Tyler the Creator and Vince Staples recently swung past Hot 97 and let loose a couple of freestyles for Pete on Real Late with Rosenberg. 

Vince has a reputation on the fringes of the top 40 as one of most impressive lyricists du jour. His verse on Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Hive’ made people stand up and take notice and Earl has said it only took the dude 15 minutes to write. He also has an album due out later this month so no one could blame him for taking the safe route with this freestyle and kicking pre-written verses. And yeah, that would be fine if he didn’t fuck them up. Staples loses his footing a couple of times and when Rosenburg senses that he’s stumbling, he excuses himself, saying he’s ran out of bars because he “just made a twenty song album”, even though he’s just said “I’ve got so many verses I be forgetting them”. Consistency is key, Stapes.

Paul then throws it over to Tyler asking him to freestyle over Lil Kim’s ‘No Time’. Tyler asks if he can “just freestyle” because he “don’t be having verses or none of that”, and proceeds to slay a playful freestyle with dorky shoulder bounces and a claim to having a threesome with Vince Staples. Taking jabs at LeBron’s receding hair line and maturely denounces rapping about rape, his freestyle makes Vince’s look foolish by being himself and having fun with it – the same tactic worked for A$AP Rocky when he rapped a flawed but brilliant freestyle for Sway a couple weeks back. I’m a huge Vince Staples fan but Tyler shows us that it’s always better to be relaxed and comfortable with yourself.

More from Vince and Tyler

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