How are we
doing out there, gang?
Good.
Hi, guys.
My name is Thug Shells.
And yeah, it's my first time out at CypherCon.
Can I get a little bit of noise if y'all are ready to get this party started?
Yeah?
Amazing.
So, big shout out to the crew, to everyone that came here, to everyone that's passionate about what this conference represents.
Today's talk is going to be a little bit different.
So, it's amazing and ironic, but when Michael Monster reached out to me to come and perform and play at this conference, he wasn't actually aware of what Cypher means.
So, CypherCon is where we gather, but a cypher in typical hip-hop freestyle rap is a group of people rapping together.
So, we're going to start a little bit with the definition of rap performed on the spot.
My workshop today is about how you can hack the algorithm in your mind and teach yourself how to freestyle rap.
It's funny, there's a lot of crazy AI predictive text that can help input, but you can utilize those same structures that AI uses to train yourself so that your brain is a machine.
So, freestyle rap is improvised rap performed on the spot.
It's actually a trainable skill that follows patterns, structures, rules, just like a computer algorithm would.
A brief history of hip-hop.
So, back in the 1970s, Kool Herc kind of era, hip-hop was started and typically what it is is an emcee, a master of ceremonies, freestyle rapping over a So, hip-hop started back then, gained a lot of popularization over breakbeats.
It kind of became the party genre, you know, everybody loves to bust out a good freestyle rap at a party.
It was popularized a lot by rap battles and freestyling was also very much popularized by such legends as Supernat, Eminem.
Nowadays, we got Harry Max of the world and that's why I fell in love with freestyle rap.
I decided that I had to learn how to do it.
Why it matters to hack your brain is you can up your endorphins, you can get your neuroplasticity, which we'll touch a lot more later, dialed in and why it matters is creativity, skill and mental agility.
Freestyle rapping really depends on people thinking on the spot and a lot of people see others do it, it looks really, really hard, but just like anything, it takes a lot of practice and teaching your brain how you want that program to run.
So, methods for constructing a proper freestyle and executing queries will be what we chat about.
Your brain is an algorithm.
We'll be talking about musical structure, so very, very simple intro to beat structure.
We'll also be comparing the brain to AI and we'll be showing you some really simple techniques, but also a little bit more advanced techniques on how you can train your brain to be an algorithm to freestyle rap.
Make some noise.
Has anyone here ever freestyle rapped?
A little bit?
Do we have any people that love hip-hop in the crowd?
Yeah, we got a couple hip-hop heads.
Amazing.
Well, we'll have some demonstrations for you as the PowerPoint goes on and later on, if you guys are brave, we can all have a little cypher together.
So, we're gonna go over a couple different concepts.
So, just like a predictive model, your brain accesses data, all the data that you've had in your life, as potential content for you to freestyle rap.
So, anything that you've done before in your life, any conversation that you've had, any lyric you've listened to, that's all data, just like AI as a predictive model would have, that exists inside of your brain for you to utilize.
Real-time selections of words are based on a couple different things.
They're based on rhymes, they're based on rhythms and meanings, and so the more that you practice predictively rapping certain things, the more data set your brain will automatically conjure and it'll be like natural.
You will just be rapping about things and words will just come to you because you've trained those rhyme patterns.
There's a lot of training data inside of your brain and, like I said, all your past experiences, all the patterns, every conversation you've ever had, those all exist in your mind for you to utilize when you are freestyle rap in the moment looking for words to draw from.
So, how does prediction work?
Everything you've ever experienced becomes a data set that your brain draws from.
Pattern recognition is also really, really important.
So, we're gonna go over some common rhyme schemes a little bit later.
Okay, now I'm gonna show you that we wanna first I'm about to tell you about all the training data, the data.
Every time we put in it on, the data is what your brain it'd be drawn upon.
So, when you practice for a little while, making them go wild, you can look at a PowerPoint and just start some freestyle.
And if you go ahead, then you'll be manifesting.
I'm gonna show you this is real-time processing.
