Let me turn your attention now, to a pretty hilarious freestyle clip:
YES, I laughed the first time I saw it. The whole video is corny, with the nervous host, a heart around the fondling best friends, and yes, a handicapped kid who chokes hard when he tries to freestyle.
(A «freestyle» in hiphop is when you make up a rap as you go along, and «choking» is what you call it when you can’t think of anything to say.)
Having said that, said handicapped kid, named Eli Porter, comes back with a vengeance. Freestyling is HARD. And he does it. He chokes hard the first time, but comes right back. And his lyrics are definitely not that bad.
While his opponent, Envy, seems to be reciting pre-written lyrics, without following the beat, and not impressing too much lyrically, Eli seems to be improvising most of what he says. Eli keeps it in rhythm, and has some lines you really remember.
So why am I writing about this? Well, because I saw through the comments, and noticed many of the caring comments went like this:
Smh this is wrong
Appalling.
don’t talk about cripple people envy
Envy….REALLY THINKS AND BELIEVES WITH HIS FRACTURED PSYCHE THAT HE’S GOOD ROTFLMFAOOOOOO MY SOUL IS BURNING FROM THIS ONE AND ELI???????????????????? WTFFFFFFFFFFFFF LMFAO WHY THEY LET HIM DO THAT TO HIMSELF?
Look how happy he is when he hear the beat for the second time:)poor little man…:/
:)))))
I hate when people post videos making fun of handicapped people. Eli you were awesome I give you credit for even attempting to free style, did better than most would and was brave for doing it. We need to be laughing at the host for feeling all on the guys chest in front of him and shake our heads at the guy who went against Eli. How are you going to battle a handicapped and think you’re any kind of cool or «tite»? You need to build your self-esteem up another way.
Now… I understand the good intentions here. Good intentions are a good thing. But this reminds me of the difficulties handicapped people face, because good intentions don’t always lead to good results.
When I see people in wheelchairs, I always wonder if I should help them, or if they want to manage on their own. Some get pissed if they feel you treat them like they can’t do or think anything. And rightfully so. People aspire to achieve things, and be respected, and that’s all the more important when you have a tough starting point.
This is a tricky thing to evaluate.
Of course you can’t be better than Michael Jordan at basketball if you don’t have any legs. There are obvious situations where you need to cut handicapped people some slack. But people playing basketball in wheelchairs all the time are tough athletes, for sure. The audience patting your head or feeling bad when they watch you «try to» play basketball, will probably not make you feel very good.
Eli is better at freestyling than me, he’s better than the vast majority of people at this. He wants to be good at it, he wants to freestyle battle, he’s obviously practiced a lot. Should a «normal» person refuse to battle him, because it is considered below him? Should he treat Eli like a child, being «nice» instead of doing an actual freestyle battle where you verbally attack eachother for personal traits and then fight through it?
Instead of patronizing Eli, give him some props. His comeback in that battle is impressive. He’d probably kick your ass fair and square.
Eli is now a grown man, and he’s still rapping. He’s serious about this stuff. The below video shows some pretty high level freestyle with Eli and a friend:
Now, you don’t have to be his greatest fan, or want to do a record with him. But he’s a decent freestyler, and he’s up there with other decent freestylers. He doesn’t need your pity for that. Respect his effort and achievements. Simple.
In closing, let me just show you how freestyle quality varies even for celebrity rappers:
To be fair: Lil Wayne is probably high on prescription grade caugh sirup here (an opiate). But it wouldn’t surprise me if someone else writes his lyrics for him, his freestyle doesn’t impress me.
And the hosts of the first video desverve credit for hosting a show promoting hiphop culture too btw, encouraging local amateurs to take to the stage. Even though I laughed at them :). That’s a cool initiative.
(P.S. I thought «I deed it» was classic too, but try listening to Eli without looking at the screen. Can you really tell that he’s handicapped?)
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