All eyes were on Black Thought earlier this month when he laid down a crazy 10-minute freestyle for Funkmaster Flex at Hot 97. Following the viral freestyle, The Roots rapper recently caught up with Rolling Stone for interview, where he broke down the lyrics and talked about improvised and pre-written lines and how he prepares for something of that magnitude.
He also spoke on the current state of hip-hop:
“I think hip-hop, the culture, is at a crossroads right now, and there’s not very much that people who are older than millennials have to identify with. There isn’t much that’s reaching the mainstream that is hip-hop in the sense that people my age know it as, if that makes any sense. The game has changed. It’s different. The standards are different, the criteria that’s taken into consideration in determining validity is different. We’re at a point in history where lyricism almost comes last in very many regards. So for someone from my school, who has come from the ilk of lyricism being held in far higher regard, it brings a different sort of urgency to every performance.”
Read the full interview over at Rolling Stone’s website.
OS REWIND: Black Thought – Funkmaster Flex Freestyle