(film reeling)
Downloaded from YTS.MX
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(record scratching)
[Myka 9] ♪ Oh, it's a brave new world. ♪
Aldous Huxley all the way down to your jeans and chucks.
Me,
my loved ones Hollister, above none.
Recognize it's these ballers that are done
in the mortal words of the careless one.
- [Interviewer] Dope.
Hey, do me a favor, as long as..
- What's up?
- [Interviewer] Can you just so that the,
so it's in the background.
Can you give us a quick freestyle about that?
♪ This vast display of marsh land ♪
♪ Could never suffer from the ♪
♪ Man in his harsh plan ♪
♪ The estuary, the temporary over standing ♪
♪ That it'd be a substance abuse ♪
♪ Like Esso, he's the homie ♪
♪ I'd breathe this open air ♪
♪ No more mess so these are wholer ♪
♪ How do you say that word ♪
♪ It doesn't even matter what occurred ♪
♪ It's like spinning words for the birds ♪
♪ the ducks the quails ♪
♪ And that's where we dwell ♪
♪ Open up my mindset beyond any spells of the cast ♪
♪ I gotta go these brothers got a video to shoot right ♪
It's all love, peace
(group chattering)
- Hey guys, let's...
- We need to hit that invincible music.
- Here's a slate. Ready.
(beat boxing)
♪ Y'all? ♪
♪ Eck. ♪
♪ Yo yeah ♪
♪ Get that boys drink Get it ♪
♪ Get in a rhyme ♪
♪ Give them geared up at the denim supplier ♪
♪ Ralph Lauren ♪
♪ Then I go out touring and out scoring ♪
♪ I'm chilling with the homie Alf ♪
♪ We ain't boring ♪
♪ Yeah, we keep it balls to the wall ♪
♪ to the ceiling and the flooring ♪
♪ God dammit ♪
♪ My flow is so prehistoric ♪
♪ It's like a saber tooth ♪
♪ I come straight bull ♪
♪ Fries meteoric with vocalizations ♪
♪ that dominate your Facebook notifications ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ That's me with a little bitty number ♪
♪ On the mic showing my ass ♪
♪ Like your average plumber ♪
♪ That's how I do it 'cause they offer the ass crack ♪
♪ Have 'em falling and need insurance from Aflac ♪
♪ Just ask the duck 'cause they whack as fuck ♪
♪ I hit 'em once with a truck then backed it up ♪
♪ Yo (group laughing) ♪
♪ Like my man said, it's the notification ♪
♪ I know that they hate it ♪
♪ 'cause I'm controlling the nation ♪
♪ I spit so raw ♪
♪ You spit what I spit you'd break your own jaw ♪
♪ Kill your old paw ♪
♪ Slap your old ma ♪
♪ Maybe could even turn O-Dog to coleslaw ♪
♪ And then I be out like so long ♪
♪ I'm one of the great great great ones ♪
♪ I spit like Frank in the cipher ♪
♪ Eight eight eight eight ♪
♪ Done ♪
(group cheering)
♪ Check it check it check it ♪
♪ I whip so many niggas ♪
♪ They swear I was in Django ♪
♪ Diva gets came through ♪
♪ When I'm dancin' like tango ♪
♪ No but I ♪
♪ I ain't jiggy when I kick it with my people ♪
♪ when I represent my city ♪
♪ Leimert Park get it when the dark ♪
♪ Everybody try to act hard no heart ♪
♪ They want to blame it but they can't claim it ♪
♪ Kick it with the homies on the front ♪
♪ I'm slaying ♪
♪ Yeah I be trying to make hot records ♪
♪ So I'm kind of outta shape like I'm Brock Lesnar ♪
♪ I spend the whole weekend drunk ♪
♪ And I'm from Chicago like I'm seeing punk ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Heavyweight championship ♪
♪ I be watching them seasons thirsting ♪
♪ How they trying for spit boxing but not really with it ♪
♪ I rip 'em like Wonka did that golden ticket ♪
♪ So fuckin' terrific ♪
♪ Shit I'm small just like a midget ♪
♪ But nah that's the improper term ♪
♪ MCs better watch it wait until it burns. ♪
♪ I'm waiting until it turns to the left ♪
♪ I inside to make that next check ♪
♪ Old school like a text via telegram ♪
♪ I don't gotta tell you that I'm nice ♪
♪ You could tell I am ♪
♪ So tell your girl and tell your man ♪
♪ And write a telegram ♪
♪ From jail home so you can tell your fam ♪
♪ Now everybody that you know know that I'm the boss ♪
♪ Like who go roll up in the two though ♪
♪ But nah it ain't new yo ♪
♪ The shits from like 72 yo ♪
♪ 'cause I'm too broke and that's some honesty ♪
(group whooping)
(group clapping)
(deep hip hop beat)
[P.E.A.C.E.] ♪ Yeah. ♪
♪ I see words in my head ♪
♪ I line 'em up a ranger man then I said ♪
♪ Yeah I spit 'em and that's how lead ♪
Freddy's dead and his Pro Keds
- [Ice-T] Freestylers have the ability to think on they feet
and as they rhyme,
they're making the rhyme up as they go along.
♪ Ain't nothing like it so nigga can answer ♪
♪ Serious as cancer ♪
♪ I was a dancer ♪
♪ Then I turned into a lyrical romancer ♪
- [Open Mike Eagle] I'm in a place in the business such where I travel around
and am more and more gaining a footing in the
independent aspects of rap music.
♪ He said word and I said word we out ♪
♪ But I represent this shit right now ♪
♪ KNPNBDK ♪
- [Del] You gonna mess up
sometimes you going not rhyme.
Sometimes you going to inadvertently diss yourself.
♪ Niggas on the bus it's okay ♪
♪ I'ma stop it right now spin it 'round ♪
♪ Freestyle like 101 ♪
- [Iron Solomon] A lot like a sport right now.
It's most like boxing.
♪ Free-ee-Style 101 ♪
♪ Off of the dome ♪
♪ Spontaneous poems ♪
♪ Get the word on town ♪
♪ And jump on the gown ♪
♪ Skate board slide grind ♪
♪ And I kick real ♪
♪ Come back with some gangster shit ♪
♪ She walk on in ♪
♪ Back on the board keep going around tho ♪
♪ Kick push ♪
♪ Do your fuckin' go ♪
♪ Free style 101 ♪
♪ They say it is nothing you know where I'm from ♪
♪ From - From ♪
♪ Free free style-yle 101 ♪
♪ Free free Style-yle 101 ♪
♪ Free free style-yle 101 ♪
♪ Let me explain freestyle-yle 101 ♪
♪ One one one one one ♪
- [Narrator Chuck D] New York, the mid 1970s.
A handful of breakthrough artists combined
a visual power of graffiti art
and a fresh new craze called Break Dancing
with a backbeat of a DJ
and a hungry MC armed only with a microphone.
Through this marriage of urban art styles,
hip hop was born.
Vocally,
rapping took the sensibility of spoken word poetry
and put it to a beat.
Some wrote their rhymes down
while others made their rhymes off the top of their head.
A skill later called freestyling.
- [Grandmaster Caz] Hiphop started as hiphop in 1973.
We date the birth of hiphop in 1973.
The first documented hip hop party was given in a small
apartment building on the west side of the Bronx
by DJ Kool Herc.
And so we marked that date as the birth of hip hop.
We marked that place as the birth place of hip hop.
And we marked that DJ as the father.
- [R.A. the Rugged Man] Kool Herc, you know, started doing these shows
and you know they're famous now,
but it was a rec room on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx.
And Melle Mel used to bring people out
and throw these little hip hop parties
DJing then got to the point where
they'd throw a little MC to talk
And you know, they say that was the birthplace.
♪ Sedgwick can see the Bronx ♪
♪ New York birthplace ♪
♪ Kool Herc Block Party ♪
♪ Hip hop's first stage Zulu Nation ♪
♪ The man looked at as the grandfather ♪
♪ Kevin Donovan later known as Band by Love Bug ♪
♪ Starsky ♪
♪ Coke la Rock ♪
♪ First MC cold Crush ♪
♪ Furious five ♪
♪ Treach three Modieve ♪
♪ First National TV spot was Kurtis Blow ♪
♪ Mr. Magic had the first ever radio show ♪
♪ UTFO Houdini Run DMC energy ♪
♪ The God Rakim, KRS and Public Enemy ♪
♪ The Plus 1 was Sha Rock ♪
♪ Queensbridge had Shante ♪
♪ MC lyte ♪
♪ Salt and Pepper ♪
♪ Fuck what any man say ♪
♪ Schoolly D started gangsta rap ♪
♪ Let me bring it back ♪
♪ In the Ronald Reagan '80s epidemic slinging crack ♪
♪ Golden era kings ♪
♪ In my opinion were The Juice Crew ♪
♪ Native Tongue, Flava Unit, Hit Squad ♪
♪ Breakthrough hip hop became more commercial ♪
♪ But some stayed true. ♪
♪ Fast forward to the '90s ♪
♪ New crew named Wu ♪
- [RZA] Freestyle is something that means
to come off the top of your head
and make a rhyme up, you know.
But at one point freestyling meant, you know,
just rhyming about no subject matters
because a lot of MCs was making stories
and lyrics with subjects.
So freestyle kind of meant just braggadocious.
But then it came to a point where freestyle artists
basically means the let the lyrics flow freely through you
and come off your head.
And I didn't get good at that until around the age of 16
where you gimme anything,
you could see a mosquito
and I come with a whole fuckin' two minute rap
about a mosquito.
You know what I mean?
(hip hop beat)
[Cappadonna] ♪ Yo ♪
♪ Get it ♪
♪ Well at the age of 18 ♪
♪ I was an MC fiend ♪
♪ Need a rehabilitate to release the steam. ♪
♪ I've been rhymin' so long and now finally hooked ♪
♪ And I ain't saying I'm the best ♪
♪ but I've never been took ♪
♪ Yo I'm a cool poet ♪
♪ Rhyming alcoholic ♪
♪ Rhymin' so correct it'll take a week to install it ♪
♪ Call my bluff and say I'm coppin' to plea ♪
♪ For the vocalize music ♪
♪ You're outta my league ♪
♪ Yeah, time. ♪
♪ My name is Don ♪
♪ I'm strung on the rhymes ♪
♪ And it's getting to the point ♪
♪ where you're just wasting my time ♪
♪ But if you thinkin' that you want some ♪
♪ Due for a taste ♪
♪ See me with your mic and meet me face to face ♪
♪ 'cause I'm a magic magician ♪
♪ Keep on dissing ♪
♪ When I rocking jam you know the crowd do listen ♪
♪ I'm an explorier like a Tom Sawyier ♪
♪ Got a rep for rapping in another bough of euphoria ♪
♪ Girl Charmer Night with Shaskanama ♪
♪ Of course I got more structure in the aircraft ♪
♪ But I'm a Wu healer ♪
♪ Drinking mad tequila ♪
♪ And my girl is a secret so I never will reveal her ♪
♪ I'm a night time thrilla ♪
♪ From the Killer Hilla♪
♪ Rock a block party ♪
♪ From any town you can tell I'm sentimental ♪
♪ Not a oriental ♪
♪ Rhyming so legit you think that I was mental ♪
♪ Captain Crunch ♪
♪ Crunch chunks blowing white dumps cru...♪
♪ Br-r-rat ♪
- I mean it it just go way back to the Sugar Hill Gang.
I think that was like one of the first songs that I really,
really heard and really started getting into.
You know what I'm saying?
At my time back in like '77,
you know what I mean?
Earlier,
Sugar Hill Gang with a pow pow boogie
and the big bang bang.
You know what I'm saying?
That was one of my favorite joints
when I went over a friend's house to eat.
And the food just ain't no good.
The macaroni salad,
the pizza, know what I'm sayin'
and chicken tastes like wood.
You know what I'm saying?
A lot of people they get into Rakim and all of them.
Yeah. That's definitely the facts of life right there.
But I go back to
♪ White lines, vivid dreams of passion. ♪
- You know what I'm saying?
So it's like when I look up hip hop in a dictionary, man,
I see, I just see like,
you know, smart entrepreneurs,
like a group of minorities
that came up from nothing
and had these harsh realities,
you know,
mixed with this soulfulness to express to the people.
Man, and that's me too.
- [Fat Joe] You know,
it's unfair being from New York
to be honest with you as an artist in hip hop
because being that it was born here,
they expect so much out of us.
You know what I'm saying?
So when we do a song,
not only does it have to be a catchy hit record,
but you have to lyrically rip it down crazy.
You know what I'm saying?
So that, you know what I'm saying?
It could even be respected coming outta New York.
You can't get away with just doing whatever, man.
- [Grandmaster Caz] Our rebellion against disco
was the breeding ground for hip hop.
You know what I mean?
We try to create our own disco, okay?
Our version of a disco, okay?
You could wear your sneakers, your hats,
whatever the fuck you want to wear,
you come as you are.
- [Pete Rock] You had Bambaata and you had Cold Crush
and Grandmaster Flash and you know,
that was the school I come from.
- [Masta Ace] And somebody would come through
with the hot new tape.
Y'all got Cold Crush performing at such and such club
last night and let me get a copy
and everybody bring their blanks out and duck copies.
And then, you know,
when you had that new routine
that they were doing at the club,
you were the hottest dude if you had that tape.
- [Sheek Louch] These mix tapes back then with your freestyles
and doing all that was street albums damn near.
Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like when you couldn't get a deal,
this was an album on the street that came out.
They was waiting for a mixtape to hit New York City.
You know what I mean? So it's a little sweeter now.
Like they, you know, you get the game right now,
they just anything's on the mixtape
and it's just so you don't even wanna listen
to the old shit 'cause you like,
who the hell is this?
- [Sean Kingston] I freestyle before I even write a song
like I just freestyle out words,
you know what I'm saying?
Just to get the words now packed.
So if you can't really freestyle,
you gotta be able to write.
'cause you got people can't freestyle,
but they write hella songs I'm saying.
And they're hella good songwriters.
But the only thing is it's even better when you can
freestyle 'cause it's like, man,
I'm saying and you just listening to the beat
and you just freestyle like, you know what I'm saying?
I'm a soldier or whatever it is.
And it just comes out to you and you're like,
yo wait,
that's a hot hook that it stains in your brain
and you just like, all right,
I'm gonna write that down like Jay-Z,
Jay-Z goes in the booth, no pen, no pad.
I'm saying just go in,
just freestyle and record it down
and just you know what I mean memorize it back.
And he has his verse.
- [Open Mike Eagle] Where like when I came up you had to do at least two
things or you couldn't even call yourself hip hop.
When I came up.
Like so all of us were break dancers, graffiti artists
and rappers and if we could afford turntables,
we were DJs too.
You had to do everything.
♪ MDK Mortal Kombat ♪
♪ Spread wings like wombat ♪
♪ But species is way beyond that ♪
♪ I tap on any MC like I was tap shoes ♪
♪ MCs wanna rap but nobody wants to rap with you ♪
I don't like your attitudes ♪
So I battle you over a cup of apple juice ♪
♪ And use algorhythms to battle midgets for raffle tickets ♪
♪ It has to be me ♪
♪ MC will never be below ♪
♪ But I also come back but I represent The Blowed♪
[Dumbfoundead] ♪ Because yo, it's to me from the super body yo brother ♪
♪ And you can't believe it ♪
♪ Like this was Fabio's butter ♪
♪ And I'm an audio lover ♪
♪ I'm working things out ♪
♪ Burning the cardio blubber ♪
♪ So what sir you wanna battle me ♪
♪ You can't count the strikes ♪
♪ And counter strike that I've attacked with Half Life ♪
♪ Not smoking on crack pipes ♪
♪ 'cause that's life ♪
♪ And that's how we rip it though ♪
♪ Thirsty Fish we working this ♪
- Freestyling is not an east coast or a west coast thing.
It's a hip hop thing.
- Originally the term freestyle had nothing to do with it
being off the top of the head.
- Freestyling used to mean just using a rhyme that wasn't
attached to something like a song, a routine
or part of a group situation.
It was just one of the rhymes that you had a random rhyme.
- Freestyling in New York means something different
than what it means in LA.
In LA it means off the top of the dome in New York.
I've heard rappers like Kurtis Blow even say
freestyle is just a rap you haven't heard yet.
- Nowadays freestyling just means off the head
back in the day off the head, off the dome was like,
you just wrapped off, you know, whatever came to your head.
Like Roxanne Shante, she would just, you know,
she didn't even write rhymes in the studio.
Like if she wrote you'd be like, what?
You know she just freestyled half of those classic,
you know, have a nice day.
She had all these classic records
and they were off the head.
- [Sheek Louch] When Roxanne Shante,
you know what I'm saying?
Roxanne, Roxanne.
When they UTFO and all 'em and they was going at
it, I'm like wow, I got a Mr Magic is playing,
I put the tissue on the top of the TDK
and was doing it like that. You know what I'm saying?
And I was like, wow, this is crazy.
Did you hear what she said back to them and all that?
- So somewhere along the way the term freestyle started to
connote, you know,
rhyming off the top and and that's what people
now refer to it as.
- [Iron Solomon] It's an evolution.
And I think even in the '90s
when like freestyle was like the catch word,
I think the idea that you have certain lines that are your
go-to lines and you have certain fallback stuff
and the ability to be spontaneous
and mix in stuff that you're thinking up on the spot.
You know something about somebody's clothing
or the club that you're in
and then pull on those other lines
and those other parts of your brain
that you just have these different pieces stored.
- [Ice-T] Freestylers have the ability to think on they feet
and as they rhyme they're making the rhyme up
as they go along.
I'm coming off the dome right now coming off.
I'm just making this stuff up as I go along.
♪ Special ops ♪
♪ We going in ♪
♪ Enough talk nigga's talk too much ♪
♪ I set it tongue splash bitch niggas ♪
♪ Gunfights ♪
♪ Paramedics call my regimen up at midnight ♪
♪ Tip on the flashlight you claim you want beef ♪
♪ It's too tough. ♪
♪ Called your bluff shot you close range ♪
♪ Blew out your ear drums ♪
♪ Hit you with the Mac blast your cage out your back. ♪
♪ The other niggas stepped up ♪
♪ And got bucked by my ninjas ♪
♪ Casualty after casualty all up in you ♪
♪ You're not a street vet yet ♪
♪ Bitch you're a beginner ♪
♪ My niggas eat punks like your crew for dinner ♪
♪ Rock you in broad daylight to make the risk double ♪
♪ Hit you in the lung with my gun ♪
♪ Watch your chest bubble step on ♪
♪ Feel the Teflon black talons rip through your vest ♪
♪ Hit your chest ♪
♪ Lose your balance. ♪
♪ You never had no drama with the real now you want it ♪
♪ My skill got you haunted ♪
♪ The ski mask I don it ♪
♪ Shoot bitch bust your gun ♪
♪ catch your body Cuz not your muthafucka ♪
♪ You don't know who your mommy was ♪
♪ Cock back let this shit fly and make me die ♪
♪ The west coaster walk around daily with the toaster ♪
♪ No escape. ♪
♪ EMS roll out the yellow tape chalk off the sidewalks ♪
♪ It's New York ♪
♪ Come on ♪
♪ It's the gamble on your life tonight ♪
♪ Are you a G that makes your gun sing or a bitch ♪
♪ With a tongue ring ♪
♪ Flat out on what this shit's all about ♪
♪ Nocturnal with the flame thrower ♪
♪ USDEA know us ♪
♪ Not no toy I'm cold in the camo ♪
♪ Load up your ammo,I'll blow out your candles ♪
♪ You could be a fly nigga die nigga ♪
♪ you could catch your dick up in the day like ♪
♪ Fuck around with my niggas ♪
♪ Come with your task force ♪
♪ I blast with my mask off ♪
♪ I don't give a fuck about you reppin' your hood ♪
♪ You now fuckin' with your last nigga ♪
♪ Quick to blast ♪
♪ I don't give a fuck if it in the ass nigga ♪
♪ You don't really want to try with the fly ♪
♪ It's click bang you gone hustler ♪
♪ I pull the trigger long ♪
♪ I die get shot ♪
♪ CE Big T reload ♪
♪ Flip the clip ♪
♪ Come on nigga get me stuck in hell with the ♪
♪ Splinter cell ♪
♪ It don't get no harder than this ♪
♪ Are you retarded as shit ♪
♪ Fag dump with the black mag trunk ♪
♪ With the double bag ♪
♪ Blood on the ski mask ♪
♪ Throw up the blue rag ♪
♪ Looking at me like your ass didn't know ♪
♪ See me in the apple 20 frozen in snow ♪
♪ Hitting switches out in Cali in the hood you won't go ♪
♪ My click cooks the crack in the pyrex ♪
♪ Pimps with the finest decided who will die next ♪
♪ Go on with your punk ass life and your wife ♪
♪ Iceberg nigga what ♪
- [P.E.A.C.] It is an extreme sport.
So when I see skateboarders,
Skateboard freestyle off,
snowboard freestyle off like okay I understand that.
That is true 'cause out there on that board,
yeah you have to really make up to as you're going along.
'cause most of the time if you don't have nothing,
you can't think of nothing to say 90% of the time that means
rapping is not for you.
You know what I'm saying?
But if you have something to say
or something hits you and you can come with like,
♪ I lost my girl the other day ♪
♪ My grandmamma passed away ♪
♪ my daddy all up in my ear ♪
♪ I'm losing my place to stay ♪
♪ Ain't got no rent to spend ♪
♪ But my daughter wants some things ♪
♪ So I'm back up on the street chopping rocks ♪
♪ And selling chains ♪
♪ Now I'm moving like a gangsta ♪
♪ Got a gun that I should shoot ♪
♪ Got is all up in my ear every Sunday with a suit ♪
♪ With my book up in my hand and I'm crossing just to you ♪
♪ Everybody ain't gonna live ♪
♪ Some people gotta die too ♪
♪ Only if you think about what you going to think about ♪
♪ See I'm called thinking loud ♪
♪ But I know what I'm talking 'bout ♪
♪ But if you been talking to ♪
♪ So I know you feel me though ♪
♪ You can write this shit down ♪
♪ Or just see it like I'm saying it though ♪
♪ Same thing ♪
- [Guru] A jazz player that's gonna just you know,
improvise and just play what he's feeling at the time.
His emotions and so forth and his thoughts that
express those musically is very similar to a rapper
freestyling off the head.
- To take it from the great jazz artists
like Bird and Miles.
What their brains was thinking
and what their motor skills were doing,
their creative side was doing with their thinking side
was beautiful.
And we call it freestyling.
- Learning pattern control.
Learning how to beat and rhyme
and keep the subject and the pattern
and what's cohesive and the elements
and the atmosphere around you.
That would come in handy when you recording.
That would come in handy if you didn't memorize all your
rhymes and said you know,
battling back then they used to call it
like come off the dome.
They used to call it sky rap on this side.
On the east coast they used to call it
a wild style freestyle.
But a lot of the times they would call freestyle back then
just busting in the street, you know, free I guess.
(deep hip hop beat)
♪ Oooom ♪
♪ Namaste ♪
♪ M-Y-K-A space 9 ♪
♪ It's all love ♪
♪ I redefine freestyle wine ♪
♪ Myspace me ♪
♪ Myka 9 ♪
♪ Dot com ♪
♪ I pop moms ♪
♪ I'm an underground hip hop icon ♪
♪ Jump through your sunroof ♪
♪ Run through your funds dude ♪
♪ I'm hundred proof ♪
♪ Got too much spit for one booth ♪
♪ I'm the truth ♪
♪ You a damn liar ♪
♪ If I'm not hotter than campfire ♪
♪ These energy vampire sound like Sanjaya ♪
♪ They man-ginas ♪
♪ Tucking they tail inside their vagina ♪
♪ Old timer 49 old rhymers with Alzheimer ♪
♪ When I'm blowing up most spots ♪
♪ Than underground coal miners ♪
♪ I'm the laughing hyena ♪
♪ That's killing them with kindness ♪
♪ Got more lines than sinus ♪
♪ Get more peanuts than Linus ♪
♪ You can call mine some nappy headed flows like Don Imus ♪
♪ God have mercy on your soul ♪
♪ This you must pray ♪
♪ Because you fell off and got booed Just like Miss USA ♪
♪ I'm timeless ♪
♪ These cats a spineless little fur balls ♪
♪ and I don't have to quit inside decide ♪
♪ Just because my girl calls ♪
♪ I'm so sick of I'm about to hurl y'all ♪
♪ Freestyle fellowship ♪
♪ Haiku d'Etat Project Blowed ♪
♪ It's a whirlwind ♪
♪ Snatching you up like your girlfriend ♪
♪ Inside the limo ♪
♪ I don't need to listen to your demo ♪
♪ Or the instrumental I'm from South Central ♪
♪ In my final intro ♪
♪ It's to let your menstrual flow ♪
♪ You period ♪
♪ You're not taking me serious ♪
♪ You're more curious ♪
♪ I'm furious ♪
♪ Dilapidated funk dies ♪
♪ The raps die ♪
♪ They capsize ♪
♪ A lot of these cats in the bowl look around ♪
♪ And with they face get baptized ♪
♪ It's all love ♪
♪ You could've played me if we were we ♪
♪ And if I was an invisible MC ♪
♪ And you try to strike me out on TV ♪
♪ There's so much envy ♪
♪ A lot of MCs never recognized the sacred geometry ♪
♪ Gee I'm a G ♪
♪ Look at me I'm a tree ♪
♪ I grow beyond the flower of life ♪
♪ I flow and I'll devour you on site ♪
♪ Snatch your life ♪
♪ Take the ultimate price of sacrifice ♪
♪ Cook it up like a sack of rice ♪
♪ These cats is pitiful ♪
♪ I'm more critical ♪
♪ And I'm spinning them with the centripetal force ♪
♪ Giving them more inertia ♪
♪ What's worse ♪
♪ These dudes ain't critical ♪
♪ I'm just serving these foods ♪
♪ It's not even that difficult ♪
♪ Observing the rules and on earth ♪
♪ As I grow they see the worth and the pain of the woes ♪
♪ Dudes don't even know how Myka 9 rose ♪
♪ Like who to talk ♪
♪ Freestyle fellowship ♪
♪ Project Blowed y'all ♪
♪ It's all love ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ It's all love ♪
♪ And above and beyond the rest ♪
♪ And a lot of these cats can't get it off their chest ♪
♪ To open up their chest like sesame ♪
♪ Breathing down their neck ♪
♪ My foot up on they back ♪
♪ These cats don't even know they're still disrespecting me ♪
♪ Insect them seeds like ♪
♪ Take off your wings and crush you ♪
♪ But instead I'll let you go free ♪
♪ Catch you in a jar with a little piece of paper on top ♪
♪ My style rocks inside of a skyscraper ♪
♪ Or I got a rock I like eating capers and salads a lot ♪
♪ I've got the balance ♪
♪ You's don't understand ♪
♪ I rock the block ♪
♪ And concocted little thingamabobs ♪
♪ Highly sensitive circuitry ♪
♪ I work in these with these different degrees ♪
♪ I never could repeat ♪
♪ I burry deep these thieves who don't know ♪
♪ It's simply me myself and I and my loved ones fly ♪
♪ They already know that Myka 9 ♪
♪ Spy versus spy tactics can never kill them ♪
♪ Fly away I utilize with skills of up the skillet ♪
♪ Into the propane outlet ♪
♪ Gas jet flame ♪
♪ Cash checks any name ♪
♪ So many different scientific theories ♪
♪ Are given throughout the universe degrees ♪
♪ The healers throughout the cosmosis ♪
♪ My psychosis as the crowd is throwin' me roses ♪
♪ And Bravos ♪
♪ Who wants to oppose this ♪
♪ I know a couple of cats who will finally out ♪
♪ Like want to contest Myka 9's route ♪
♪ Without getting tucked in they snout ♪
♪ They albino ♪
♪ Ready to cut this rap on Vinyl ♪
♪ Work on the demo ♪
♪ Replay tape ♪
♪ Shows these fools I go more than wild ♪
♪ More than eight ♪
♪ Crush them like the skin of grapes ♪
♪ Cats don't even know it I've seen the fake ♪
♪ Revenge the rake ♪
♪ Yo keep digging in the crates ♪
♪ Keep the love ♪
♪ Myka 9'll set 'em straight ♪
♪ Oh yeah ♪
♪ Is that cool ♪
♪ Cool ♪
- Got enough of cannon fodder?
