Freestyle rapping and brain activity: How does it work?

Have you ever seen a rapper perform and wondered how they manage to come up with those complex rhymes so naturally? Well, a new study by researchers at the National Institute on Deafness and other Communicational Disorders (NIDCD) found out that for a rapper to create those rhymes, some brain processes have to take place.

The study consisted of twelve rappers dropping some rhymes while on a MRI. First, they had to memorize a given set of rhymes and a beat to perform to. Once they did that, they were given the same beat, but asked to freestyle instead. No matter whom the rapper was, their brains activated differently when memorizing than when improvising.

When a rapper improvises, some parts of his brain shut down, more specifically the areas that are linked to self-control and monitoring; essentially, any area that might disrupt the creative flow of ideas. While on the other hand, when improvising, other areas lit up to help the rapper with his freestyle rhyming and those are the portions of the brain related to motivation, integration and activation, and also the areas linked to the mental lexicon and vocabulary. If you think about it, it’s something pretty logical as if you overthink too much, it won’t come up as a natural freestyle rhyme. So, in a way, the rapper has to disconnect from his brain to be able to rhyme. The same would happen to Usain Bolt if he started thinking about how to run and move, or how are his opponents doing; his performance wouldn’t be the best.

So, what are the implications of this study, apart from understanding how rappers are able to do what they do and how? Well, researchers are not sure yet, but in a future it might help to develop quicker thinking and, who knows, maybe any of us would be able to become amazing rappers.

Here's the link to the full article where you'll also find the explanation of the picture above.

Freestyle brain activity