So, as you can hear, there's no encryption.
I'm gonna tell you off this slide, this is pattern recognition.
There's different rhyme schemes like ABAB.
And when you be racking them on the mic, they going crazy.
And y'all join with us.
You are crew.
But the best thing is the feedback loop.
When you practice what you love, your main prerogative will be practicing it.
So, the feedback is positive.
So, those are kind of how the prediction things work.
So, training data is everything you've ever experienced.
Like I said, is data in your brain that you can draw from.
The more and more you practice, and it happens really quickly.
But if you actually drill concepts, pattern recognition is huge.
You can do it with rhythm, you can do it with multi-syllabic rhymes.
I'll show you punchline, bar and punchline setup, which is like the money of it.
It's, you know, when you hear people rapping, you want the good stuff, right?
You want the double entendres, you want absolutely no filler.
Training things like that helps your brain automatically input those patterns.
Real-time processing, every time you are anywhere, just like when you enter a room to have a conversation, any time you enter in there, your brain is already working overtime to look at what's important and relevant.
Your subconscious is already sorting that from you.
So, you got to, if you want to freestyle rap, get out of your own way.
Let your brain real-time process what's important.
And the more you freestyle, the stronger you get, the more your neural pathways are happy, the more you do it, the less you suck.
And the less you suck, the more you're like, okay, I really, really like this.
And the positive feedback loop is what gets you going.
So, like I said, the exposure, listening to diverse music, as well as going out, having new experiences, seeing people perform music, it doesn't have to, for freestyle rap, specifically be geared towards music, but anything you do in life that expands your horizons,
that is a new experience that inspires you, you can draw upon.
So, in order to optimize the algorithm up inside your brain, what you have to do is go out and enjoy life.
Exposure to all of those things you will see reflected in your lyrics as you live a deep life with substance.
Again, practice, practice, practice.
People ask how you get good at anything, but it's like anything.
When I first started out, I was a freestyle rapper for... I'm from Canada, in case you guys didn't know.
So, up in Canada, I did a lot of music festivals up there.
And when I first started rapping, everyone's just really wanted me to be a rapper, but I wasn't any good.
About a year into my freestyle rap journey, a year or two, I was getting a little bit of bookings and sort, but it wasn't until I was rapping for a few years that I really took a pause and started practicing the things that I'll show you, pretty much the shortcuts to it.
But you have to practice all the time, and you can always get better, the sky's the limit, but practice will grow your neuroplasticity, it will strengthen those bonds, and you'll find yourself getting a lot better with focused practice.
I will show you some easy pattern drills.
And again, the feedback that you'll get from ciphers, which is a group of people rapping together, as well as battles or recordings or just kind of jamming with your friends, things like that will always make it better.
It's probably just like, you know, with hacking, like anytime that you're working on something with people, I feel like you always want to bring the best version of you to the projects or whatever it is that you're doing.
So, making sure that you have a community to share this stuff with is better, because you can sit alone forever and work on the most fire songs or hack everything, but when you're doing it with people, such as a conference like this, just getting like-minded individuals together who share a passion,
you're always going to want to bring your A game.
So, there's a couple different pattern recognitions in terms of rhymes.
Rhyme structure, your brain quickly matches and select words that fit the rhyme.
So, when I say cat, you say, yeah, cat, hat, bat, perfect.
So, super, super simple.
Those are monosyllabic, one syllable.
So, if you want to be practicing, if your brain is a baby algorithm and you're teaching it to rap, don't go complicated with it.
Start simply.
So, monosyllabic words are really, really good, and your brain is quite quick at matching and selecting possible rhymes.
It's similar to predictive text when AI is finishing one of your sentences, but when you're going off of it, the constraints you're looking for are just that it rhymes, and if it matches that, you're good.
As you get farther into it, of course, you're not going to want to have very, very simple rhymes.
I'll show you some set-up punchline tactics, and you're not going to want to sacrifice a perfect rhyme for meaning.
Slanted rhymes, which we'll get into in a little bit.
