Freestyle Friday

An Ode to Creative Expression on BET's 106 & Park

The 106 & Park Experience

I grew up watching BET’s 106 and Park. 106 and Park was an R&B and hip-hop talk show, hip-hop’s version of MTV’s TRL. It was the show you watched to see your favorite artist’s video premieres, performances, and interviews. I still remember making sure to be in front of the television by 5 p.m. so I could watch, dance, and call my friends to discuss the latest B2K or Lil Bow Wow interview.

I have so many memories of watching 106 and Park, like cringing at Michele's fall during the Destiny’s Child performance and feeling like my parents left me when AJ and Free, the original hosts, left after five years. I remember watching the I Miss You video when Aaliyah passed and seeing the pain in DMX’s eyes, which let us know it was okay to cry and lean on one another in hard times—then learning after resisting the new hosts, Terrance and Rosci, that everything evolves and time waits for no one.

For me, 106 and Park was more than a show. It was a community.

What is Freestyle Friday?

One of my favorite components of the show was the Freestyle Friday segment. Every Friday, two aspiring rappers competed in a live freestyle battle in front of a live audience and celebrity judges. Each rapper got 60 seconds to freestyle for two rounds, with some extending into a third and final round for the title and the opportunity to defend their title the following Friday. I still remember Blind Fury, a rapper who defended his title for so many weeks he had to “retire” because nobody could hang with his lyrics. I am pretty sure he is someone’s ghostwriter, but that is only speculation.

Here is a video that shows all of his rap battles. It’s the next best thing to being there. It gives you the same feeling you have watching the freestyle battle between Papa Doc and B-Rabbit at the end of 8 Mile.

Re-Introducing Freestyle Friday on Substack

In high school, during my creative writing class, my teacher created a Freestyle Friday of our very own. We were able to present our creativity without restrictions to our peers. It could be an essay, poem, or Freestyle as long as it was YOURS. That class taught me that comparison was the root of unhappiness because you could never be someone else, and someone else could never be you. Your very being is a freestyle battle against yourself.

In honor of that, I am creating my very own version of Freestyle Friday for my Substack. I have hundreds—literally hundreds—of poems, raps, and essays that are expressions of me at various points in my life. They are all different, but they commonly never seem to fit the aesthetic or theme of my life at the time, so I leave them to collect dust and hope that someday, after I am long gone, someone will find them and say, “Wow, she was so profound.”

Well, dammit, F the AESTHETIC, and while that may be aggressive, I have to believe that I AM the aesthetic. I am also aggressive and need to stop hiding that fact. Even my Grammarly just provided a suggestions to sound “more nice” and respectfully the answer is no I don’t want to sound nice, I want to sound like me.

As Nina Simone said, "It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life for me, and I’m feeling GOOD."

Now, without further ado, I present to you my first contribution to Freestyle Friday, “Freedom.”

Freedom

People seem to be confused about my content. 
They don’t see the connection between neurodivergence, feminism, and blackness. 
They think it should be an or when it’s always an AND. 

People want to see the side of someone they benefit from. 
The side that makes them feel seen while ignoring the sides that make them feel uneasy. 

You can’t choose which parts of me you want to use for your gain while throwing the rest away. 
You can’t parade my neurodivergence while ignoring my blackness. 
You can’t make me speak to my gender while ignoring my race.
 
You either take all of me or leave it alone. 

To many times people fall in love with the illusion that beauty can exist without flaw. 
That love can exist without pain. 
But what is a rainbow if not for the rain?

You won’t box me into being only one way for you. 
Chanting: Dance, girl, dance. 
Isn’t she wonderful?

You can’t control how I exist in the world. 
You shouldn’t want too
Because when I am free 
Only then…
will you be free too.