Enough for the kids?
Can I go now?
- [Gift Of Gab] Freestyle is like a lucid reality.
You know like they say that life is just a dream that this
is all a dream that lasts like a hundred years.
But when you asleep, dreams are more lucid.
You can be anywhere at any time.
Only this reality is more structured.
- [Ras Kass] Life is like freestyling.
You know,
you don't have a set goal, you don't have a set journey.
And sometimes you do
and you still get hit with a speed bump.
You may stumble and it may change your whole trajectory,
but your end goal is to win.
- [Del] I mean you going to mess up. You know what I'm saying?
You going mess up sometimes.
Sometimes you going to not rhyme,
sometimes you going to inadvertently diss yourself.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like you gonna say something stupid.
But if you could just bounce back
and just keep it going, you know,
that's where you kind of get your respect from.
And you gotta kind of have like a low amount of fear.
- [Sean Price] Freestyle is a thought.
So if it's a thought and you put it on paper.
It ain't a freestyle no more.
You know, simple.
You know, simple as that.
You know,
if I just choose to go willy-nilly with it
and you know what I mean,
then it's a freestyle.
You know the thoughts you put on paper
and the thoughts you just spit out sporadic.
You know,
that's the difference between the song and the freestyle.
- [B-Real] You know,
there was cats that wrote their raps
and dudes that did it off the top of the head.
And with the guys did that were writing it,
you could pretty much tell it was written.
You know what I mean?
' cause it was,
you could tell there was a lot of structure there where
guys from off the top of the head,
they were just spitting a lot of stuff that sounded cool,
Really, some of it didn't make sense.
It became one of those things where
you had to be good at both.
You had to be good at writing and free styling.
There are some dudes that do it better than others.
Like a guy like Supernatural, you know,
which is probably one of the best at freestyling
off the top of his head.
- The best freestyler I've ever seen in my life is a rapper
named Supernatural.
And I've seen him like just pick people outta the audience
and make intricate rhymes and not rhyme simple.
Rhyme three syllable words together off the head.
(up beat hip hop music)
[Supernatural] ♪ Listen, listen. ♪
♪ He is incredible ♪
♪ Yo, I am a king ♪
♪ When I'm on the mic ♪
♪ I could spit about anything ♪
♪ Under the sun ♪
♪ Yo listen to me drop it ♪
♪ Now this is the part where you dig into your pockets ♪
♪ Okay very slick ♪
♪ When I start to ride ♪
♪ Yo my freestyles off the top is classified ♪
♪ Everywhere I go ♪
♪ You can never know ♪
♪ I kill the microphone at any tempo ♪
♪ This is part of the show ♪
♪ It's very necessary ♪
♪ And if you gotta find me ♪
♪ Hit me on the Blackberry ♪
♪ Yeah that's the way that I drop ♪
♪ I speak me ♪
♪ So dig it to your pocket right now and eat three ♪
♪ And she's so cute ♪
♪ Every time that she blasts quick a gap in the teeth ♪
♪ And she gave me your Chapstick ♪
♪ Yeah tell you what ♪
♪ And we like it like that ♪
♪ Incredible memoirs of the cat named Supernat ♪
♪ But you know it's so hot ♪
♪ And I blow it so hot ♪
♪ Have you ever seen a white man take off ♪
♪ Give a black man a watch ♪
♪ Hey blow the spot and we could spit again ♪
♪ And yo it's not a Rolex ♪
♪ It's just a Citizen ♪
♪ Ha ♪
♪ Every time that I blow I blaze ♪
♪ I could spit like this ♪
♪ And we rhyme for days ♪
♪ Couldn't you tell ♪
♪ Grabbed a microphone on the drum ♪
♪ He gave me a pack of watermelon gum ♪
♪ Beats on the drum spit like a scanner ♪
♪ Way that I could do it ♪
♪ I used my bandana ♪
♪ This is what I do ♪
♪ I'm sick like the flu ♪
♪ Freestyle so hard that he jumped out his shoe ♪
♪ Pee-Ew ♪
♪ You put it back on ♪
♪ Transform ♪
♪ When I'm on the mic ♪
♪ I truly blast on ♪
♪ Could you comprehend with the style that I send ♪
♪ This is all off the dome so I don't need a pen ♪
♪ Yo, ♪
♪ I'm going in every time I'm flowing in ♪
♪ Flavor so hard they could call me George ♪
♪ A-K Yo we put it down like that ♪
♪ His first name Jeremy and his last name Wrap ♪
♪ Hey yeah brother. ♪
♪ Three seconds flat off the top of the dome ♪
♪ It's the cat Supernat ♪
♪ And when I'm on the mic ♪
♪ Yo they can never tip me ♪
♪ Is the bottle half full or is it half empty ♪
- It's spontaneous.
You gotta be quick on your feet.
You have to think on the fly and always keep it moving.
Then it is a game to me too when I'm on stage freestyling
to see how much I can come up with off the head.
How much I can make on the spot.
You know how many people I can move by my music.
For those that don't know,
I currently hold the world record for the longest freestyle
rap off the dome.
We did that at San Bernardino at the fairgrounds out there,
the Orange show.
And it was nine hours and 15 minutes off the head.
And until you've attempted something like that,
you can't possibly imagine the mental power that it takes to
pull off something like that.
Every hour in between hours,
they would make us take a break
so that I could catch my breath.
It was only a five minute break you were allotted.
But just to be on stage rhyming for that long,
you go into like a euphoria almost.
You go into a different world.
- For me,
when I was like rhyming every single day all the time,
I could like feel several different trains of thought
going on at the same time.
So I could, you know,
know what I was about to say.
And then I would also be thinking about the next rhyme
while I was saying one.
And then another part of me was almost outside of my body,
like holy shit, am I really doing this right now?
Like I'm killing it, you know?
♪ So incredible ♪
♪ I quote just like the Hulks vocal ♪
♪ When he gets angry ♪
♪ Don't try to bite it ♪
♪ It's tangy ♪
♪ Mcs get strangled at different angles ♪
♪ Trigonometry or G-O with the free flow ♪
♪ This shit is below zero and skill wise I killed that ♪
- [Narrator] So what does it actually take the rap?
What is your brain doing when you are improvising
as opposed to reading?
What is behind the science of rapping?
♪ My flows is the wokest ♪
♪ Hocus Pocus ♪
♪ They disappear ♪
♪ Check what I engineer ♪
♪ They get filled with fear ♪
♪ I'm a fuckin' billionaire ♪
♪ Listening to Doom's Gazillionaire ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
- I was invited out by the National Institutes of Health.
They wanted to do a pilot program where they measured the
brain activity in the different lobes while someone was
engaging in freestyle rap.
- [Dr. Charles Limb] My name is Charles Limb.
I am an otolaryngologist,
a head and neck surgeon here at Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore, Maryland.
In common terms,
what that means is I study ear, nose, and throat medicine.
I focus on how people hear complex things such as music.
My clinical practice is all based on treatment of people
with hearing loss or musicians or deafness.
And then my research all centers around how it is that we're
able to do this thing called music.
So as a musician,
I've been playing jazz my whole life
and one of the main things about jazz
is that the music is improvised.
And so this is something that as a listener
and as an amateur player,
I'd always thought, wow, this is kind of great.
You know, I love improvising,
I love listening to somebody improvise.
The more I started listening to jazz
and thinking about it at a higher level,
I started thinking, oh,
how are they doing this?
How does John Coltrane do that when he's playing?
How did Miles Davis do that?
And at first it was really the kind of question that anybody
who likes music or jazz would ask.
You know,
you'd kind of casually throw that question out there.
But for me it became more than a casual question.
I said,
wow, you know, how does he do it?
And then I thought to myself, well let's try to find out.
I wanted to start directing my efforts towards music
and I decided to study functional brain imaging.
That's a method relatively recent,
depending on your frame of mind,
where you can take a person,
put 'em in a MRI machine and look at their brain activity
while they're doing something.
So in my case,
if I designed an experiment properly,
I should be able to study how a jazz musician
or a freestyle rapper improvises in real time.
♪ [Emmanuel Jackson] Top of the beat ♪
♪ There's no repeat ♪
♪ Rhythm and rhyme make me complete ♪
♪ Climb is sublime when I'm on the mic spittin' rhymes ♪
♪ Start to get you like stretch ♪
♪ Search for the truth ♪
♪ In it's eternal breath ♪
♪ Asked how fast you can see our dress ♪
- When we did the functional brain scanning
of jazz musicians,
the results were pretty striking to me in the end.
What we found though was that the whole brain is really
engaged during a process of improvisation.
It really,
creativity engages the entire brain.
And that in and of itself is a pretty remarkable finding.
But very specifically,
we also found that in the prefrontal cortex of the brain,
that's this part of the brain up here that really separates
humans from animals.
We had a very interesting combination of things where a
broad portion of this brain was turning off.
And by turning off, I mean it was relatively deactivated.
And these are areas that are thought to be involved in many
things, including conscious self-monitoring, self-censoring,
self inhibition,
a way to kind of put a context to what you're doing.
All the rule-based ways that we evaluate our own efforts
and goal-directed behaviors are all filtered
through this consciousness that we have.
And in improvisation that consciousness
was being turned off.
(funky hip hop beat)
- In LA the underground hip hop that was cracking
was due to the fact that gangsta rap was so big
and nobody knew that there were cats out here
that were doing, you know,
conscious rap or just rap.
That was the alternative to gangsta.
- Growing up in LA
you know,
we caught the hip hop
and the rap influence a little bit later.
You know,
New York had it first
and it started trickling down here to LA
on a station called K-D-A-Y.
- As far as me taking notice of gangsta rap would be
Ice-T, NWA.
Obviously the next evolution after that is
Snoop Death Row, Pac
and their counterparts would be Biggie, Jay-Z, Nas.
- [The Game] As far as Los Angeles and California, man,
there was nothing like it.
Everything that was rapped about
you could walk out your front door and see and you know,
without even wanting to be a part of it,
you were a part of it, man.
So that's how I came up.
And you know, it was scary.
'cause you know, the music, the lifestyle,
Los Angeles in general, the riots when I was 11 years old,
like you could die.
You know, being a part of what it was transforming into.
- From the coexistence of, you know,
what we call gangsta rap NWAs to what became, you know,
considered the avant-garde West coast hip hop, which is,
you know, Pharsyde and Freestyle Fellowship.
Now we have, you know,
the up to date and the star of the show is Open Mike Eagle.
♪ They say they looking for me ♪
♪ But I don't want to hear it ♪
♪ You can find me at the park district volunteering ♪
♪ With my head disheveled ♪
♪ And my sneakers scuffed ♪
♪ Or use your GPS ♪
♪ And get your celly features up ♪
♪ I went to Africa ♪
♪ They played me on the radio ♪
♪ And did I wear the people out ♪
♪ Yeah maybe so ♪
♪ 'cause all they knew was jive ♪
♪ And all I do was vibe ♪
♪ And bright green light made the program director ♪
♪ Loose his mind ♪
♪ He said what type of rapper is that ♪
♪ Ain't no bitches hoes ♪
♪ And I ain't even being funny ♪
♪ Homie didn't know ♪
♪ Check, check, check ♪
♪ You old middle of the road ass ♪
♪ Don't know the code ass ♪
♪ Mid Rain flat eq not even low Pass filter ♪
♪ You'll probably like gray better than silver ♪
♪ Closet full of short sleeve dress shirts ♪
♪ For work like Dagwood or Dilbert ♪
♪ And if you was a nut you'd be a filbert ♪
♪ About as edgy as Bob The Builder ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Your whole styles all butter knife ♪
♪ You make Jack McBryar look like a gutter snipe ♪
♪ You probably get 10 types of offended ♪
♪ At adult content and just a friend and do what you like ♪
♪ So do some helium sound of your voice ♪
♪ Is extra extra medium ♪
♪ Anything to dress up your mediocre presidium ♪
♪ Get zesty at mexico karaoke nights and do kiss medleys ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
- [Narrator] Introducing Open Mike Eagle
outta South Central LA's Freestyle collective.
