World Freestyle Rap Record Broken (how hard was it really?)

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psood0nym

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I don't know who Chiddy Bang is, but he recently broke the Guinness record for longest freestyle rap and got media coverage and a cheering crowd in Las Vegas for it.

My question is, how impressive is this? Listen to it. I fully understand this is at the end of nine hours and 16 minutes -- I don't even mean to criticize the guy (more power to him for finding out he could exploit this) -- I just want to know the criteria for what constituents a legit continuous freestyle rap. The only requirement I can see is that you can't stop for more than 3 seconds.

Having no experience with freestyle, I just went 10 minutes rhyming nonsensically about objects in my apartment, and I used all real words (yes I rapped about my stapler making-out with my dish soap but would that be a disqualification?). At 9:15:27 Chitty raps: "I am not a failure, yo I'm rapping 'till I get to my trail-ee-or," so you can half-rhyme and screw around arbitrarily with word sounds. He repeats lines a lot, changes his meter frequently, borrows from other raps, often doesn't make sense, etc. Again, I have no issues with freestyle and know it takes talent to do it well, but since Chiddy isn't disqualified for doing it poorly at nine hours what stops just anyone from breaking his record by doing it all bad for 10 hours?

Now you say "10 minutes is not nine hours". Of course, but even Chiddy says he otherwise does freestyle for a half hour every day, and had never gone anywhere near as long as 9 hours before. So it seems like if you can do it for a long time, you can do it for a REALLY long time, too.

Look at this one,too: Fully Sick Rapper Achieves World's Longest Rap at 9 Hours 20 Minutes. This one's longer than Chiddy's, is also sponsored by an energy drink, but apparently doesn't count (it was 9 hrs 20 min, back in 2010) . Does it not count as a record because he rhymes "psycho" with "marshmallow" and then talks about marrying a marshmallow bride? I actually prefer this one. At least Fully Sick Rapper admits at the start how ridiculous the whole thing is, whereas Chiddy self-aggrandizes to a crowd of thousands for his marathon of nonsense (while talking about how easy it is).

My point? Some of you meth heads could certainly beat these records by eating a handful of shards before you start. So, if you want to be famous for a day, get your name in the media, get laid, etc. here's the easiest way ever Bluelight. Godspeed.
 
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panic in paradise said:
mc gnosis

ffs - this takes a lot more then any 'practice' lol damn...


trail of eeyore.
pin the tail - blind folded - only pessimism will stop him
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Like I said, I have a lot of respect for freestyle artists who can cobble together rhymes and clever concepts while staying within a theme (like insulting another rapper's specific traits in a battle) continuously for a minute or two off the top of their heads. That's extremely difficult to do in an impressive way. What I understand to be impressive about freestyle is retaining conceptual coherency between free association and focus within a set rhythm. But, if you can already freestyle, and you're allowed to freestyle with far fewer constraints, in a much less focused state of mind, allowing up to a 2.9 second delay between vocalizations, it strikes me as mostly a matter of pacing.

Then again, I've always been good at rhyming, so maybe my doing it for 10 minutes straight nonsensically without ever trying it before and finding it easy is just a fluke. I just assumed that because I can do it, albeit poorly, then most people must be able to i.e. attaining the record is less a question of talent and more of not losing your voice and being willing to make silly, often very elementary, rhymes in front of a crowd for a really long time.

To address Mysterior's self doubt: simply talking for a very long time is entirely possible for people not accustomed to it (see filibustering), most of us have simply never gone anywhere near so long so I think we imagine it more difficult than it may be.

panic in paradise: You say "FFS," and I don't doubt you have your reasons (I started this thread because I think what those reasons are might be fascinating, not because I feel indignant or something about the world record). But what are the reasons exactly (assuming one already has the talent to rhyme spontaneously for a few minutes)?

