This evening, the big homie MoRuf dropped a killer freestyle, “mosdef.(freestyle),” over Mos Def’s “May-December,” an instrumental track off of the classic tape, Black on Both Sides. The steady and sweltering bass and drum beat, underscored by funky chimes and basic hi-hat/snare drum kit couldn’t have been any more perfect for the soul-hop artist and his relentless flows over the tough instrumental. I remember being on the train heading home from his last headliner  show at the Coffee Cave in February and sitting next to some random dude traveling to Long Island from Newark. We spoke, and then later found out he was a rapper, so I figured I would get an objective opinion from virgin ears before I went home to construct my write up detailing the evening; so I let him listen to my favorite track off of MoRuf’s Shades.Of.Moo, “Homie.Lover.Friend,” featuring Jesse Boykins III. After listening to the track from beginning to end, he said something that now makes sense from listening to this freestyle: “His flow reminds me of the J. Cole I first heard on American Dreamin.” Couldn’t be more accurate, especially Cole’s murderous flow on “Grown Simba”. The freestyle does surely refract some of Cole’s early flows and themes he incorporated into his rhymes, speaking on lived experiences with complexes, challenging the ego, struggles to reach dreams that are a arm’s length, pet peeves, all encompassed with an unapologetic swagger that completes the cooled and collected demeanor of the posi-rapper. Lastly, there is one bar that MoRuf says that directly criticizes the prevalence of fame hungry artists in the game right now that I enjoyed in particular:

A post lasts a day / A tweet lasts a minute / you trap in the digital world / you quick to get diminished

Thus, enjoy.

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