Project Blowed.
- I've been rapping since I was 16.
I've been rapping since I was in high school.
I didn't start doing shows till I was in college
and I didn't write a song until I had to do my first show.
And so started writing and recording in college
and then put out my first EP shortly after I moved out here.
And just about every label I would want to deal with
and where it would make sense.
And these are all independent labels.
I'm on their radar.
We know each other.
There's professional networking and relationships happening.
So not only does it make more sense for me to deal with this
particular style of label,
it's easier because I'm already part of the machine
in a sense.
Whereas me trying to deal with a major label,
I'm literally cold calling
or cold emailing or trying to show up at somebody's office
and trying to somehow put myself into a context
to something that they understand
or to something that's similar to what they sell.
And what I do is really not like that.
- The majors recoup, you know,
they give you a whole bunch of money and take it back.
But India, it doesn't happen that way.
You know what I'm saying?
You're out there, you making your own moves.
And what's cool about India is that
if you know what you're doing,
you know what I'm saying, you can go far, you know,
and you don't have to answer to anyone.
- You know, me being a person that's,
I mean just about completely independent.
I mean I book 85% of my own dates.
You know, I do, you know,
I do all my own recording.
I assemble a lot of my product on my own.
I don't have time to really pull teeth to put myself in a
situation that my momentum hasn't already carried me to.
It just takes too much of my energy and resources away.
Where at the end of the day I need to be trying to better my
product as much as I can.
I need to be trying to write a better song.
I need to be trying to record a better verse.
I need to be trying to find a better beat or make a better
beat all the time.
- [DJ Muggs] You can be creative as you want,
you can go to the left,
put your middle finger up,
it's still urban punk rock,
you know what I mean?
And be creative and do your own thing and still be
successful and be monetarily successful by doing your thing.
You don't gotta go fit into this mode.
Because I think if I was growing up today
and I seen what was going on,
I wouldn't even have been infatuated by it
and wanted to do this.
- [Planet Asia] I probably wouldn't even be rhyming
if I grew up in hip hop today,
I probably would not be into hip hop.
I'd probably be probably in a martial arts or something.
- Because you gotta fit into
this cookie cutter category now.
And back then you didn't.
It was about going to the left as much as you can
to be accepted.
Now it's like you gotta come into this zone right here
where everybody's at to be accepted.
- I was about 12 years old.
There was this older cat that used to come to our building
and he used to come through and freestyle.
He was a rapper.
He was kind of like somebody everybody in the neighborhood
looked up to because he was a rapper.
So he would come through every day.
We were all younger than him so he would pick one person
every day and he would take off on him just what they were
wearing, whatever, you know,
bagging and capping, you know,
like you did when you were younger.
It was my turn and he basically, you know,
just flashed on me, just started freestyling about me.
You know, I went home, I was mad so I had to challenge him.
So before I started freestyling, I started writin'.
I would ride a rhyme every day and and go back to his crib.
Me and my friend would go to his crib,
ride our bikes to his crib,
knock on his door and start rhyming.
And of course he would kill us every day.
We was using written's
and he was using freestyles
and he would kill us every day, you know,
til I got older and I started building my skill up
and then I was finally able to beat him.
- Anything you've just made up is a freestyle.
And that means if you're kicking a written verse against
somebody and you pull some lines out of the sky to connect
the dots, well then that part is freestyle.
So it's what, 10-15% freestyle.
Whatever you know, percentage you want to give it.
Usually you can tell when somebody's not coming completely
off of the top because it's mostly terrible.
Especially if they're trying to stay on subject
and they didn't think of absolutely anything.
Then they're gonna be grabbing all over the place.
Occasionally they'll tug against something.
It sounds like it's relevant,
but for the most part,
and especially in battling,
you fool not to think of anything.
And even if you just thought of it in between rounds,
it's still premeditated.
Now premeditated doesn't necessarily mean written
but you know, you prepared a little bit.
You did something potent
because you're trying to win a competition
where you have to say better things than the other person.
- Without any further ado,
are y'all ready to make battle rap history?
(crowd cheering)
And on my left a battle rap legend.
Y'all have seen him over the years.
Annihilate mad opponents.
Iron Solomon.
(crowd cheers)
(triumphant music)
♪ You a pissed off pipsqueak floating up shit's creek ♪
♪ The goals that you have for your life I reach this week ♪
♪ See my careers beginning to grow ♪
♪ Yours beginning on its decline ♪
♪ And here I sit on the throne ♪
♪ You sitting on the bidet ♪
♪ because you ain't stacking no more paper ♪
♪ Your crap just got flushed ♪
♪ You ain't dropping no new shit ♪
♪ Your ass is washed up ♪
(crowd rumbles)
♪ From Philly, Pennsylvania ♪
- [Crowd Member] Word up.
♪ The live at Grizzle mania ♪
♪ With a bag full of dust I bought all the way from Cambria ♪
♪ On fifth Street ♪
♪ Hotter then fish grease ♪
♪ So you fuck with DMC ♪
♪ Whose dick you on this week ♪
♪ More powerful than Solomon ♪
♪ Stronger then King Sampson ♪
♪ He got a follow and fuck I wouldn't chance it ♪
♪ I cut the music back up ♪
♪ I kept jamming like I ain't hear him talking about money ♪
♪ Them niggas scrambling ♪
♪ I got the word when I was in the spot gamin' ♪
♪ How they hype his little white ass up ♪
♪ Like he the champion ♪
♪ But what he really looking for is a companion ♪
♪ Somebody he can show how to fish and go camping ♪
♪ I can write out quickly ♪
♪ He's slow dancin' ♪
♪ Catch him with the right hand ♪
♪ and reprogram him ♪ - What!
♪ To beat me you gotta worship the devil ♪
♪ I mean really know that nigga on the personal level ♪
♪ He can call me magneto ♪
♪ How I work with the metal ♪
♪ When we can settle while the court ♪
♪ Pitch fork and the shovel ♪
- Battling is like a cross between freestyling
and pre-written disses
that you weave into the particular character.
- When you rap battle face to face,
the guy who's able to freestyle better is the one
who will rip you down.
'cause he'll just get on you in front of everybody talking
about stuff that's right here and you could grab and touch
and be relevant.
So, you know, it's important to know that art.
- On the battle.
I think you come, you know guns cocked already.
You know, you know what you gonna say for the most part.
- I remember one guy I had a battle with and he beat me.
I was like 14 years old and I probably had about,
my record was maybe 15-0
and I meet this guy who was maybe about 18, 19 years old
and he's ready to battle me.
And my lyrics were so scientific I would always win
'cause of my vocabulary and lyrics
and I'm saying all these biochemist rhymes,
I come from your throat, I spit the egg,
the nucleus to the zygote.
And I'm going through all this thing, right?
He said, MC Rakim, you know you ain't shit.
I make you bow on your knees nigga and suck my dick.
Yo.
Everybody started laughing
and the battle I lost
'cause of that stupidness.
And I was like,
wow, okay,
let me go back and get and start making rhymes that's like
more funny and more battle type.
- [Tech N9ne] I would have like stuff like pieces of rhymes sometimes
mixed with freestylin',
you know what I'm saying?
Just, and a lot of MCs do it.
You probably don't ever know,
they won't tell you the truth,
but I'll have like pieces of rhymes,
you know what I mean?
And I'll mix it in with freestyles man
and then it'll just keep going one after another.
You know what I mean?
And that's how we did it man.
You know what I mean?
Like you'll start off with like four bars of a rhyme
and then go into a freestyle
and then another four bars or another two bars of a rhyme
blah blah blah.
And you'll say something about the person in front of you,
then you keep on going.
You know what I mean?
So that's how I did it.
- Because I think over time it has become such a big deal
to even exist in a freestyle or not to lose or have,
you know,
punchlines ready.
I think that some freestyle artists just have certain
punchlines in their head that will go with pretty much
anything.
- You basically just wrote some shit
to battle against this cat
and you wrote it in a fashion that's like,
if I do forget something I can freestyle and patch it up.
So you still like it.
But I don't think going into any battle
unless you say
we battling on who got the hardest rhymes.
This is a freestyle battle.
You can't write a god damn thing,
you can't write your name on your hand in this battle.
You know what I'm saying?
No, no pens allowed, nothing.
- When it comes to freestylin' over a beat
or battling over a beat versus battling acapella.
Whereas you can see that when somebody doesn't have a beat,
they have more time to type to kind of set up each line
and deliver it and let the reaction happen.
But that's actually more difficult to do than it looks
to let each line breathe like that.
Especially if you're trying to remember a long thing
that you wrote.
You know,
some of these guys go for unlimited rounds
where they'll kick five minutes worth of bars
against this other person with no beat.
And for me personally,
it'd be easier to remember it all.
If it was on a metronome,
I could use the rhythm to carry me through
remembering everything.
But having taken that away,
there's kind of no safety net where like you could pause too
long,
forget what the next line is
and then where are you in your sequence
if that's the way that you're putting it all together.
- [Nocando] On the major stage of battle rap
like you better be your pen game and your freestyle game.
Whatever you,
you choose is your front leg
or the whatever you choose is your tool.
You better be good.
Like if there's a room full of 20 rappers,
all those 20 rappers don't suck.
- [Dumbfoundead] You know the big battlers
out on the east coast,
they're all part of like the Smack URL battle league.
The cats like DNA, Hollow Da Don, Loaded Lux,
Iron solomon,
♪ And I was self-taught ♪
♪ My education was intuition ♪
♪ School of hard knocks paid my own dues and tuition ♪
♪ I used my aggressive disposition ♪
♪ To get to disposition ♪
♪ That L I took didn't end the mission ♪
♪ That was intermission ♪
♪ I'm still player ♪
♪ It made me a hell raiser ♪
♪ Plus I never been a grudge holder or an axe grinder ♪
♪ I never hey yo watch your mouth ♪
♪ When I never been a grudge holder or an axe grinder ♪
♪ I just passed by you ♪
♪ If you a roadblock ♪
♪ I'm a fast driver ♪
♪ Even without no gas or a flat tire ♪
♪ I'm that writer who could turn the whole map ♪
♪ in a flat liners on paper ♪
♪ I got pad after pad for you man-ginas ♪
♪ Hitting keys a giggities for you bitches ♪
♪ Like Quagmire ♪
♪ When I slack my la- ♪
♪ When I slap my last time on Smack White ♪
♪ It got crowd hyper ♪
♪ Heard him talk like he had what it take to attack Iron ♪
♪ But you died soon as the contract was signed ♪
♪ And the bad wire ♪
♪ Guess it ain't work out how you planned ♪
♪ 'cause I'm backfired. ♪
- Let's go.
(crowd clapping)
- Give it up for my man Iron Solomon yo.
(fun drum beat)
- [Narrator] Meet Iron Solomon,
a hungry young freestyler
who came up in the New York battle scene
and soon became its most infamous internet champion.
- I always wanted to be a rock star when I was a little kid,
you know,
I wanted to be Slash and then it became Biggie Smalls
and Jay-Z.
I was rapping since I was probably about nine years old
and playing guitar at the same time.
And you know,
writing rap songs and writing songs on guitar
and playing in band, you know, doing Red Hot Chili Peppers,
cover songs and stuff like that.
And then when I was about I guess 10 or 11,
I switched to public school and you know,
kids were freestyling in class
and it was a different environment.
So that's when I started to not just write but freestyle.
It's a vicious world out there
where kids are always talking shit to each other.
So that was just part of the way we interacted.
It was normal everyday life to talk shit to each other.
So if we're freestyling, you know,
you're bragging that I fucked your girl,
I fucked your mom, you know,
I'm gonna smack the outta the teacher, whatever it is.
I wasn't that good at basketball.
Whatever it was just drew me to battling.
And once I started to get a little traction, you know,
I saw it as a way to get a fan base,
get my foot in the door and you know,
build myself towards a career in music.
- [Violent J] Today, having a bomb freestyle that can really,
you can be seen now.
You got the internet,
you can shine off that extra hard.
It ain't like being on the corner anymore.
You can become a star off that.
You know.
- [Prodigy] The game is oversaturated with a lot of people
just trying to rap, you know what I mean?
And that's cool.
'cause rap.
So that's where we took it, you know what I mean?
It's real popular now. It got big, it got huge.
That's how we wanted it, you know what I mean?
So it's all good.
But at the same time we just got more,
you know what I mean, BS than the stuff that's good.
You know what I mean?
Like it's a lot of stuff that's just,
it sounds so corny, man.
You know what I mean?
It makes it bad for the people that's good.
'cause you gotta get through so much corny stuff in order to
get to the real, you know what I mean?
- [Narrator] To make it in show biz,
you need talent, drive and a solid support system.
Mike Eagle finds his support in his family.
- [Open Mike Eagle] I met my wife about six, eight months
after I moved out to LA.
We got married a year later.
Asa is probably the youngest art rap fan that there is.
