The Real State - FREESTYLE - from The Real State issue 9 June 1995

FREESTYLE - from The Real State issue 9 June 1995 //

FROM THE REAL STATE Issue 9

FREESTYLE

‘A concept or train of thought, idea or theory communicated in the motion of verse alone’ – The Real State

‘It’s not the skill but the mastery of the skill which separates the true artist from the mere craftsman, creating and executing a style that will communicate a flowing heart-thought in the most powerful and live way.

‘Off the top of your head’ rhyme prove the skills but they are not the art anymore than a graphics designer or a tagger is a graffiti artist. Freestyle is the ability to flow anytime, any place, anywhere.

Mastering your thoughts and ideas into undeniably fresh relations is as essential as conquering your rhyming skills. But how deep is the thought, how real is the relation, how unique is its expression? It’s time to sieve out the half-steppers before the liquor gets diluted.

Real freestyle shows you have a coherent inner vision, not just straight reporting or the ability to jack your jaw for five minutes.

You know what messes me up? I’ll be talking about graffiti and one of the masters who started it and the knowledgeable hip Five Percenter hip-Kani’d Nike-d down young brother says:’Who’s he?’

Who’s he? You’re wearing all this shit, saying all this shit and knowing shit. So I tell him who ‘he’ is and he looks at me strange and half-believing. Who does he think started all this? The record company, the TV, the radio, the publishing companies, the managers? Somehow he finds that easier to believe than that it was some regular kid born in the ghetto with nothing to lose, no limits set and a fearless heart which felt the throb of hip hop – to create, to fly, to roc the joint for no other reason than that he could. He wasn’t concerned about the limits he couldn’t change; he just concentrated on the ones he could – wrecking every bar on his soul’s life and survival. Creating permanent damage to oppressed minds. Taking whatever chance and opportunity he had to break free.

And once you’ve done that, once you’ve risked, you know that truth is real. You leave that level of bondage and move on to the next. In the same way you started, you know what barriers to push at next and you know one day they too will fall.

Faith is believing what the eye cannot see.