The freestyle cipher: A study on freestyling as a process of verbal improvisation and as an approach to musical creativity

• Main Authors: Lopez, Angela Pamela C., Pacheco, Philip Manuel DC.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2009
• Subjects: Rap (Music); Hip-hop; Rap musicians; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/5153
• Institution: De La Salle University

Freestyle rap is an aspect of Hip-hop that is a creative form of verbal improvisation. It utilizes and is powered by novelty, purpose, spontaneity and poetry that all happen in a momentary performance. Participants were rappers that have been Freestyling for three years or more and have been known through winning competitions through Freestyle battles and ciphers. The data was gathered through remote audiovisual, unstructured interview and voting of favorites and least favorites. In the results, the researchers found that there are four components, which make Freestyle rap Creative. At the same time, it was found that a balance of all the components is needed to achieve an effective and creative Freestyle. Freestylers utilize poetry, novelty, purpose and spontaneity. It is fluency however, that remains as the determinant of a Freestyler's skill in coming up with verses (lyrics).