And he's a serious fan in the sense of fanaticism.
His favorite rappers are Serengeti, MF Doom, Busdriver.
And sometimes me.
He enjoys beats.
He doesn't even know what he's doing yet
in really any sense,
but he really enjoys emulating
and trying to do what he can in terms of making music.
What's your rap name?
- [Asa Lanoix-Eagle] Open Mike Eagle.
- That's your rap name? What's my rap name?
- Open Mike Eagle.
- We got the same rap name?
- Yeah.
- Oh, okay.
We share it.
- Yeah.
- Cool.
- We should share it because that's a good idea.
- Okay.
You gonna, you gonna rap something real quick?
- Yeah.
- Go ahead.
- Here we go.
- [Open Mike Eagle] All right.
- I give you this mic so you can rap.
- [Open Mike Eagle] Okay.
♪ Yeah Yo want somebody that y'all bad it very sweet. ♪
♪ But I, it was a pretty good day ♪
♪ Because I was drinking water ♪
♪ Because that's why I was being a good boy ♪
♪ Because I, I, I ate my food ♪
♪ Because I was being a little bit good boy ♪
♪ Because it was a good boy ♪
♪ Because I was very learn things around. ♪
Here you go.
- Very good.
- You're turn to do rap.
- He's very observant
and he learns things really fast.
So him watching videos,
these things are really imprinting into his mind
and it's gonna be really interesting to see
how that affects his development.
As a little weirdo rap kid,
I would like him to do, you know,
whatever makes him happy.
I know it's a cliche answer,
but if music doesn't make him happy,
then I wouldn't want him to do music.
And I don't have any problem with him doing music
if he wanted to.
The only thing in the world I really worry about him doing
is playing football.
That's the only thing.
'cause I like, I dunno, as a parent,
there's just certain things you can't even see the same way.
And you watch football,
it's guys look like they're getting hit by cars
and it's just other people.
Oh no.
So other than that, down whatever, whatever.
I'm down for it. Down, whatever.
- [Narrator] The God Rakim says,
it ain't where you come from.
It's where you're at.
But where you came from has a lot to do with
where you're going.
- For me, like my whole family is musicians.
I never really had a question
about whether or not I was gonna be a rockstar
or whether not I was gonna be a musician, you know,
I just saw it. I was around it.
I was, you know, on the studio floor as a little kid.
So it just seemed like the only option that made sense.
And you know,
here I am still chipping away at it, you know.
I don't know if it was like a specific moment that made me
realize how big the battling thing could be
and that that could be a ticket.
But it was like a time period when YouTube
had first come out.
And I wasn't doing any self-promotion beyond,
yo, let me battle, let me battle this guy, let me do this,
you know, at the same time making songs,
making beats and just trying to get my name out there.
And then all of a sudden, you know,
I got videos on YouTube that have, you know, 10,000, 20,000,
60,000, 80,000.
And then I, you know,
broke 100,000 views on some videos on YouTube
and like, you know, that was crazy.
And then people started recognizing me.
That was the moment, you know.
Just realizing the power of the internet
and the power of word of mouth.
And I didn't even do anything to promote it,
you know what I mean?
It just had a life of its own.
- You know, you're on a big stage, there's a lot of money.
It's stake like $10,000, $5,000.
You know. Also there's probably 600 to 1000 people
watching every single round.
You know, 32nd rounds probably about eight to 12 bars
depending on the speed of the beat.
So you would probably have four lines in there
in each round for every person.
And you knew because there was preliminaries
in every major city you knew who won those battles
in every city.
And you'd have a month to just get lines ready.
You get there that day and you see who you see.
It's a room like this. And you see, oh, I know that,
da da da da da da.
Sometimes there's like a random guy that no one knows.
But most of the times like, oh, I've seen him at a cipher.
I've seen him at a battle. I've seen him at a show.
Like,
you know who you're going up against and you immediately,
you know, think of stuff for that person.
So you have like a lead in or something like that.
Or you think of a punchline,
what we call a pre-med or a premeditated punchline.
And then you would just, you know, go no safety net.
Or sometimes if you felt really cocky,
if I felt really cocky,
it was just no safety net
and I would just rip the person apart on things
that I noticed at the moment
and just start playing with the crowd.
You know?
- [Crowd Member] Hell yeah.
♪ Hey the fan saying I ain't ready for this legend play ♪
- [Crowd Member] Talk.
♪ But why hesitate ♪
♪ 'cause you'll miss a hundred percent of the shots ♪
♪ you never take ♪
♪ So I'm fuckin' up ♪
- [Crowd Member] Facts.
♪ No surprise really ♪
♪ I'm Lennox in Belly ♪
♪ Y'all knew how I was cut from the jump ♪
♪ I don't play with rappers ♪
♪ It's simple ♪
♪ If I draw from you lose, Iron ♪
♪ We donating plasma ♪
♪ Nigga get stretched ♪
♪ If this drum clap at your high hat ♪
♪ And through your tempo would be instrumental ♪
♪ To your death ♪
♪ You gonna beat who ♪
♪ You going to beat who ♪
♪ Who we not for play, spine shot ♪
♪ And a bullet from behind it ♪
♪ Called fuck up your holiday ♪
♪ I'm on my shit every time ♪
♪ You gotta pick better lines ♪
♪ Thought I was just finna die ♪
♪ They gassed you ♪
♪ And to be frank this bitch better hide ♪
♪ This how a nigga play ♪
♪ If I need something in my house ♪
♪ I'm run in errands I got bills to pay ♪
(crowd cheers)
♪ Hey I got bills to pay ♪
♪ Hey you hey chill ♪
♪ Hey you think these bars ain't finna beat you ♪
♪ Crazy how you calling niggas legends ♪
♪ When they just ordinary people ♪
♪ This absurd ♪
♪ Thinking he can see me he whiling ♪
♪ Bars ♪
♪ Check how I snap on the card ♪
♪ Like an EBT balance ♪
♪ You and I know ♪
♪ Ruger might blow ♪
♪ The letter come out right before you die ♪
♪ That's a suicide note ♪
♪ You can't keep it real yet ♪
♪ Kill yourself ♪
(crowd cheers)
- There's so many kind of different scenes
or different like leagues or whatever you wanna call it
where people have battled over the years.
And I was always doing the bragging rights.
Scribble Jam, Fight Club, Brainstorm.
I was like flying myself all over the country
going to different battles.
- [Loaded Lux] When they first started,
they started shooting these little battles
and then it went way across the seams.
All over America.
Go to the internet got like probably a million hits.
- [Announcer] Let's see who has what it takes.
Who's built to survive in the world's most respected
MC battle arena?
The URL Ultimate Rap League.
♪ You pitiful ♪
♪ Trying to shoot your shot while you lose the top ♪
♪ Now you thinking you could rock with the champ ♪
♪ Are you stupid ack ♪
♪ Smack set you up ♪
♪ This accosted sad maneuver op ♪
♪ He took the animal out the zoo box for the jew to drop ♪
♪ I said I'm strapped in ♪
- [Crowd Member] Yeah
♪ I crack you in a coma ♪
♪ Madness ♪
♪ I could snap it any moment and it once again I'm here ♪
♪ See them Solomon the cat ♪
♪ Like what's your life like whitey ♪
♪ Did your pockets get tapped? ♪
- Yeah!
♪ Yeah did his pockets get tapped ♪
♪ Did his pockets get tapped ♪
♪ Fuck outta here ♪
- Yo, chill, chill, chill, chill,
chill, chill, chill, chill.
We good?
♪ You once was a breath of fresh air ♪
♪ When did this become a gag to you ♪
♪ Every time we see you choke ♪
♪ I just wanna strangle you ♪
♪ Let's not pretend your friends ♪
♪ Cutting them slack his noose ♪
♪ You've been given too much rope ♪
♪ By dopes that hang with you ♪
♪ O Red you were the worst ♪
♪ Sue surf the first now choking every other battle ♪
♪ Just how New Jersey twerk ♪
♪ You clowns hurt me ♪
♪ How's anyone from your town worthy ♪
♪ If now Jersey ♪
♪ Is basically slang for ending your round early ♪
♪ Now you should be well worried ♪
♪ You snap under less pressure ♪
♪ And choke through more rounds in them ♪
♪ African neck stretches ♪
♪ I mean forget being king if you can ♪
(crowd humming)
♪ I mean forget being king ♪
♪ If you can't write more memorable things ♪
♪ 'cause you struggle to hold your head up ♪
♪ when you stick out your neck in these rings ♪
♪ And if he don't choke ♪
♪ Is 'cause his admiration made him practice for me ♪
♪ Only reason Red capable ♪
♪ 'cause he mad adore me ♪
♪ Red cape a bull ♪
♪ Matador ♪
♪ This is no Spain but for charging me in the ring ♪
♪ This will be where oh wait ♪
♪ Six feet will be our deepest ♪
♪ Six feet could be our deepest continent ♪
♪ If he's gotten it black ♪
♪ Rewarding these accomplishments ♪
♪ There's gotta be some consequence ♪
♪ Y'all wanna see these thoughts of his ♪
♪ On screen for the people watching this ♪
♪ Y'all paid for the pay-per-view ♪
♪ Bow ♪
♪ Now you can stream his consciousness ♪
- [Lil Fame] Oh right nowadays they threatening you.
Fuck your mother. I kill you.
My lyrics so odd.
Kidnap your kids.
You like I don't wanna rap after that.
I can't. I'm not tough as that sir.
But I can't go no harder than that.
You know what I mean?
♪ You not even a eye in front of me you a croc ♪
♪ Food to feed to the croc ♪
♪ A pair of feet in a spot ♪
♪ You just the cheapest he got ♪
♪ When we needed to swap ♪
♪ Y'all know the story ♪
♪ A jew put JC in the plot ♪
♪ You trying to cross your author ♪
♪ I am not no martyr ♪
♪ But if surf was in my way ♪
♪ I would've walked on water ♪
(crowd cheering)
♪ You trying to cross your author ♪
♪ I am not no martyr, ♪
♪ But if surf was in my way ♪
- [Whole Crowd] I would've walk on water.
♪ The son of God can't sun a God ♪
♪ Boy I would wash your father ♪
♪ Hell, I bet, ♪
♪ I bet I'm the baddest white devil you ever dance with ♪
♪ Writing how I've been up in the antichrist ♪
♪ See I've written out this chapter ♪
♪ To bring about the rapture ♪
♪ Beginning with putting this shepherd out to pasture ♪
♪ I let the blind flock to the sheep in wolf's clothing ♪
♪ 'cause my stock ain't going nowhere ♪
♪ I got the G.O.A.T. pen ♪
♪ So fuck what you heard in scriptures ♪
♪ Other people have said ♪
♪ I know JC and these bible verses ♪
♪ Been getting beaten to death ♪
♪ But how I execute it is dexterous ♪
♪ Operations perform perfectly ♪
♪ These scrubs address me ♪
♪ Solomon does surgery to open minds ♪
♪ And a poltergeist takes over my soul ♪
♪ You see the demon's I channel ♪
♪ You can't remotely control ♪
♪ So push my buttons. ♪
- [Smack Williams] Back in like, you know, 2005
technology caught up with time.
Websites came out like, you know what I'm saying?
YouTube, you know what I mean?
YouTube was like, you know what I mean,
a monster where it allowed people to upload videos
and everything like that.
When those platforms, the world stars,
the YouTubes came out,
it kind of depreciate the value
of just regular hip hop content.
Like you know what I mean?
Or on a physical format like you know,
because people used to basically take the DVDs
and upload it up to these platforms
and then everybody got access to this content for free.
So you know, we had to make a decision to basically,
you know,
create a new website where we could have people just come to
the actual central location where they can have access to
the content.
Basically we made the transition from physical distribution
to digital distribution.
- As far as independent artists are concerned to get your,
get your music out there to the masses.
It's a beautiful too.
(crowd cheering)
♪ Talk to the folks about bars over jokes ♪
♪ To me real MCs who spit hard can do both ♪
♪ I got punchlines personals and rap with conviction ♪
♪ So the slogan I'm upholding is facts over fiction ♪
(crowd cheers)
♪ No reason of lie son ♪
♪ We both agreeing that I was just defending my title ♪
♪ The final season of Fight Club ♪
♪ You backed out like a prudish square ♪
♪ Playing truth or dare ♪
♪ Then you take a dive like a tourist ♪
♪ Wearing scuba gear ♪
♪ Gave a cheap excuse we aint buy like a souvenir ♪
♪ I end a battle in some random rapper who was there ♪
♪ Told the crowd I only battled this bitch ♪
♪ 'cause moot was scared, ♪
♪ Moot, didn't say shit or do shit ♪
♪ And you was there ♪
(crowd cheers)
♪ I wait a few more years while you prepare ♪
♪ And now you just pop up ♪
♪ Well I'm only battling this bitch ♪
♪ 'cause Hollow got locked up ♪
(crowd cheers)
(horn blaring)
♪ Did not see Murder Mook on Murder level ♪
♪ Murder gang and yet ♪
♪ I was certain he be strapped to serve ♪
♪ And crack the workup pack ♪
♪ I said, what's up Mook ♪
♪ I thought he said was cracking to go br-rat ♪
♪ But instead he said ♪
♪ I've been taking classes up at Platt ♪
♪ You was looking shook in Brooklyn ♪
♪ Want me rolling through the ghetto with him ♪
♪ He think Irons a copper so nobody will meddle with him ♪
(crowd rumbles)
♪ I said fuck protecting rappers ♪
♪ After what happened to Shawn Poe ♪
♪ Since you think I'm Poe nine ♪
♪ I'm gonna be on 5-0 ♪
♪ See even though I look the part I actually hate police ♪
♪ Get heated when I be around a pork like bacon grease ♪
♪ You wouldn't think a white Jew goes ham but I do ♪
♪ This guy's too sick to loose till pigs fly ♪
♪ Well swine flu ♪
♪ You are sheep in wolf's clothing ♪
♪ I'm a wolf in disguise ♪
♪ When my teeth is all showing I pull wool over eyes ♪
♪ I might look like the type to win a Pulitzer prize ♪
♪ Till I pull it surprise ♪
♪ And I bullet your eyes ♪
(crowd cheers)
- If you're in a barbershop,
you know it's about those 20 people that are there.
