Earlier last year Fresco was kind enough to field questions from the members in our battle forum. And like the trooper that he is, he came through and answered them with that special kind of Fresco pizazz that we’ve all come to know and love.
You can find Fresco on Twitter and be sure to check out the official Fresco MySpace page in order to get your daily Fresco fix. And be on the lookout for The So Clean Mixtape which is dropping March 19th.
Q: If you find that you’re a lot better at freestyling than your friends, how do you improve? Just keep doing it by yourself?
A: I’ve always been an adaptive learner. They say that babies have an abundance of active mirror neurons, and that’s how they learn to speak at a young age. I feel like my mirror neurons never turned off. If i spend a certain amount of time with someone, I will unconsciously master whatever they are good at just by watching or listening. It could be cards, videogames, computer programming, speaking another language, or in this case freestyling. I tend to out-do anyone I spend time with. So I’ve always been a little ahead of the curve on freestyling as compared to those in my area. I don’t really practice anymore, but when I was really trying to get good I would do a bunch of different games I made up. I would watch videos of great freestylers like Juice or NoCanDo, and pause the video at random intervals and try to predict their next line and then freestyle off of it for awhile. When I fell off I’d hit play again until I had something decent. Also I’d record all of these sessions and listen back to what I could’ve said or done better. That was one of a bunch of games I had, but I think the best thing that happened was I would just freestyle so much that my brain was on constant freestyle mode. I’d walk around life just rhyming words to the point where it got annoying to me, but it helped.
Q: How long have you been battling?
A: Okay this is a complicated question and people bother me about it all the time. I watched the WRC’s a LOT and I tried to freestyle through a couple of online sites a few times and failed miserably. A little later in Summer 07 there was a rap battle in my city. I had never battled before, I was not a rapper by any means, I went on stage and won the tournament. After that I literally didn’t rap for a year due to being in school, living with a now-ex-girlfriend who didn’t like rap, not thinking I was really any good at it, and because I was involved with other competitive things. A year after that I had broken up with that girl, moved back to Rockford from Madison, and the same battle came around. I won it again in Summer 08 and that’s when I would say I officially started rapping. Because that’s when I started writing a verse or two, and actually took it seriously and thought it was something I could actually do.
Q: What advice would you have for someone looking to get into GT?
A: If you’re looking to get in, you’re probably not good enough to be in. We already have too many novices in the league. From my experience the best people in the league have all been asked to join.
Q: How long do you normally take to prep for a battle?
A: For my first Grind Time battle I had it prepped a couple weeks in advance. After that I’ve been writing a couple days before and memorizing my stuff the day of the battle for every one. Believe it or not my illusion z battle was written in the 2 days before the event and memorized on the plane ride there. I got my stuff done a little earlier for kid twist but it was still just a day or two more. This is not ideal. Because of doing this I haven’t been able to do any flips because I’m just trying to make sure I remember everything. Also I don’t usually get to have the delivery I want. I don’t know what it is but I’ve lost some of that battling motivation. I think maybe it’s because I well surpassed anything I ever expected to do on the battle scene. In any case, I really need to battle a rock solid opponent for me to be pumped up again. Maybe this short break will help also.
Q: Will you ever get rid of your bangs? ha, just kidding…are you a good freestyle battler in your opinion?
A: Lol. I think I am a pretty good freestyle battler yes.
Q: Has something someone has said to you ever completely rattled you in a battle?
A: Thesaurus was the first person who ever beat me. Up until then I had won 4 battle tournaments in 3 different cities (Rockford, Chicago, and Milwaukee) in just a few months and I felt like I was just going to keep winning. I got to scribble and second round he just bodied me. It was a very humbling experience. It wasn’t really anything personal, just the amount of dope lines he had made me blank out and I essentially choked. I kept going but there really wasn’t much to say. I knew I should’ve brought writtens!
Q: If Jumpoff ever brought the WRC’s back would you and Real Deal team up and take a shot at it?
A: If it looked legit and they did a few things to make it better then I think we definitely would.
Q: do you listen to any Emo music at all? not even a bit?
A: nope. I don’t listen to rap either though. (Except a few rap songs that are really tight)
Q: Describe your writing process.
A: Well I don’t even feel like I write this stuff. It’s almost like I’m just thinking about a bunch of random stuff and then something hits me and I write it down. Like I’m tuned into some god-world music channel that sends me bars and melodies. Sounds pretty stupid but it’s true. I hardly ever feel like I wrote it myself.
Well thanks for reading guys, if you have any other questions ask them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them!
kid caustic ghost wrote this interview