Piff Marti
© Drew Gurian
Music
Piff Marti’s Tips for Turning Freestyle Rap Into a Career
Watch his brand-new "60 Second Freestyle" Episode right now @RedBullMusic on Instagram.
By Dylan CineMasai Green
4 min readPublished on
New York rapper Piff Marti isn’t afraid to fail. As a freestyler with a rapidly expanding fanbase, he’s grown accustomed to free writes that have helped him combat writer’s block and put out the best work possible.
“If I worry too much about the result, there won’t be a product,” he explains over Zoom. “When you do that, you stop allowing yourself to have an imagination because you’re interrupting your thought process.”
As someone who makes a living with his words, Piff needs to have his mind clear at all times. His recent turn on Red Bull’s “60 Second Freestyle” is no exception, tying pop culture references and life advice into an intriguing display. Here, hwe walks us through some advice for turning freestyling into something more than a hobby.
Piff Marti
Piff Marti© Drew Gurian
Freedom: Don’t Let Your Technique be Placed in a Box.
I think a freestyle is a verse that you spit for as long as you spit it. There’s a debate that goes on about whether or not it has to be off the dome. Freestyle means a rap without a hook. That’s all it means. It could be written, it could be off the dome; it doesn’t matter. It’s not that deep.
I’d rather it be written, too, because when most people do it off the dome, they wind up adding in some filler or some outright wack shit. It would’ve been doper if you’d prepared.
Piff Marti
Piff Marti© Drew Gurian
Live: You Can’t Write Without Some Life Experience.
Life experience has allowed me to become a better writer because I was writing from the perspective of actually being there and going through it. You can hear some of the maturity in my writing.
When [writer’s block] did happen, it was because I was trying so hard to make something clever instead of trying to feel what I was writing. I was striving for perfection, but perfection doesn’t exist. Once I started accepting that, everything started to flow, and it just came to me. I can go back and tune it after I finish writing, but I started doing free writes.
Piff Marti
Piff Marti© Drew Gurian
Relax: Don’t Put Too Much Pressure on Yourself.
I don’t want to get to that place where I’m expecting myself to give A+++ freestyles. Sometimes, it’s gonna be a B+; sometimes, it’s gonna be a D or an F. If I worry too much about the result, there won’t be a product. When you do that, you stop allowing yourself to have an imagination because you’re interrupting your thought process. Letting go has been the key to my life, not even just my art.
Piff Marti
Piff Marti© Drew Gurian
Initiative: You Have to Learn to Do it Yourself.
There’s two [ways] to this. One is really just starting. The question is always “How do I start?,” but you start by starting. You end up getting better as you keep going and analyze what you did and figure out how to improve. Even at the level I’m at, I know it’s still on-the-job training and it’ll always be that. I wouldn’t have found that out if I didn’t start. This goal of perfectionism keeps people from getting started, but if you understand it won’t be perfect, you’ll see improvement.
The second [way] is to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. You’re a business, and this is the only industry where the product is also a person too, so you have to wear a lot of hats at the same time. How will I get people to see me? How will I get people to stay? How will I make money? Learn how to do all the things you need to do so that you know and that when/if you do hire someone else, you can delegate and tell people exactly what to do.
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