Rap

I went to the other troupe's show on Saturday (it was excellent) and witnessed Mookie pulling out a nice freestyle rap. It had good rhymes, it was fast and it was funny. I thought about how bad I usually do with rap and how frequently we get it as a suggestion - something had to be done.

A quick Google search later and I had some decent suggestions for freestylin'.

1) Have a filler phrase. This is used to fill up the spaces in your verse so that the rhythm stays consistent. For example: "It's not the heat it's the humidity / yo yo yo that's airborne fluidity." Yo is the filler.

2) Mention something local. In actual freestyle rap this is often the name of a neighborhood or an area code. For example: "All you 612's, put your hands in the air." or "He was such a little whiner / thought that I must be in Edina."

3) Repeat a chorus, but not too many times. I took this as "repeat a chorus as necessary."

4) Don't be afraid of a cappela. Rabbit did it in 8-mile. We can do it as well.

5) Begin on the down beat.

6) Just let it flow.

Watching Youtube videos can also be somewhat helpful. My favorite freestyle line ever was a from Snake Eyes in Chicago's Mission Improvable - "You boys are kinda creepy like Uncle Fester / You drove in all the way from Rochester." One of the guys sitting next to us was bald. Also I had been drinking and this line doesn't seem quite as awesome now that I wrote it down.