| "5 Tips for Freestyling! (Long Read)"- Mabus I wrote this for this forum and the dojo since i see people ask all the time here and there about tips for freestlying... Heres goes: 5 Tips for Freestyling 5 Month�s ago I had never freestyled once in my life. One day I got dissed by a local emcee at a party who found out I was an emcee and when he asked me to cipher with him and I said �I don�t freestyle.� He took it upon himself to start dissing me by saying I wasn�t an emcee then. I said to myself, �I�ma go home tonight and learn how to freestyle.� Wait! Learn how to freestyle? Yes, I actually started the next day by going on-line and searching everywhere I could think of for freestyle advice, I found plenty and what I am presenting here is what I have learned that has worked for me. 5 months later I am� in my own� and others peoples opinion an ill freestyler. I haven�t yet but someday I will see that emcee that dissed me and thank him for inspiring me to learn how to freestyle, then I�ll eat his ass up in a battle. 1) Write � You may not realize it, but the more you write the more rhymes get imbedded into your head. The more rhymes get imbedded into your head the easier it is to come off the top. You will begin to notice your freestyles can never be better then your writtens, and how a person writes is normally a reflection of how they freestyle. If they use single syllables and basic vocab in their writtens, he won�t come with big words and multi-syllable rhymes in his freestyles because there�s none in his head. Write for at least a half-hour a day, and that�s not just a freestyling tip that�s a writing tip. 2) Practice � This ones the most obvious, and everyone gets told this when they ask a question about learning how to freestyle. �But my parents will tell me to be quiet or my roommates are home most of the time and it will be embarrassing�� Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. Those are excuses and all excuses have solutions. If your parents/roomates allow you to turn your music up loud turn it up loud and spit normal(So they can�t hear you,) as long as you can hear yourself that�s all that matters. If they don�t then just find places where you are comfortable freestyling outside, it shouldn�t be hard to find a place. Or just do it when no ones home. There�s no excuse that should prevent you from practicing. Once you feel yourself improving jump in a cipher and see if you can hang with the people. If you can�t find I cipher, then get out more, if you live in a small town and you�re the only emcee, then create some emcees. When you practice, practice speeds and find the right one for you, too many emcees try and spit fast and slip over words, if this is happening slow down, you don�t have to freestyle exactly how you rap when you�re rapping something you wrote. Just stay calm and don�t out think yourself by thinking 10 lines ahead or you will slip up. 3) Play Games � Here�s 3 games that will improve your freestyling ability: The first game I call �the Rhyme Game (took me a long time to think of that)� This is a very basic game that can be played with anyone (doesn�t need to be an emcee,) or by yourself. This is how it works one person starts off with a word, it can be as many syllables as they want. Now let�s say the word picked is �nutrition,� now the next person needs to rhyme with that and use both syllables so a good choice would be, �tuition.� Then the next person says their word and so on, until someone can�t come up with something. Normally we have a 5 second time limit with normal people and a 2 second time limit with emcees. When someone misses 3 words they step outta the circle and the last man standing wins. This game can also be played on-line (chat room or im,) as well as by yourself, just simply rhyme words to yourself until you run out, you win because you improve and can�t lose anyway. The 2nd game is �Pick a Subject,� it never seizes to amaze me that people think an emcee has skill because someone can tell them a subject and they can rap about it. To me that�s just as easy as freestyle freestyling, because you don�t have to think of your subjects someone else is doing that for you. This game is just that, have a friend throw subjects out to you and freestyle about that subject (It helps to have an imaginative friend, who doesn�t say the same things all the time.) Do this until your friend changes the subject or you run outta rhymes to give to that subject. This can be done by yourself by listening to am talk radio, listen to the subject they are talking about at the moment and get an opinion, once you do freestyle your opinion on it. Talk radios try and switch subjects about every 5-10 minutes which is plenty of time to get an opinion and freestyle on that subject for 3-4 minutes. You will also gain some worldly knowledge(or sports knowledge which is what I normally listen to,) by doing this which is not a bad thing. �Pick a Subject� will improve your topics, imagination, and give you the ability to bs your way until a subject is changed. The 3rd and final one is �the observation game (I know you love my witty names,)� Just start watching tv or walk down the street, or look out your window or sit on your fire escape or go to the mall� Just find somewhere or something you can look at and freestyle about what you�re seeing ulimitlessly� Do this until you get tired of doing this, there�s no winning or losing this game. What you�re gaining is the ability to turn what you�re seeing into rhymes (this is needed to prove to skeptics that you�re not kicking writtens as well as in battles.) Well doing these games a few hours a week will improve your overall ability greatly, I still do them today even though I don�t really have to, I still find them to be fun when I�m bored as well as at parties that are lagging in fun. 4) Listen to other people freestyle � I�m not talking about wack freestylers (there�s one in every cipher don�t be it.) I�m talking about the top cat in the cipher, watch him and figure out what makes him tick. Try and figure out what he�s doing. Don�t look to your favorite mainstream rappers for freestyles, most of them write theirs (or in some cases have someone else does,) so they don�t risk looking like a fool(mix tapes like funk master flex often say �Jay-Z exclusive freestyle,� trust me there�s a 99% chance that is not a freestyle. Look to the underground for the true freestylers� I�m talking about Juice, Supernatural, KRS-One, Eyedea, or Sage Francis� If you just dl freestyles from these cats alone you�ll have about 4 cds worth. Just listen to them over and over, learn things they do, such as using a filler whenever they can�t think of anything, for example Eyedea says �I grab the microphone,� whenever he can�t think of anything and by the time he has that out he�s thought of his next line. Find a filler that fits you even �yo� is a filler, but starting off you should find a longer filler. 5) Just have fun doing it, if when you freestyle you aren�t having fun then something�s not right (unless you�re battling and losing badly.) Also as back up, have a collection of short 5-15 bar verses to help you out when you�re stuck. This is not cheating just more of a crutch for when you absolutely can�t think of anything, it keeps you from looking like a sucker. DO NOT SPIT VERSES YOU PLAN TO OR HAVE RECORDED� That�s a bitch move. Have ones ready that you only use in freestyles, that aren�t good enough to be recorded but are good enough for a cipher. So that�s it, if you do all 5 of these things you�ll be on your way to being able to shine in a cipher in no time. If you only do 2-3 of these you will still be in decent shape, the most important 2 are the first two (practice and writing,) without them you will improve at a snail rate if you improve at any rate at all. I�m no freestyle wizard, but I am pretty damn ill, and it�s all due to doing these 5 things. I�m not claiming these are guaranteed ways or that they are the only way, I am saying they worked for me, and should work for you too. I�m out if you need to ask a question directly just e-mail me at [email protected] or drop it in here and I�ll answer when I get a chance to. |