And if you are in a 1500 person venue,
it's about the people that are there.
And then now it's about the people online,
you people that are gonna see the video
and you have to appeal to that crowd.
- If I was in high school right now and I know I can,
you know, get my talent visually heard and seen, you know,
I would be doing the same thing.
I would be battling cats on camera
and trying to get my name out there too.
You know what I mean?
Because a lot of dudes,
they don't even know the first steps
to even get into the studio.
- [Narrator] Just as New York redefined music as we know it,
with hip hop.
Los Angeles redefined the art of freestyling.
To mean,
not just kicking a rhyme but making it up on the spot.
Complete improvisation.
And it all started on Crenshaw Boulevard.
- Alright, right now we're right in the middle of
Leimert Park.
We're on the 43rd place in Leimert Boulevard.
And Leimert Park has been a place
where throughout LA's history,
Leimert Park has always kind of housed
all the black culture.
And it's been a place where people have been able to come
and jam on all different types of genres.
And right here in particular at this Building KAOS Network,
this is where that's happened.
On the rap side of things.
Well The Good Life is where it all began.
And that was,
you know, maybe a mile down the way from here.
- Right across the street is The Good Life
where it all started man.
- [Duane Earle] What's up you guys?
You're at my restaurant Earle's Grill.
We're on Crenshaw and Exposition.
Been in the community 27 years for those of you who know our
career and our history.
We started with a hot dog cart back in 86.
In the music industry,
I was fortunate to have been signed with Ice Cube.
I was very fortunate to have been do ghost writing
for Eazy-E.
And I was very one of the few fortunate artists to even
venture into a place called The Good Life.
It was one of the only few venues that even attempted to
showcase and highlight what was really going on in the
LA underground scene.
- It was already a health food store directly across the
street, but it was on B. Hall and her son.
Like this whole area has always been dedicated
to trying to keep the youth from all that.
The projects is right there, The Jungles.
It's right there up the way,
you know it's jungles like it's gang bangs here.
Like shit.
She gave us a spot to come
and say meet the other kids like you.
This is what, and she enforced.
No cursing, no battling on each other, no, none of that.
If you gotta beef handle that.
But no cursing, no cuss, no mamas, no nothing, no nothing.
No gangs, no nothing like,
and that's when this turned into like,
fuck a gang nigga I'm going to the Good Life.
- It was a place too where different hoods met up
where you know,
there could be some gang banging activity
and things of that nature.
I wondered myself,
what was the magnetism of Crenshaw in general around that
Crenshaw, King,
that Leimert Park area to where from the early jazz days of
world stage, Billy Higgins on through,
you know,
people that claim Leimert Park now,
Project Blowed, you know,
the Kendrick Lamar
Terrence Martin is just all these talented people that stem.
And I think it's because of the different artistry
and the culture that fed off each other.
Like I feel like I'm a better MC because of my jazz things,
the musicians and, and the theoretical approach.
- [Pigeon John] When I went there I realized, man,
there's everyone's great.
I need to step on my game.
So I went there every week and just dove in.
I got booed off the stage a lot of times,
but I just wanted to learn how to, you know,
rock a crowd to give a good show
to be my own personality,
but kind of please the people,
but kind of like,
oh man that dude is dope.
So it was, I just dove into it.
- [Crooked I] If you ever went to The Good Life,
if you ever went to Leimert Park,
all you've seen was people snapping on people battling
everybody's circles over here,
circles over there on stage,
people getting booed.
Please pass the mic.
Gangsta rappers that's really gang banging
with pistols on 'em.
Rapping on stage and people being scared to tell 'em to pass
the mic 'cause they think they gonna get shot or something.
Like that whole scene deserves a movie.
- This right here, this was The Good Life right here.
They done changed it.
It ain't even deep in there like it used to be.
It used to go all the way back to the back.
This was The Good Life.
This is where peace was born.
This is where my life changed.
This is where we changed your life.
- [Narrator] To make it in the current rap battle arena,
you need skills, punchlines and talent.
You also need to be willing to be humiliated in public.
Not everyone is cut out for the battle circuit.
- This is the legendary Pyramid Club.
This is the Lower East Side Manhattan, lower East Side.
A lot of history.
Classic New York Pyramid Club in particular.
You know, a lot of upcoming acts,
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna,
pretty much everybody in that scene coming up,
would perform here, you know what I mean?
And now it's the home of the longest running weekly open mic
in New York City end of the weak, End of the W-E-A-K,
which is also every Sunday night.
They do freestyle competitions.
They do, you know, showcases, perform a song.
You know, spit a verse.
The dj, they do a competition called the MC challenge
where the first round you spit like a written verse
with punchlines.
Second round you spit a acapella, you know,
something personal, something meaningful.
Maybe third round you spit is a freestyle
grab bag round.
You have a bag or a box of items that you reach in
and pull out items that have to be spontaneous
and put 'em together.
You know, fourth round is beat juggling.
So DJ will be playing some regular boombap hip hop shit
and then all of a sudden switch it up.
It'll be some double time,
southern, something crazy and it might be Britney Spears
or Michael Jackson and you gotta just keep rapping
and not miss a beat.
You know, stick with the flow.
And then the last round is the cipher skills where you gotta
play off of somebody else's energy
and show that you can count bars, you know,
and then go off the last thing they said.
So as opposed to a battle,
which shows your only shows your battle ability, you know,
as an MC, the MC challenge shows, you know,
a much more well-rounded picture of you as an MC.
Freestyle shit, written shit, punchline stuff.
More meaningful stuff.
So something that's a holdover from an era in New York where
this kind of event was important, you know what I mean?
And it still is important because this is one of the only
ones that really is doing it the way that it,
it was done in the way it's supposed to be done.
You know,
people rapping outside, people rapping inside,
you know what I mean?
It's hip hop, you know.
- The Good Life was more, let's just say for seniors,
let's just say seniors.
Well we started this here.
There was a whole nother kind of young MC
coming up right up under our feet.
We saw this,
we knew this like we gotta do something.
Acey said,
well you know what?
I want a battle.
I wanna be able to cuss this nigga the fuck out
if I want to.
We couldn't do that there.
That's Mecca.
That's epicenter.
No,
let's go down the street and still keep it in the hood.
And I get my own and I can cuss this fool out
the way I want to.
Now that's the difference between The Good Life
and Project Blowed, same theory, same ethics.
It's just,
I could whip your ass here
and I can't whip your right there.
- [Verbs] Lyric's Lounge had came out
when I was like in high school
back when I first started using the internet.
And I was like, man,
I wanna find something like that in the west coast.
And I just did Google searches
and then I heard of Project Blowed,
then my brother told me there was something in Leimert Park
that happens every Tuesday when I was 17,
I went for the first time.
Then when I graduated my graduation night,
I went there late at night.
There was only four people there.
But I ended up rapping the shows that Project Blowed
were in KAOS Network.
Like, you know, 4343.
It was like on the corner, these people rapping,
drinking forties, stress blunts, Crips, weirdos,
all in between.
You know.
- The interesting thing there was watching people's styles
develop while challenging those rules,
but remaining inside of that structure where once you got to
Project Blowed here in 96 when the AC alone and AB Rule
brought it here they brought it here
and collaborated with Ben Caldwell who owns the spot.
And one of the things that they wanted to do was create a
spot with no rules at all.
- [Ben Caldwell] I am the owner and director of this place called
KAOS Network.
We initially named this place KAOS Network because in 1984
I started this as a computer matrix,
kind of a thinking concept.
We were connecting five community centers together.
And then I started working with these youth trying to figure
out is there a free way to work with them by sitting up a
neutral zone where they can create
and nurture what I call the avant-garde.
- So any kind of language, any kind of rap styles,
really any kind of content.
And the only structure imposed was the crowd
being able to say, please pass the mic.
And that that to call somebody to have to get off stage like
Apollo style, you know?
And so it was the onus for creating the structure was all on
the crowd and happened to be a crowd
full of really awesome rappers.
So the bar, the quality was really high.
And that created this kind of atmosphere.
People challenging each other to try to take this thing as
far as they can go and really explore and push the
boundaries of rap.
- Leimerk is like Chocolate City
and to the center of LA
It's like if you an artist, if you into jazz,
if you are a musician, if you are a break dancer,
if you a B-boy, if you do Graffiti, any of that,
this is where you would go.
- You know how like in Greece they would
like throw people in the coliseum with wild animals
and like you'd have to like fight for your survival.
You have to like come back with the skull of the animal.
It's kind of one of those kinds of things.
Everybody is really dope and really aggressive, right?
So as soon as you step foot on that corner, 4343 Leimerk
people are coming at your head
and you have to get your skills up just to defend yourself.
You know what I mean?
And then we all come out of the Blowed Academy
like little monsters, you know.
- There's a lot of similar styles from Good Life.
But there was a generational thing that started to develop
too in Project Blowed where younger MCs hung out with each
other and those younger MCs, other than them like,
I don't know how many generations we have now.
I think it's like three, four different generations.
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Watching ESPN ♪
♪ I think that was Hugh Douglas. ♪
♪ I like to said you can tell they got a huge budget ♪
♪ Who's dude running with the football about to get tackled ♪
♪ He needs to change his diet ♪
♪ Eat some apples or else ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Through some pitches on the wayside ♪
♪ So there's a waistline ♪
♪ That way he can face fine defenders ♪
♪ And move 'cause he's elusive ♪
♪ And they'll be playing sports ♪
♪ And we'll be here doing this music ♪
♪ Yeah great rhymes relentless ♪
♪ Man I'm in the trenches ♪
♪ Kind of like a D end ♪
♪ I'll never pretend ♪
♪ Met him on the deep end ♪
♪ Yeah man, ♪
♪ This is how I begin ♪
♪ To kick the freeze in any season ♪
♪ For any reason ♪
♪ Yo my whole life is like the ill news ♪
♪ From the real city blues ♪
♪ City shoes they scuffed up ♪
♪ Fucked up ♪
♪ Then your city loose ♪
♪ Take losses and bounce back like bosses ♪
♪ Flow like a faucet until I'm retarded ♪
♪ Retarded ♪
♪ Nah I don't get carded. ♪
♪ I look kind of old ♪
♪ But I'm bold ♪
♪ You choose to understand me from the floor ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
- Project Blowed remains more of a mainstay
for LA West Coast sound,
underground hip hop sound,
which has definitely carried hip hop a lot through the years
period.
(hip hop beat)
- The Blowed was a thing for the 90s and early 2000s.
What's ended up happening though,
is this rapper Verbs from my crew to Swim Team.
He started this night called Bananas,
which is a monthly and it is created this kind of
eclectic mixed bag kind of feel.
It's a little bit more appropriate for the times.
- My name is Verbs.
We got DJ Tony smooth
DJ L Ray in the house.
This is Bananas
We do it every third Tuesday.
Yeah man, it's gonna get started real soon man.
Got a bunch of cool people performing and shit.
I was,
I had a girlfriend at the time
and she was taking me to places in other parts of the city,
like Echo Park with Silver Lake,
downtown house shows all sorts of shit.
And then she had the idea like, yo,
I wanna throw an event here.
She's like you show me book rappers
and I'll book bands.
And Project Blowed was still going on.
So, you know, I was like, yo,
we could do it in Leimert.
Like,
Ben's all about some pro black young people shit.
Let's do this. Whatever.
I tried to make it like a festival once a month,
every third Tuesday.
That's the vibe I would try to go for
because it is a big homie fest man.
And you know, yeah.
- I think the movement that they're doing now
hasn't been labeled.
You know, I don't think it has a name.
I don't think hipster explains it.
I don't think hip hop really explains it.
And so I think what we're seeing now with Bananas
is a hip hop broth
with the gumbo not described yet.
(laughs)
(funky hip hop beat)
- [Narrator] They say the key to success in any field
is 10,000 hours practice.
Yes.
It is only through intense hard work
and repetition that a person could truly achieve greatness.
- And now we're go to St. James
between Fulton and Gates where Biggie grew up.
I think my top rappers are Jay-Z,
Eminem, Tupac, and Biggie.
Definitely Biggie.
I like to go there sometimes.
Just, you know,
eat some McDonald's in front of Biggie's crib.
Yeah, this is the one right here.
226 St. James,
Clinton the Hill right next to Bed-Stuy
This is where Biggie Smalls,
Chris Wallace was born and raised.
This is the neighborhood.
All the stories that he's telling
and the situations he's describing.
It's here.
It all happened here.
You know, I think that Biggie was,
you know,
he brought like a level of honesty that you didn't always
see at that time.
