Children, pay attention. Rap’s great storyteller, leader of the best house band in late-night, and voice of the Roots, Black Thought, has come to educate. Appearing on Funkmaster Flex’s radio show on Thursday, Black Thought completed what can only be considered a rap marathon, freestyling for ten minutes straight over Mobb Deep’s “The Learning (Burn).†Few breaths, no starting over, no relying on his phone for lyrical guidance (as the younger generation has been programmed to do — even Eminem’s lauded anti-Trump freestyle was pre-written), just a pure stream of consciousness from the mind of an underrated genius. He references masters of the pen, both literary (Kafka, Shakespeare, Fitzgerald) and hip-hop (Rakim, Pharoahe Monch, Tupac, Kendrick), to weave a tapestry of rhymes. Ranging from a tragic story about his mother, to his crossover success on TV (he recently appeared on The Deuce), to Kanye criticisms, not a bar is to be missed. Ever see a person break a sweat from such strenuous rapping? Now you have.
Black Thought’s 10-Minute Freestyle Is a Rap Master Class