I was thinking maybe it's partially something about enduring the state of mind that freestyling for any length of time necessarily engenders. Like I said, when I tried it for 10 minutes straight I ended up rhyming about my dish soap making out with my stapler. Talking like that for hours could make you lose it. Because we can't remember 9 hours of rhymes, when freestyling for a long duration we must leave the natural train of our thoughts, which are linked together predominately by conceptual associations and often structured by environmental cues, and adopt a train of thought structured predominately by the phonetics of rhyme (organized by the "artificial" grammatical features of our native language). This makes for a marathon of very loose, contrived associations that, if you're not accustomed to it, might be exhausting. I, however, feel that such a mind state can be adapted to rapidly. That's why Chiddy Bang was able to go from 30 minutes of freestyling a day to nine hours in a single leap. If you think it takes a lot more than "practice" to do this "FFS," why was he able to make the effort with so much confidence that he was willing to travel to Las Vegas and do it on camera in front of crowd without having any idea he could?

"I freestyle probably, like, once a day" said Chiddy. "That's better than a lot of people, if you really think about it; I freestyle once a day for like 30 minutes straight. I never put myself to this maximum test, but it's very exciting for me, and once this all done, it'll be like, 'Wow I didn't know I could go that long.' "
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Source
 
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why?

because he knew he could; this isnt at all unique to hip-hop, but is over looked for sure in the 'method' or genre, source of artistry and poetry:-\. something like that would take a massive amount of thought, emotional, and physical energy to balance - for 9+ hours, FFS.
 
^Artists including American emcees MC Supernatural and DJ Green Arrow along with British emcee Ruffstylz have all surpassed the 8 hr and 45 min record set by Canadian emcee D.O. in 2003, then M-Eighty beat it for Guiness on Dec. 9, 2009, then Fully Sick Rapper in 2010 (unofficially), then Chiddy Bang in 2011. Why such a rapid succession of record breaks if it's so difficult? There's not hundreds of people competing for it each year. Emcees have to commit to the time and the effort, and most who are fully capable probably just say "fuck it". Think about it. Why are both Chiddy and M-Eighty both Nigerian and both happen to have held the record within such a short time frame (that seems statistically unlikely)? I think the more sensible reason is because it's more publicized and recognized in Nigeria than most other places, and so more talented though not so astoundingly special people hear about it and think, "I could do that".And, lo and behold, they do, probably because breaking the record is not that special, and really is not as difficult as we imagine "FFS". The cultural awareness of the record reached some critical mass of recognition, and more people started gaining confidence in making the effort. Predictably, people are breaking the record at an accelerating rate. This isn't obviously as amazing an accomplishment as it's being recognized as, for all the reasons I've given. I maintain that there are plenty of Bluelight/lurker meth heads that could break this record by overdosing on shards while jabbering on nonsensically in rhyme, and subsequently enjoy time in the spotlight they never imagined they'd have. Shine on you crazy crank crystals.
 
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^I'd like to see some further explicit criteria of quality adopted beyond the not stopping for more than 3 seconds criterion. Such criteria might require that a number of judges independently analyze a recording and assert that what was rapped was legit, for instance. Even better, the recording of the freestyle could even be converted into text and have software analyze it, at least for verifying that the freestyle sessions meet a few of the essential criteria capable of being analyzed by computer. Freestyling well is a great talent, and so I don't like the possibility that achieving this record could theoretically be attained by someone whose skills would never otherwise be recognized, as that would be an insult to the art.
 
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I maintain that there are plenty of Bluelight/lurker meth heads that could break this record by overdosing on shards while jabbering on nonsensically in rhyme, and subsequently enjoy time in the spotlight they never imagined they'd have. Shine on you crazy crank crystals.
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i am a mere BLr now,
& couldnt help but notice this -
do you have the gift of this triple tongued kiss ?!?
 
^What are the three tongues in that metaphor? Do you mean meth head, freestyler and Bluelighter? If so, I don't use meth, no. Like I said, in my very limited efforts I've had some success freestyling nonsensically. I've thought a few times that what I came up with on the spot was pretty clever, but I'm talking like 5 percent of the rhymes. So if I have the freestyling gift it's nascent. I imagine I'd be decent at it if I developed it through practice, though.

