Locksmith’s State Of The Rap Union Address Is A Fiery Freestyle

A month removed from the release of Ali, Locksmith continues to shine a light on his veteran talent. The MC’s latest stop finds the Richmond, California native at the helm of DJ Kay Slay’s booth, in which the TeamBackPack staple shows off his fierce freestyle skills. Clocking in at just over 10 minutes, Lock’ delivers a presidential and verbose viewpoint on the state of the Rap nation today over instrumentals from Prodigy’s, Alchemist-produced single, “Keep It Thoro.”

Locksmith drops robust knowledge throughout, honing in and targeting several key, specific points to which he finds to be the most pressing matters regarding the state of Hip-Hop culture. In totality, Locksmith touches on everything from industry fakes, friends who turn snakes, weak content in Rap today, trolls, and moreover, those who negatively impact the culture as a whole. First, Lock’ addresses the generation gap (1:55).

Locksmith Perfectly Sums Up The State Of Pop Culture In A 2 Minute Verse

I assume you got the memo / a symbol to be affected / young ni**as feel disconnected / Old ni**as feel disrespected / This affects the nervous system, essentially kills us all / Pushing poetic poison, fictional Fentanyl / Heard a bunch of y’all rappin’, frontin’ like y’all captains / Throwin’ money around, stuntin’ in y’all caption / Said he was set to kill, really just false actin’ / You call it a record deal, I call it Uncle Tom’s Cabin / Braggin’ and f*ckin’ thoughts / Gassed cause you must’ve bought / Five hundred thousand views, and half of ’em Russian bots / Half of the buzz you got / Stolen from his connections / The other half controllin’ people’s perceptions / Deception is like infection.”

Later, Lock’ dives in on the content in Hip-Hop lyricism today, dissing rapping trolls, who he feels are unfairly placed in the limelight over quality bars (5:30).

Joell Ortiz, Jon Connor & Locksmith Are Bringing Bars Back To Hip-Hop (Video)

The past is nuisance / Every rap that I spat was a crack in the very fabric he’s passing out to enact confusion / The act of using more alleys to boost morale and lose morality / Excuse mortality in huge totality / Who’s to blame for me toe-tagging these rappers that you mystify / Justify wack but claiming that it’s a vibe / This is why we shouldn’t dignify degenerates / Disingenuous lyrics that only serve or assist the lie / I found a cyst in the system / essentially try to attempt and pry open the small gap you admit to hide / I found immense pleasure and gratification in grabbing what’s sacred and staking my claim to you in’s and cry / Since when did too much talent become an offensive crime? / This confines the culture and that creates a big divide.”

And shortly thereafter, Locksmith digresses, taking shots at the media and the industry wigs who support and profit off of the stereotypical Rap image.

Apollo Brown & Locksmith’s New EP Combines Lyricism With Personal Reflection (Audio)

I pull away from normalcy / Such an enormous hill to climb / So you incline to fail while I perform defeat / We complain about culture and what it was but / Trolls don’t create themselves / The public does / Media feeds into the fu**ery just for buzz / Just because you buzzin’ doesn’t excuse you to struck the grudge / I was under the impression that pressin’ people for clout / Was the wrong type of message when messages were in drought / But I seen a lotta death and especially from the south / Side of Richmond where they sticking your tombstone in the ground / Young ni**as wave guns and record labels benefit / They profit off the ignorance cause they don’t have to live in it / They provide the method to market and distribute it / This exhibits a lack of responsibility, period / The period of following inferior practices is a larger conversation / And it’s more than compensation / And it’s more than just the dollars, that’s a broader complication / If you don’t respect the art, there’s no moral obligation.

Locksmith is incredibly candid with his thoughts and feelings, utilizing his undeniably profound vocabulary and diction to let Heads know what Hip-Hop is all about. And by spitting nothing but the truth as he sees it, Locksmith gives Heads a solid lesson in how to properly champion for your cause.

There Were Some Incredible Freestyles In 2018. Here Are The Year’s Best (Video)

Locksmith’s latest album, Ali, features Vinnie Paz and Jarren Benton.