It’s interesting to see the response to these new freestyles and the reactions from old heads vs new heads. Freestyling has always been an interesting thing to me anyway, in that a good freestyle generally indicates a good rapper, but a bad freestyle doesn’t necessarily indicate a bad rapper. It’s pretty comparable to guitar solos in rock music. Sure, Jimmy Page is a great guitar player and could improvise over a 12-bar-blues pattern for hours. Kurt Cobain, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t hold up as well. I don’t know that for sure, but judging by his playing and soloing in general, he didn’t seem nearly as technically precise or well-versed as many of the classic rock gods before him, like Hendrix, Page, Clapton, etc. But that doesn’t mean his rock music sucked. It’s just that technical and improvisational skill wan’t really part of the game.

It’s kind of the same with these young guys now. Sure, they’re not nearly as good at freestyling as the top MCs 20 years ago were, but that doesn’t mean they’re music is worse. frankly I don’t personally like it as much, but it’s definitely not based on their ability to solo on the fly. They’re still making legit music, the rules are just very different.