rap and how it can help them come up with ideas.

Freestyles are either performed a cappella, over beatboxing (as seen in Freestyle as Black Thought improvises over Questlove's beatboxing), or over instrumental versions of recorded Hip-Hop songs. Often, freestyling is done in a group setting (called a cypher) or as part of a freestyle battle. In these cases, freestyle verses are often prepared in the rapper's head as the other rappers in the cypher or the opponent in the battle take their turn. Metaphors and similes are often used when freestyling and a good punch line makes a great impact when freestyling in a cypher.

Due to the improvised nature of freestyle, rules for meter and rhythm are usually more relaxed than in conventional rap. Many artists base their set on the situation and mental state, but have a ready supply of prepared lyrics and rhyme patterns they can use as filler or even around which they can build their set.

Types of battles

A freestyle battle is a contest in which two or more rappers compete or battle each other using improvised lyrics. Each competitor's goal is to 'diss' their opponent through clever lyrics. As hip-hop evolved in the early 1980s MCs gained their fame through live battles with other MCs. Freestyle battles can take place anywhere: street corners, on stage at a concert, or in school. The idea of such poetic battles, or jousts, has a long history that can be found in genres of poetry such as Haikai and flyting.

The live audience is critical to a battle as each Microphone controller (MC) must use skill and lyrical ability to not only 'break down' his or her opponent, but to convince the audience that they are the better rapper. Appointed judges have been used in formal contests, but even when no winner is announced, the rapper who receives the best audience response is viewed as the victor. In addition, it is considered by some to be an act of dishonor to recite written and memorized raps in a freestyle battle, because it shows the rapper to be incapable of 'spitting' spur-of-the-moment lyrics.

A cipher is any collection or gathering of rappers, beatboxers, or breakers forming in a circle in order to jam musically together - the term has also in recent years come to mean the crowd which forms around the battles, consisting of spectators and onlookers. This group serves partly to encourage competition and partly to enhance the communal aspect of rap battles. The cipher is known for “making or breaking reputations in the hip hop community; if you are able to step into the cipher and tell your story, demonstrating your uniqueness, you might be more accepted". These groups also serve as a way for messages about hip hop styles and knowledge to be spread, through word-of-mouth and encouraging trends in other battles.

Battling is a prominent part of hip hop culture.

Further reading

• Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme. Dir. Kevin Fitzgerald. DVD. 2004.
• Edwards, Paul (2009). How to Rap: The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC. Chicago Review Press, ISBN 1556528167.
• Kool Moe Dee, 2003, There's A God On The Mic: The True 50 Greatest MCs, Thunder's Mouth Press.
• 8 Mile. Dir. Curtis Hanson. DVD. March 18, 2003
• Alan Light; et al. October 1999. The Vibe History of Hip Hop.
• All Rapped Up. Dir. Steven Gregory, Eric Holmberg. Perf. Eric Holmber, Garland Hunt. Videocassette. 1991.
• Blow, Kurtis. Kurtis Blow Presents: The History of Rap, Vol. 1: The Genesis (liner notes). Kurtis Blow Presents: The History Of Rap, Vol. 1: The Genesis.
• Brian, Cross. It's Not About a Salary. London; New York: Verso, 1993 [i.e. 1994].

See also

• Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)
• Stream of consciousness (psychology)
• Flyting