You know, he obviously had the grandiose narratives and,
you know, just larger than life stuff going on.
But he was also being a hundred percent extremely honest
about the struggle
and the frustration or the pain
or whatever difficulties he was going through.
I think Biggie being here and the neighborhood changing
and evolving and certain elements stand the same.
You know, it,
it's that same dichotomy that he represented when he was
alive of the Every man, the struggle.
But something bigger and grandiose
and possibility and change,
but also a constant, you know,
Biggie's still here.
You know what I mean?
Projects are still here, funeral home's still here.
A lot of things change and a lot of things stay the same.
So you see, you see the past in the present, you know,
and Biggie's the past and the present right now, you know,
and the future because he's gonna continue to influence
and inspire younger generations.
And there's probably a kid in that project building
right now writing rhymes at his desk,
looking out the window at the Biggie mural
And this might be how he found out about Biggie was because
he saw his face on this wall.
And so now Big's the future again.
You know.
(funky hip hop music fades)
- [Narrator] Just like a freestyle
life could be a series of quick decisions
and spontaneous reactions.
When the MC miss steps, we call it falling off.
You could fall off in a rhyme.
You could fall off in life.
It's all about the decision
you're forced to make on the spot.
♪ Got a lady get up on my way to meet her ♪
♪ Gonna form a union like a local group of teamsters ♪
♪ Get your tweesers doing by your research ♪
♪ Had enough to press a graphic image to a t-shirt ♪
♪ Party people ♪
♪ If you hungry get a spoon ♪
♪ I bend the same laws that put a monkey on the moon ♪
♪ Notice them the link between a human and baboon ♪
♪ You can watch the words flutter ♪
♪ Like they flew from cocoon ♪
(record scratch)
- I am doing a massive merch mail out.
We had a little financial hardship at home
and so printed up a special edition
in one of my CDs that had never been
available in that way.
It was a EP I put out before
and put 'em in a cool little package,
little floppy disc cover for the cd.
I pressed up a hundred in this floppy disc case,
this particular EP.
And I've sold about 50 since I announced it last week.
This one's from Georgia.
Got an order from London, Ontario, Canada.
Got an order from England on here.
Lots of places all over California.
Got an order from Australia on here.
The Netherlands, East Coast, Baltimore, Madison, Wisconsin.
Got a pretty good, pretty good variety of locales.
I don't have a day job now.
I have a little hustle though,
like I do graphic design sometimes I can make a little money
on the side that way too.
But most of my income comes from music related stuff.
You know,
it's not too far out of the range of anything that I would
actually be doing.
Sometimes things get hard and, you know,
I end up looking on Craigslist
'cause I used to be a teacher.
So I got a lot of experience with kids.
I got like, you know, I got a college degree and all that.
So occasionally things get bad enough.
I'm on Craigslist looking to see what I can do.
But the realistic, you know,
when it comes down to the practicality of it,
I gotta get something that allows me to be able to travel.
'cause I make a good amount of money on the road.
So it's always tough for me to envision what a real job
would be like when it comes to budgeting.
Like I can pretty accurately say
what I'm gonna bring home from a tour.
And I can pretty confidently say I'll tour twice a year.
So that much I can count on.
Other than that, it's really difficult.
- Anybody that wants to be their own business,
you have to believe I'm the best and I can do it.
Because if you don't, I mean,
everybody else is getting a job, going to college
to work for somebody else.
So entrepreneurs have to believe I can do it.
I'm gonna make it.
If you think anything different,
you're not gonna give 110% and you probably will fail.
You give up when you're dead, you know?
And biting a bullet is you do what you can until,
but if it's your passion, I'm a firm believer,
some people aren't cut out for this.
So if it's not really your passion
and you think, yeah, I'm the rapper
and I deserve everything,
then you are in the wrong business.
- [Narrator] Building a reputation that precedes you
can be a blessing and a curse.
For Iron Solomon,
one wonders if his notoriety as a battle rapper has started
to restrain him as a artist.
(hard hip hop beat)
- The funny thing about
the whole battle scene is that they suffer from being stuck
in the comfort zone just as much as anybody else.
You know, like battling is awesome,
but it's definitely a step towards bigger things, you know.
There's only a few battle rappers I know that's like,
that's all they want to do.
Most of these guys want to sell millions of records
and be on TV, music videos, tons of things like that.
But they get pulled into the battle scene
because it's sustained itself to a point
where you can make some money, you know?
And it's kind of its own enemy, you know?
And a lot of these guys,
they're at the top at one point
and they continue to battle
and lose or get served.
And it's like, and it's a wrap.
- Being a great freestyler
and making a record is two absolutely different things.
A freestyling would be considered to a guy
that could solo on a guitar,
but if you sat him in and said make a melody,
make an arrangement, he couldn't do it.
He can solo his ass off,
but he can't think of a song.
- There's certain skills that if you develop that skill,
it doesn't translate developing that skill of delivering
those lines without the beat.
And it's, you know,
like you're tearing somebody down
and it's a very particular skill.
It doesn't translate well into other mediums.
- A lot of these battle rap freestyle rappers,
they can't make a album.
They don't know how to make an album. You know what I mean?
They could have a good battle.
And a lot of people watch it,
they'll get a lot of views if it's on the internet
and stuff like that.
But when it comes time to make an album,
it's like they can't deliver, you know what I mean?
It's like a different animal.
When you making an album, it gotta be a package.
It gotta be something different. You know what I mean?
- People can freestyle all day.
That don't mean that they're artists, you know what I mean?
You gotta be able to write songs.
You gotta know when to stop rhyming sometimes too much
rhymers, you know, we don't,
sometimes we don't want to hit too much rhymes,
like slow down, you know, slow that shit down.
I just wanna sing the song with you.
The reason why the skill sets are different.
- Between an individual that can write a good rap
or write a good song and someone that could freestyle well,
but maybe not be so adept at making good songs
is the mechanics of the creative process.
- Making records is a whole nother zone.
You gotta make hooks,
you gotta make things that are very catchy
and sometimes you have to dumb down your ability
to make records.
- I think there are times where, you know,
I definitely feel that people are appreciating me for one
thing that's just a piece of what I do.
And they want a very particular thing from you.
They don't wanna see Michael Jordan play baseball, you know?
And I might do a show
and the show's going great
and I do acapellas in between the songs
because I like to draw people in
and just switch up the pacing
and somebody might come up
and that could be their favorite part.
- Because see, once you're so far into the freestyling,
once you focus solely on freestyling,
then that's who you are.
And when you don't mix it up and practice it,
you kind of just pigeonhole yourself to stay in one person.
- I would love to be in a position where
I had the type of movement
and following where it made sense to partner with a
major label because they have muscle.
You know,
battle rap is just one piece of hip hop music
and hip hop music is just one piece of music.
And I'm first and foremost like a music lover.
And then hip hop is my main squeeze, you know?
And battle rap is just her titty, you know?
So I'm trying to milk the other one
and then I'm trying to work my way down, you know.
♪ They know at level that they never attain ♪
♪ Never never could attain ♪
♪ So they mentionin' my name ♪
♪ Mamas babies living largly ♪
♪ They actin' crazy in the party ♪
♪ I go shopping on Rodeo ♪
♪ And them places never charge me ♪
♪ Being lazy show up tardy ♪
♪ Burnin' haze ans sippin' forties ♪
♪ Every night a different city ♪
♪ Every day a different shorty ♪
(beat fades)
- A lot of those fans who watch these battle,
they don't wanna see a lot of those rappers doing songs
and like in a music video,
like if a battle rapper makes a song about love,
like, you know,
the battle rappers think they're soft now.
- I might have someone come up to me in the street
and say they're a huge fan.
And they ask me when am I dropping an album?
You know, when are you putting out a mixtape?
And they have never heard my mixtape or my album
and they're not aware that I have another one coming out.
♪ Now ♪
♪ A bunch of clowns just jealous 'cause they want the crown ♪
♪ I want the belt ♪
♪ But now I gotta buckle down ♪
♪ Headed for the 12th ♪
♪ 'bout to be the the toughest round ♪
♪ Squaring off with the clock time's runnin' out ♪
(heavy beat fades)
(fast guitar beat)
- So we're going on tour for
two and a half weeks.
We're starting in LA we're doing the bay,
we're going out through Phoenix and New Mexico all the way
through Texas to Louisiana.
And then we come back through like Oklahoma,
I think we come back through Arizona
and back through California and we end in Sacramento.
The west and the southwest has been like a fertile touring
ground for like indie cats
and underground cats from LA for a long time.
So this is kind of like a beaten path that started years ago
that, you know, the fandom has already kind of developed
and Busdriver's fandom in particular.
So he's, you know,
taking me and Nocando along an established route
so we can kind of all get on together
and make a splash that way.
♪ Check y'all. ♪
♪ I've been following my creed since a teenager ♪
♪ Writing in more run on sentences ♪
♪ Then the dialogue up in speed racer ♪
♪ So we ain't new to this ♪
♪ And you can tell how we copy floppy computer discs ♪
♪ I'm a futurist so I don't rock a crucifix ♪
♪ I keep it deep in the dirt on some Rosa Crux shit ♪
♪ Yeah I'm on that free thinking double talk ♪
♪ My people's out there like NASA space shuttle walks ♪
♪ I cultivating epiphanies outta subtle thoughts ♪
♪ My people stay serving instead of crossing the line ♪
♪ To the judges called double fall ♪
♪ We got a secret though ♪
♪ We used to keep it low ♪
♪ Us and them same judges is tighter ♪
♪ Than some needle nose pliers ♪
♪ It's time to let the people know through the wires ♪
♪ The higher ups keep below the surface ♪
♪ I haven't seen them but I heard it ya ♪
♪ And who would mislead us on purpose ♪
♪ HellFire is the club ♪
♪ Swim is the team ♪
♪ Blowed is the project the free thinker scream ♪
♪ For whatever they want they feel free ♪
♪ So they can have whatever they want ♪
♪ Y'all feel free ♪
♪ It goes ♪
♪ HellFire is the club swim is the team ♪
♪ Blowed this the project the free thinkers scream ♪
♪ For whatever they want they feel free ♪
♪ So they can have whatever they want ♪
♪ They want, they want, they want ♪
(music fades)
(crowd claps)
- If I'm to be honest with you right now,
I feel absolutely insane.
My emotional levels are outta control
and part of that is just the transition from being on stage
to going back to regular civilian life.
There's no manual for it.
I found it to be very difficult
because when you're on stage,
you get to enjoy the full benefits of supported egomania.
They all belong to you and they all know it.
And there's in accordance with that,
there's an experience of command and of center of attention.
And I actually enjoy it quite a bit.
(slow hip hop beat)
♪ I went to bed at midnight ♪
♪ And then the clock said 1:23 ♪
♪ Go ahead and close your eye lids ♪
♪ And then tell me what you see ♪
(music fades)
- So we did the Bootleg show last night.
It went pretty cool.
Not quite how I had planned.
I mean I wanted a little bit more homecoming rah rah.
I wanted the crowd to like gimme a little bit more
than they were giving me.
And it's kind of important that my stage show maintain a
certain level of energy.
'cause in this independent lane where nobody's really
selling records, nobody's selling albums,
the stage show is the only way that's gonna make some money.
And it's important for me and this guy
that I bring some income in.
- Mike I've known for years
and I've seen him transition from like the street freestyler
to okay, let me sell some CDs,
let me get a website together.
And throughout this,
all these years, his family was growing at the same time.
Not just his career.
- [Narrator] As he continues to expand
beyond his battle rap reputation,
Iron Solomon heads to Los Angeles for some networking
and industry opportunities.
But he's going to do it his way.
- I guess a lot of people come to LA
or are in New York trying to be on camera
as much as possible or you know,
promote themselves.
But I have kind of a funny relationship with fame.
You know,
I wouldn't have a MySpace page back in the day
or Facebook or Twitter if I wasn't an artist.
I'm not into it like that.
I'm hoping out here to make some connections that allow me
to do some things behind the scenes more.
'cause it's not always right for me to be on camera.
I don't always enjoy it. You know?
Now I'm out in LA making rounds,
taking meetings,
getting in the studio with some people,
doing some writing and seeing where it takes me.
I think most people want fame period
and take various routes to get to it.
I love making music
and I would love to be well known for making great music,
being a great rapper.
But I like being on a subway, you know,
and not having anybody know who I am.
So you know,
I need to find a balance between notoriety and privacy.
(somber hip hop beat)
- [Narrator] Back in Los Angeles,
Mike Eagle has returned from his tour
and booked a gig at his old stomping ground.
Bananas at Leimert Park.
The hometown hero returns to the scene of the rhyme.
(crowd chattering)
(music drowns out freestyle)
♪ Make some noise. ♪
(crowd cheering)
- [Verbs] All right.
50 grand 100,000 Open Mike Eagle is next so get ready.
- [Open Mike Eagle] Check, check, check
Yeah, yeah
Can we get the mic up a little.
KAOS Network.
Yo, This is the House of the Blowed, right?
So it's only right if I set it off with some freestyle shit,
right?
- Yeah. - Y'all ready?
Make some noise out there.
