EminemBase wrote::confusion: You seriously think Eminem was trying to pretend "Despicable" was off-the-top?...
People always confuse what freestyle means. Originally it just meant a verse that wasn't about a particular subject-matter, that was random, that could go anywhere and could be rapped to a beat on the spot. A freestyle verse, a verse free-of-style.
Then people started to re-appropriate to mean on the spot, but that's really an 'off-the-dome' freestyle. Either way, when you see Em spitting his "Microphone" freestyle VERSE on Westwood, in no way is he pretending that it's on the spot.
It's OBVIOUS that it's written given its complexity, how smooth and constructed it is etc. people are retards when they comment like "no way man, this is written!" lmao. WE KNOW. EMINEM KNOWS. EMINEM KNOWS YOU KNOW. He's not pretending it's on the spot.
Of course it's written. It's just about spitting a lyrical verse that's not used and is random. It's just a nice little surprise slice of lyricism. And that "Despicable" freestyle is like a little promo. Yes, it's written.
It's obvious when they're off the top or not though. I don't get how people can't tell or even need to question. It's like, when you hear Em swearing a shit load, pausing and reverting to cliche and things like "spiritual, miracle, lyrical..." < that's off the top. He's trying to improvise thoughts and falling back on old tricks.
Where as, when you hear line after line of witty, non-stop lyricism with a clear rhyme pattern and structure, that's written. But it's obvious from the timing of the spitting / pausing alone. You can just tell when he / anybody is genuinely thinking / actually coming up with stuff in that moment and when they're clearly spitting from memory.
But in that sense, rarely is ANYTHING truly off-the-top. As, if there's three guys in a room trying to spit on the spot and one guy is waiting for the next guy to finish - don't you think he's going to be thinking of rhymes / lines to start with, as much as he can before he starts? so that's technically 'writing' right there. As that's what you do when you write. A pen and pad is just a way of recording those thoughts with the leisure of not having to remember them. But you're still thinking things up and then refining the thoughts. So very little is truly on the spot as you're always thinking.
But, Eminem can spit on the spot also, a real example is his 'any word' freestyle with Stretch. Which is a genuinely amazing off-the-dome freestyle and the best I've ever heard. The most naturally gifted I ever heard at it was Proof, but Em's one with Stretch was unbelievable.
This is the one I'm talking about by the way:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hhQGUfPaU4It's amazing how smooth he keeps his flow going. A continuous flow. Coming up with rhymes / raps in a continuous flow on the spot that all make sense, are witty and lead into each other is one of the hardest things to do with the brain. As you're not only spontaneously writing / forming rhymes, wit and ideas but you need to adhere to a constant rhythm as well.
His on the spot lyrics there are also better than most modern rappers writtens lmao. Shows how shit mainstream rappers these days are.
Sometimes he mixes it also though. As in, sometimes when spitting off the top for real, he'll throw in some written lines to make it a bit more impressive or, when spitting written he'll mix it up and spit some off the top. An example of this is the 09 Westwood freestyle, the part when he spits "I'm quite mellow / a white fellow / my pee is bright yellow / I like jello / I'm like hello..." < I think that is genuinely off the top. You can hear / see where he's connecting the dots in that moment, very strong and simple multi rhymes which don't connect all that much and are more like separate statements. So it's clear, I think, that he's thinking each line individually. It's all about just having tools in the arsenal though.