I just mentioned meth heads because I imagine eating some shards might help people from getting exhausted for long enough to far surpass the current record.

I've been looking into more Chiddy Bang. He's definitely talented. Here's him freestyling when he's fresh.

I think it'd be really difficult to freestyle in a more abstract but still coherent way -- like jumping around within a broad range of concepts and tying them into a semi-structured narrative. When a rapper freestyles the way Chiddy is, about the standard topics (ego, women, money), they're dipping into this well of memory and vocabulary pre-organized in rhyme by the history of rap. That's still impressive, but I'd like to see someone like Chiddy really limber up the mental gymnastics of freestyling by rapping about whatever's on TV while someone switches the channel every 20 seconds or something. Each new channel's scenes would call on a whole new network of associations totally divorced from the previous that they'd need to reconcile with each other on the fly. It'd like a spontaneous oral poetic exercise.

Has anybody seen that kind of thing?
 
wow that wasn't even that good at all mr. Chiddy Bang bang or w/e ur lame ass name is. I'll stick to Nas, AZ, and other true rappers
 
^At over the nine hour point in the video, yeah. I thought he was decent while he was fresh, though (link in my last post).

It's really hard to compare "freestylers" since different rappers are going to have different levels of pre-written or memorized lyrics to fill in between the truly improvised parts. At nine hours Chiddy was pretty clearly going totally improvisational in addition to being exhausted.

You really need some external source giving the freestyler topics to riff off of to ensure the isolation of the "off the dome" faculty of mind that's behind true improvisational freestyle.

Check out 4:15 of part one of the documentary Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (Full doc is there, I'm about to watch the rest). In that scene another person is calling out objects in the immediate environment -- "wall, " "trash," etc. -- that the rapper has to incorporate spontaneously into what he's spitting. I'd like to see some of the better known rappers pitted against each other in that way, to see what they can do "raw".

This shit is fascinating. It's like improvisational jazz, but honestly the potential range of freestyle -- simply due all the additional features of language over pure instrumentals -- is so much more vast.
 
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psood0nym said:
^What are the three tongues in that metaphor? Do you mean meth head, freestyler and Bluelighter? If so, I don't use meth, no. Like I said, in my very limited efforts I've had some success freestyling nonsensically. I've thought a few times that what I came up with on the spot was pretty clever, but I'm talking like 5 percent of the rhymes. So if I have the freestyling gift it's nascent. I imagine I'd be decent at it if I developed it through practice, though.

I just mentioned meth heads because I imagine eating some shards might help people from getting exhausted for long enough to far surpass the current record.

I've been looking into more Chiddy Bang. He's definitely talented. Here's him freestyling when he's fresh.

I think it'd be really difficult to freestyle in a more abstract but still coherent way -- like jumping around within a broad range of concepts and tying them into a semi-structured narrative. When a rapper freestyles the way Chiddy is, about the standard topics (ego, women, money), they're dipping into this well of memory and vocabulary pre-organized in rhyme by the history of rap. That's still impressive, but I'd like to see someone like Chiddy really limber up the mental gymnastics of freestyling by rapping about whatever's on TV while someone switches the channel every 20 seconds or something. Each new channel's scenes would call on a whole new network of associations totally divorced from the previous that they'd need to reconcile with each other on the fly. It'd like a spontaneous oral poetic exercise.

Has anybody seen that kind of thing?
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yeah theirs a Craig G Freestyle in Nairobi , where he asks everyone in the crowd to get produce an item and he will incorporate it in his Freestyle
Here it is
http://youtu.be/qNifPUabROs
I think it's Dope.
 
Man i found fucking Aliens Rapping!. Now that has to be a record for the most extraterrestrial life forms in a single rap video.

Edit: Above video is absolute crap. I must have been high.
 
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