I feel most of what DaOriginalBlade is sayin'. A lot of the people who are around town and just kickin' flow don't have very sophisticated lyrics. My lyrics are usually pretty deep, thuged out, emotional, or controversial so I don't like to rap in front of people I don't know or share a similar mind state with even if I know them. So I understand about not just always jumpin' into the crowd and startin' to flow, and also dislike the fakeness of the MTV and a lot of radio rap and actin' like yur somethin' your not. At the same time, when I do flow for people or in a group of people rappin', I've noticed that people will sometimes just stop spittin' after I give it mine cause some times people will start to hate a little cause they didn't expect me to be able to do what I do, I think other time it might make them feel uncomfortable about their generic style after they hear me go at it. Sometimes people will tell me what they don't like about my flow (70% of the time they don't even rap), but I came to realize it means something good. How often do you see some dumb dude rappin' all sloppy and just gettin down just to try. I don't usually see them havin' people saying what they don't like about their flow. Usually when someone sucks, they just wait for them to stop and think their style is lame. It seems like if people are taking the moment to think about your flow, then you've got enough of something going on to where they want to pick apart and try and find some problems with it. In general, rap is extremely hard, everyone will have an opinion. You have to expect some people to dislike what you're doin'. If you're on the bottom coming up, people will tell all kinds of stuff. If you're on the top, people just listen to whatever lame style that people dish out. (For example, I think Kanye West should just stick to producing [and I live in Chicago], no one would have ever given him a contract to rap. The only reason he's rapping is because he got himself into a position where he can do anything he wants cause he's been in production.) In response to giving up rap, I kinda understand, but if it comes to that, then you just don't love the feeling you get from it. 99.8% of the time I rap it's when I'm alone kickin' it at home with the stereo jukin' or when a cruisin' the freeway with the music going. I just start rappin' out of no where cause I love that feeling I get when I'm about two minutes into a freestyle or just writing some good lines.
Anyways, I know I wrote way too much but it's my first posting here so ......, to answer the initial question....
My rap covers more styles than a lot of people I hear. The rappers I look up to most are Tupac and Twista. I think my flow could be an odd mix between the two, it's an odd combination. Tupac has some of the best lyrics, and twista has the best flow and taste for music along with some well put together lyrics too in my opinion. I really like Common and other rappers like Capital D and All Natural, the Molemen, UGK.. and anything with good production. I like really diverse music production. I'm not into the Dre style of west cost L.A. stuff though, just the chronic and older stuff was good.
- now look what'ch you done
- you got --
- blood ont the rug -
- n' dirt on my sneakers
- mean-mug lookin' thugs
- love it when I spit this heat through the speakers
- to a meager beat
- amplified a thousand times
- breathin' life into my lyrical ryhmes
- until it resurrects
- and takes on its own dimension
- ....need I mention more [my sh^t]