“If the beat talks to me, I know exactly what I’m going to speak about on the beat. So I play a beat, freestyle the whole song—and then I’ll re-write certain words that don’t make sense or could be filtered. I freestyle so I can get a good flow on the song instead of writing it right away,” Kye Clayton tells The Coast when explaining his songwriting process. The rapper, beatmaker and record label co-founder from Halifax’s Uniacke Square picks up the thread where the likes of J. Cole and Nas left off, braiding intricate verses about his daily life and experiences.
Here, as a companion piece to the profile we published on Clayton earlier today, we share a recent freestyle he crafted for The Coast. It gives us serious Illmatic-era Nas vibes—and we’re sure it will wow you, too:
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This article appears in Jun 1-30, 2020.
