Poet Ali - A Rare Freestyle during a long car ride.

Once upon a time in Hip Hop music our greatest icons, those we aspired to be like were not only gifted writers, truth spitters, and lyricists, but those who had the lyrical prowess to spontaneously improvise rhymes, verses, and sometimes entire songs.

I have spent my training in this art form in the wake of those historic greats.  We need to take our culture back.  Too often you see a post on the internet or a clip about someone dropping a freestyle and the education needs to be put out there - DO NOT CALL IT A FREESTYLE IF YOU ARE KICKING A WRITTEN VERSE!!! PERIOD!

That would be the equivalent of a Jazz Musician saying he was improvising a solo when he had it completely charted out, or an artist drawing something "freehand" when he had light pencil lines underneath of the sketch.   And this isn't about new school, old school, or any other BS movement.

It's simply about proper terminology.  Call your performance - live 16, or flowing, or rapping live, or whatever the hell else you want - but for the sake of any of the greats who truly kick "Freestyles" DO NOT BY ANY MEANS call your line for line recitations a "Freestyle" #punkmove