(crowd cheering)
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah. ♪
♪ That's how we do it ♪
♪ It's improvisational music ♪
♪ They can't stick it because they translucent ♪
♪ They don't know how we do it ♪
♪ They grabbed the microphone and then they blew it ♪
♪ They host it ♪
♪ It's not a movement ♪
♪ It's at a standstill ♪
♪ Whole flow is garbage like the contents of a landfill ♪
♪ Open hit up off the top of their head like a anvil ♪
♪ They'll have a big ass headache ♪
♪ They need some Advil ♪
♪ MCs think they got rap skill ♪
♪ I'm laughing at their lack of skill ♪
♪ Because they fall off just like pedals on the daffodil ♪
♪ They vaginas ♪
♪ They need some Masingil ♪
♪ And that's a ddutch, watch my operation push ♪
♪ I concentrate and turn these MCs into juice ♪
♪ As I get loose ♪
♪ MCs I just turn up the turbo booster ♪
♪ Then gets cold ♪
♪ That's how I do it like I boost of gold ♪
♪ And I grab the microphone and get loud ♪
♪ Crowd lose control ♪
♪ It's just how we do it ♪
♪ Come on ♪
♪ Put your hands up unless you in beverage ♪
♪ 'cause your sweater got too much dandruff ♪
♪ It's all good yeah ♪
♪ They can be blindly and jack wound in this hood ♪
♪ And that hood ♪
♪ It don't even matter though ♪
♪ I hold it down MCs ♪
♪ 'cause I think they think like a band of Joes ♪
♪ MCs get put on reservations like the Navajo ♪
♪ Stabbing yours when you come through just on some bullshit ♪
♪ I'm right here at the Blowed. ♪
♪ This is my bully bull pit ♪
♪ Hopin' I'll be preaching ♪
♪ Watch your brains are a breaching ♪
♪ Piss on them ♪
♪ Give me my perspectives like Aretha ♪
♪ We do it because I'm a monster ♪
♪ See me like I'm Sasquatch ♪
♪ I'm rapping right now ♪
♪ Yo hold that shit up Rob shot ♪
- Yo. How y'all feelin'?
My name is Open Mike Eagle.
Pick up the verse.
(crowd drowns out speaker)
- [Verbs] Thank a bunch to Open Mike Eagle everybody.
(crowd cheers)
Dude when I coming up, I was a young rap puppy.
(Verbs fades out)
- How goes it? - Chillin' man.
(crowd drowns out speakers)
(rapid beat box beat)
♪ Oh oh ♪
♪ Yeah huh huh ♪
♪ Ah shit ♪
♪ Yeah oh check yeah oh huh ♪
♪ Chilling in Leimert ♪
♪ I'm about to put in work ♪
♪ Whilst I'm feeling on the skirt ♪
♪ I'm about to fuckin squirt ♪
♪ And I'm a gold cop a squirt ♪
♪ I'm from the liquor store ♪
♪ Yeah I'm from the West Coast ♪
♪ Best flows ♪
♪ Yeah man West coast ♪
♪ Yes old. ♪
♪ And I'm getting just like asbestos ♪
♪ Wrapped with my chest clothes ♪
♪ I have 'em fucked up just like XOs ♪
♪ At the end of a letter ♪
♪ Cold but better ♪
♪ MCs don't understand how we stretch these eletters yeah ♪
♪ Yeah we do that 'cause they don't acknowledge rapper shit ♪
♪ I come through with the ball all the way ♪
♪ Black Colin Kapernick ♪
♪ That's what I do the second man in the who's who ♪
♪ Rappin' I'm taking the power ♪
♪ Just like a fuse blew ♪
♪ Yeah like a fuse blew ♪
♪ It's like a who's who of talking that shit ♪
♪ Spitting, clipping, dropping dodo. ♪
♪ Committing voodoo ♪
♪ York to Inglewood and chill with hipsters ♪
♪ or white bitched who don't mingle good ♪
♪ Yeah I put 'em in ♪
♪ They want to lick the wood then I hid it good ♪
♪ I do the shit like you wish you could ♪
♪ Like I'm from a different hood ♪
♪ Nah Upper West the fuckin' best ♪
♪ You wanna come and test ♪
♪ I'm unimpressed I've done it best ♪
♪ I've done it east I've done it west ♪
♪ I've done you done him done her and I've done the rest ♪
♪ and I ♪
♪ If I had it got mad at it now I don't want it ♪
♪ That's why I don't always gotta go flaunt it ♪
♪ The most evil cats is always humble ♪
♪ That's why I'm in a jungle ♪
♪ I rumble when I mumble ♪
♪ All of them so all of them so ♪
♪ Iconic I Blowed it up like C4 ♪
♪ The pipe bombing ♪
♪ Yeah I go raw like I don't like condoms ♪
♪ God dammit I am fuckin' awesome ♪
♪ Fuckin' awesome ♪
♪ Two times used to watch fuckin' Blossom ♪
♪ And say whoa like Joey ♪
♪ I'm Project Blowy ♪
♪ That's why I learned how to flow it ♪
♪ My flow so stoic ♪
♪ It's black history I so historic ♪
♪ Historic and he's project blowy ♪
♪ I learned how to rap in the project boy ♪
♪ That's where it's pissin' in the projects all day ♪
♪ And running a rap was my project always ♪
♪ From the beginning ♪
♪ Like they need maxi pads ♪
♪ They're running away from the cipher ♪
♪ But the taxi cab ♪
♪ They can't take it ♪
♪ Poking a juice can full of alcohol until I hurt myself ♪
♪ Like I was Palbazar ♪
♪ Yeah that's what they do with the ankle ♪
♪ I cut them up and stretch and make them ligaments dangle ♪
♪ I strangle your metric ♪
♪ The different angles ♪
♪ Got the fishing line shit they can't disentangle ♪
♪ It's the dopest it's in they focus ♪
♪ And they the brokest ♪
♪ Engineered to make them disappear ♪
♪ Hocus pocus, ♪
♪ My flow is the locust ♪
♪ And it swarms with the humble beads and seeds ♪
♪ When they fall just like some tumble weeds ♪
♪ I'm really quite sharp. ♪
♪ My words be whistling through the air like darts ♪
♪ And I attack just like a great white shark ♪
♪ My written book is decorated with bite marks ♪
♪ In my styles are rare mix ♪
♪ Of horror flicks ♪
♪ Stephen Kings amiss ♪
♪ With a little Blair Witch ♪
♪ Projects my concepts is all fresh ♪
♪ Me and my niggas we about to conquest ♪
♪ My family tree branching like congress ♪
♪ So y'all rest 'cause there isn't any contests ♪
♪ I took your baby mom's out to buy a high fresh ♪
♪ I rock the tux her Lady Gaga dress ♪
♪ Aha yes ♪
♪ Your party ain't nothing but sausage fest ♪
♪ I'm trying to go to Austin Texas two massage breasts ♪
♪ He trying to disrespect the Sid the ex kid ♪
♪ Come on ♪
♪ Like and ostriches necklaces ♪
♪ And can't no other nigga get next to it ♪
♪ I rock it for any cat that's up in the circle ♪
♪ I'm from the side where people get shot ♪
♪ In they church clothes ♪
♪ That's how they do want ya'll to breathe ♪
♪ But my inhales fill me ♪
♪ Wonder why didn't see chem trails daily ♪
♪ The shit falls down ♪
♪ They try to bury them, soak 'em with barium ♪
♪ But that's just what they dropping though ♪
♪ Make them bend just like the muscles ♪
♪ And they have abdominals ♪
♪ They thought they flow was local ♪
♪ It's just fuckin' topical ♪
♪ Regrow like the hair grows my flow got naughty arrows ♪
♪ To make you stand stiff like a scarecrow yeah ♪
♪ That's how we do it ♪
♪ Mannequin ♪
♪ You stand stiff like a mannequin ♪
♪ It's like you going hand in hand with Anakin ♪
♪ Time for you to start fuckin' panickin ♪
♪ 'cause it's that mannequin ♪
♪ Can it be so uncannily ♪
♪ But I ain't nobody's X-men ♪
♪ 'cause them bitches is still mine ♪
♪ Especially if they real fine ♪
♪ So you should get in line ♪
♪ How I'm spitting like I'm in charge this time ♪
♪ Outside my crib is like the March of Dimes ♪
♪ 'cause them bitches all want to call ♪
♪ 'cause they on the balls ♪
♪ Somebody roll up some more marijuana ya'll ♪
♪ Get the liquor store on the call ♪
♪ And tell 'em to deliver here ♪
♪ Listen here this fiscal year ♪
♪ I'm like a pistol ear ♪
♪ I shoot him down the newest dude in town ♪
♪ I'll show you how to to rock and abuse the crown ♪
♪ I'll burn it down ♪
♪ You can have it and use it now ♪
♪ Uncle Luke dodo brown ♪
(group cheers)
- How 'bout that beat boxing.
(group continues cheering)
- [Narrator] So where do these struggling artists
fit into the modern music industry?
And can you freestyle your way through life?
Damn right you can.
Just like music life is about taking chances
and if you fall off then you get right back up.
Grab the mic and rhyme again.
This is life.
This is hip hop.
This is freestyling.
End of story.
(slow hip hop music)
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Ha ha ha ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ One time for your mind ♪
♪ Ugh ugh ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Gift of Gab Blackalicious QB ♪
♪ One time ♪
♪ Literal master coming back to blast ya ♪
♪ Your gift to gab rhyme ♪
♪ And yo chapter after chapter ♪
♪ After I'm done ♪
♪ There will be no more ♪
♪ I grabbed the microphone and began to sort ♪
♪ A poor literate jaw ♪
♪ Considerate your legitimate ♪
♪ Pure talent on the microphone ♪
♪ I callin I'm giving it all that I got ♪
♪ When I rock the spot ♪
♪ Gift of Gab ♪
♪ Yo take it from the bottom to the top ♪
♪ Check out the style I'm about to play ♪
♪ Just doing these lyrics here here in LA ♪
♪ Yo when it comes to lyrics ♪
♪ yo we don't play ♪
♪ Give the Gab on the mic making rappers decay ♪
♪ I ride the beat through the beat like a rollercoaster ♪
♪ When I'm on the microphone ♪
♪ You know that my soul will boast a little bit of style ♪
♪ You know that I had inside of my body playing in rappers ♪
♪ Just like Madden games rappers is tame ♪
♪ Rappers is playing ♪
♪ Every time I'm on the mic it'll never be the same ♪
♪ Again ♪
♪ I'm on another plane man ♪
♪ My brain is about to explode and I'm above to cause flames ♪
♪ To erupt ♪
♪ But I'm not going to burn down ♪
♪ Malibu on the microphone come back ♪
♪ Can you do what this rapper does ♪
♪ When he's on the microphone ♪
♪ Even if I'm sober or above ♪
♪ G-A lyrical all day every evening ♪
♪ On the microphone yo ♪
♪ I give you that feelin' ♪
♪ Reeling ♪
♪ Robbing ♪
♪ Moving ♪
♪ Weaving ♪
♪ Everybody on the microphone I'm so intriguing ♪
♪ Gift of Gab up on the microphone ♪
♪ I'll be the fame and when I step up on the microphone ♪
♪ And you know I'll be the verbal king ♪
♪ I step up on the microphone here in ♪
♪ LA on the microphone ♪
♪ I kick a rapper like Pele ♪
♪ Kicks the soccer ball ♪
♪ I used to kick it back in the days ♪
♪ When I'm ripping is accurate in our slate ♪
♪ And competition on a mission ♪
♪ Gift of Gab ♪
♪ I'm domination and I'm bombing men and ♪
♪ Women listen again and again ♪
♪ I leave ya'll trembling ♪
♪ Winning the tournament like I'm playing Wimbleton ♪
♪ I'm in again. ♪
♪ Gift of Gab it's infinite ♪
♪ When I get up on a mic I'm flying ♪
♪ Everybody know I from America all the way to Mount Zion ♪
♪ I'm flyin' up in the sky like a eagle ♪
♪ Never stop because my style is so regal ♪
♪ G-A-B up on a mic ♪
♪ Never stop please stay beat ♪
♪ Telling me take it to the top ♪
♪ And I do every single time ♪
♪ I just live here to rhyme and rhyme and rhyme and rhyme ♪
♪ All day ♪
♪ I gotta say yo ♪
♪ I used to do this way back in the day ♪
♪ And I'm going to good do this shit ♪
♪ Till I decay yo check it out ♪
♪ Every rapper I will slay ♪
♪ Gift of Gab up on the mic ♪
♪ And I do it because of the feeling ♪
♪ And the way that makes me feel the buzz ♪
♪ That I feel inside of my bones ♪
♪ The Gift of Gab here up upon the microphone ♪
♪ Just rocking it rocking it ♪
♪ Never going to stop it. ♪
♪ As topic after topic is so damn tropical ♪
♪ Third eye vision coming out of my optical ♪
♪ If a fool steps up you know I'm about to mop a fool ♪
♪ And for me to stop rapping ♪
♪ It's unprobable ♪
♪ When I'm on a microphone I got a job to do ♪
♪ Gift of Gab moppin' you ♪
♪ Stoppin' you ♪
♪ Choppin' you down to your fragments ♪
♪ Daggetts got to do damage ♪
♪ Peace G-A Lyrical miracle be wriggle the lyrical ♪
♪ While my mind is a miracle ♪
♪ Lot of us slaughter the rapper ♪
♪ Causin' a disaster thinkin' faster ♪
♪ Then the speed of light ♪
♪ Indeed I ride in the middle of the night ♪
♪ If your black I'll light it straight like linus ♪
♪ So enticing bright like Tyson ♪
♪ I am the one ♪