Freestyle rap

Freestyle is a style of hip hop music where an artist normally improvises an unwritten verse from the head, with or without instrumental beats, in which lyrics are recited with no particular subject or structure. It can also be a written verse with no particular subject.[1][2][3][4][5] It is similar to other improvisational music, such as jazz,[6] where a lead instrumentalist acts as an improviser with a supporting band providing a beat. Freestyle originally was simply verse that is free of style, written rhymes that do not follow a specific subject matter, or predetermined cadence. The newer style with the improvisation grew popular starting in the early 1990s. It is now mainly associated with hip hop.

  1. ^ Kevin Fitzgerald (director), Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme, Bowery, 2000.
  2. ^ T-Love, "The Freestyle", in Brian Cross, It's Not About A Salary..., New York: Verso, 1993.
  3. ^ Gwendolyn D. Pough, 2004, Check It While I Wreck It, UPNE, p.224
  4. ^ Murray Forman, Mark Anthony Neil, 2004, That's The Joint!, Routledge, p.196
  5. ^ Raquel Z. Rivera, 2003, New York Ricans From The Hip-Hop Zone, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 88
  6. ^ Edwards 2009, p. 182.