M2M Day 307: I have an unfortunate taste in freestyle. Sorry Lin-Manuel Miranda.
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For September, my goal is to continuously freestyle rap for three minutes.
Since this month’s goal is more artistic and subjective than most, I’m mainly propelled by my taste in the art of freestyle, more so than a particular quantifiable metric. In other words, my goal this month is to close my “Taste Gap”.
Let me explain…
The Taste Gap
This idea of the Taste Gap was first introduced by radio host Ira Glass. He explains:
Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
…And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.
In other words, the ultimate creative goal is to cultivate the skills necessary to produce art that you yourself can appreciate and enjoy (where this appreciation is based on a particular taste for the artform).
This is exactly how I feel about my freestyle challenge: I have a particular taste for the freestyling artform, and would love to develop the abilities to create this specific kind of art.
The problem is that my taste for freestyle is extreme and difficult to fake…
The Two Artistic Strains of Freestyle Rap
In general, in my mind, there are two main approaches to freestyle rapping, which are nicely demonstrated in the video below.
In the video, Lin-Manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame) and Tariq Trotter (lead MC of the Roots) engage in a friendly rap battle as part of the “Wheel of Freestyle” bit on Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night show.
Lin perfectly represents the first approach to freestyle rapping: Punchline-driven Freestyling. This style of freestyle rapping relies on a standup comedy-style set-up and punchline structure.
Typically, to effectively deliver a punchline, the desired punchline (and specifically, the last word of punchline) is determined, then a rhyme for that last word is selected and used in the set-up. In other words, for a punchline to land hard, it needs to be thought of first, but rapped second, rhyming with the set-up that was thought of second, but rapped first.
Punchline-drive freestyling can be effective even with very minimal or basic rhymes, as long as the last word of the punchline lands smoothly. The challenge of this style of freestyling is quickly crafting the perfect punchline while simultaneously rapping the setup.
On the other hand, Tariq better demonstrates the second approach to freestyle rapping: Rhyme-driven Freestyling. This kind of freestyling doesn’t require such a strong payoff or punchline at the end of a stanza. Instead, this type of freestyle packs its punch sonically, built from a stack of complex rhymes.
In other words, within this approach, the listener’s satisfaction is usually more evenly distributed throughout the stanza (rather than spiking at each punchline) and tied to the depth and complexity of the ongoing rhyme scheme.
This type of freestyling is a little bit more self-involved, caring less about using the medium as a narrative vehicle and more about fully exploiting the medium itself.
Importantly, these types of freestyle rapping aren’t mutually exclusive, and ideally can coexist for the ultimate freestyle rap. (In their written work, both Lin and Tariq use both approaches simultaneously and effectively).
But, of course, it’s not easy to leverage both approaches within a genuine freestyle, so it’s very normal for an artist to optimize for one approach or the other.
In the video, check out how Lin and Tariq optimize for the different approaches…
While I like both performances, in this case, I prefer Tariq’s (even though Lin had a better reaction from the crowd). I’m just a big sucker for complex rhyme schemes, and I appreciate this part of the artform the most.
Basically, my taste is aggressively skewed towards rhyme complexity, wordplay, and sonic performance, which means I much prefer to develop my rhyme-driven freestyling abilities this month.
The challenge is that there is very little gray zone for complex rhymes — either it rhymes or it doesn’t. Punchlines are more generous — you can have a bad punchline, an okay punchline, or a great punchline.
As a result, I think it would be easier to fake the punchline-driven rap, even if my punchlines were mediocre. (This is not to say that good punchline-driven rap is easier… But that rhyme-driven rap is less forgiving).
Nevertheless, the Taste Gap that I want to close is on the complex rhyme side of the spectrum, so it will be interesting to see how this taste affects my progress this month.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.