Freestyle Thursday 

By Sarah Hainesworth

             Some of the students at BSU may not know that the library has an auditorium. I didn’t either but Thursday night I went to the basement of the library in search of the auditorium and was lured there by wonderful sounds of DJ Freeze. Anyone who missed the Freestyle Thursday event missed out on a great time.            

             The event was co-hosted by Brandon Woolfolk and Ebony Paige and featured six of Bowie State’s rookie MC’s who believe they have what it takes to be the best rapper at BSU. Kellen Taylor, Demetrius Coates, Juanzel Harris, Trevor Smith, John Crowe, and Jordan Ideman all showed up to show the Bowie State family just how talented they are.             

             The swarm of Lil Wayne, Drake, Wale and Tyga wannabes kept the crowd laughing and cheering the entire night. It was surprising to see that a majority of the rappers did not have a unique, individual style. They were merely imitating the styles of the current radio sensations but it’s understandable, in the heat of the moment you have a bunch of eyes on you. Everyone is waiting anxiously to hear what you will say next, of course you’ll mimic the last song you heard instead of thinking fast and coming up with something different.            

              The guys were given three different segments to showcase their skills; first was “Topic of Discussion” where each guy had 30 seconds to talk about a given subject. The topics were Bowie State’s Wi-Fi, cafeteria food, high school, parties in Bowie Place, ratchet girls, mean teachers, and Bowie State in general.                       

              Next was “Sky is the Limit” where contestants were given 45 seconds to freestyle on anything of their choice. Lastly was “Floetic Battle” where the men had only one minute to battle it out and were reminded no profanity, mentioning family members, threats or touching.                       

             Woolfolk’s wise words were, “If you really are the best rapper, you don’t need to use profanity” but all the rules went out the window when the guys rap-u-tations were on the line.  Eventually, the crowd and the judges chose Juanzel Harris as the best freestyle rapper at BSU.