If you’re freestyling a lot, you’re going to hear some instrumental tracks many times, so you’ll need to be constantly finding new instrumental material to freestyle over. Finding instrumental tracks that you really like to freestyle over takes time. One of our favourite places is on Youtube. Try searching for the names of your favourite tracks with “instrumental” or “type beat” as an extra keyword. When you find tracks that you like, it’s a good idea to subscribe to the uploader’s channel to they automatically send you newly uploaded tracks to your inbox. We have a few instrumental playlists on our FFG website you can use. Another great place is SoundCloud where lots of independent music producers post their new tracks and love it when you freestyle over their work. You’ll probably find other websites and apps with good tracks. There’s so much new material being produced you’ll never get to hear it all. Some of these websites will ‘learn’ what you like and begin to recommend new instrumentals to you. You might discover whole new subgenres that you’ve never freestyled with (see “Different Beats”). Everyone has their own taste.
If you’re not usually the DJ at your FFG sessions, as an exercise, find and create a playlist of instrumental tracks to freestyle over. Then play them as a set for yourself and other freestyle MCs. If you’re always freestyling over a DJ or someone’s instrumental playlist, building a DJ set will broaden your skills, and help you appreciate the work they do. Everyone in your crew should have skill to build their own hour-long instrumental playlist, and DJ for an FFG session.
If you’re used to freestyling over a playlist, then try freestyling with a experienced DJ who works with MCs. A good DJ can listen to your flow, anticipate and respond to your changes, and really create a conversation between the music and the freestyler. Your freestyle will inspire them, and in turn they will inspire you with new energy, and the synergy can turn a regular session into something epic. Ask your DJ friends if they’d like to play some tracks for a freestyle session.