Freestyling is often done in a group setting called a "cypher" (or "cipher") or as part of a "freestyle battle". įreestyles are performed a cappella, over beatboxing (as seen in Freestyle ), or over instrumental versions of songs. In order to prove that a freestyle is being made up on the spot (as opposed to something pre-written or memorized), rappers will often refer to places and objects in their immediate setting, or will take suggestions on what to rhyme about. Improvised freestyling can also be used in live performances, to do things such as giving something extra to the crowd and to cover up mistakes. Reasons for freestyling include entertainment, as a therapeutic activity, to discover different ways of rapping, promoting oneself, increasing versatility, or as a spiritual activity.
#RANDOM RAP BEAT HOW TO#
Many rappers learn to rap through improvised freestyling, and by making freestyling into a conversation or a rhyming game which they play frequently as a way to practice, as described in the book How to Rap. The coming off the top of the head rhymer had a built-in excuse to not be critiqued as hard. The sentiment was emcees only did that if they couldn't write. any emcee coming off the top of the head wasn't really respected. Īlthough this kind of freestyling is very well respected today, Kool Moe Dee states that this was not the case previously:Ī lot of the old-school artists didn't even respect what's being called freestyle now. We have redefined what freestyle is by saying that it's improvisational rap like a jazz solo". 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.
Kool Moe Dee suggests the change in how the term is used happened somewhere in the mid to late 1980s, saying, "until 1986, all freestyles were written", and "before the 1990s, 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." 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.
Since the early 1990s onwards, with the popularization of improvisational rapping from groups and artists such as Freestyle Fellowship through to fresh fest competitions, "freestyle" has come to be the widely used term for rap lyrics which are improvised on the spot. 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". Referring to this earlier definition (a written rhyme on non-specific subject matter), Big Daddy Kane stated, "that's really what a freestyle is" and Kool Moe Dee refers to it as "true" freestyle, and "the real old-school freestyle". In old school hip-hop, Kool Moe Dee claimed that improvisational rapping was instead called "coming off the top of the head", and Big Daddy Kane stated, "off-the-top-of-the-head, we just called that 'off the dome' – when you don't write it and say whatever comes to mind". Then there's freestyle where you come off the top of the head. 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. Kool Moe Dee also refers to this earlier definition in his book, There's A God On The Mic: and now they call freestyling off the top of the head, so the era I come from, it's a lot different". Divine Styler says: "in the school I come from, freestyling was a non-conceptual written rhyme. it's basically a rhyme just bragging about yourself." Myka 9 adds, "back in the day, freestyle was bust a rhyme about any random thing, and it was a written rhyme or something memorized".
#RANDOM RAP BEAT FREE#
In the book How to Rap, Big Daddy Kane and Myka 9 note that originally a freestyle was a spit on no particular subject – Big Daddy Kane said, "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.
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