So, cat and hat, they're perfect rhymes because the vowels are the same, the consonants end the same, but cave and say, they're different.
But in terms of rhyming, they would work.
So, please make sure if you are practicing this, you've got to teach your brain's algorithm about the slanted rhymes because it's like primary colors for a painter.
It'll open up a whole new world.
Don't focus on it being perfect.
Have fun with it.
We'll also go over some common rhyme structures.
Multi-syllabic rhymes is when instead of one syllable, cat, there's two or three.
Cat, those rhyme, but it goes from a mono-syllabic to a multi-syllabic.
There's lots of different rhyme structures we'll go over, and I'll have some examples that'll make it a little bit easier.
Internal rhymes you'll see as well, which are rhymes within it.
So, like I have it there, if I say hack, your brain might rhyme track or back.
So, model training, how to improve.
So, just the same as hacking or any kind of skill that you're looking to get a lot better at, practice is everything.
Practice is a lot different from performance, as some of you know.
So, there's my graphic up there.
It's scientifically proven with the proper, accurate percent numbers.
But practice makes everything.
The more you practice, the better your algorithm gets, the neuroplasticity in your brain will be happier.
The more you practice anything, the better that you get at it.
In terms of performance, I will show you different tactics you can use in practice, but you do have to perform.
If we're going to relate this to hacking, then I'm sure there's a lot of exercises you guys do to get much better at what you do.
But in terms of performance, when you actually have a job to get done, that's just as important, and I'm sure that the adrenaline excitement of it is wonderful.
But practice is the best because during practice sessions is when you can and you should make mistakes.
I believe that in the next graphic... oh, maybe I missed it.
I have this flow chart in here, but essentially within practice, there's certain difficulty levels out of anything you do.
And so, if you're practicing at a level that is too difficult for you, it's really hard for you to achieve any kind of flow.
However, if you're practicing at the exact level of your skill level, then you will be practicing in a way that helps you get better.
Well, you have to find out where that baseline is of your skill level.
And in your practice sessions, you do want to make mistakes because that means you're learning.
When you're in performance mode for anything, there's so many different tactics, so many different moves in every art form that you can kind of jet off to.
So, if you're practicing like four bar punches, which we'll go over in a minute, in a practice session, if you're staying within those constraints of that algorithm, practicing that, you might make a mistake.
That's good.
Just get back to it.
If you're in performance mode, you might just utilize a different technique and kind of veer away from that.
So, why it's really important to practice things is because when you're practicing off camera, not on a stage, you want to be making those mistakes because mistakes mean you're getting better.
That's just kind of how it goes.
You got to push through those mistakes, feed that positive feedback loop, and that's how you get way better at stuff.
So, I'll give you a couple supplementary to freestyling.
These just help your brain in general.
Word associations, rhyme pairing, and category drills are really fun ones.
So, up in here, I have one, like, pick a word, like firewall.
So, what you want to do to help your brain grow a little bit is just simple associations.
This isn't to any music, this isn't to a beat, but if I say firewall, you might think of security, encryption, data, hack, code, algorithm, network, virus, breach.
Can you guys think of any other words that are within kind of that realm?
Just any at all.
Nothing?
Come on, you got one for me.
Incident response.
What we got here?
Anything at all.
No, I got nothing.
Nothing to do with firewall?
No.
Well, you got a lot to learn here this weekend.
I'm just kidding, you've been doing great.
Do you got one for me off of a category of those?
ACL.
Perfect.
Whoopsies.
Oh, okay, perfect.
So, that's awesome.
So, you can do a lot of category drills.
I think I skipped one.
Oh, no, I didn't.
That's good.
Okay, cool.
All right.
So, another one that you could do.
My maestro's in the back.
Can we get the music up a little bit of a touch?
Perfect.
So, another one.
So, you rhyme in real life.
An example of this is if I talk about my mic.
You can talk about things that you say go full throttle, like when I see you, I can shout out your water bottle.
You want to make them bounce, but if you freestyle, you're just walking around the house.
You want to make sure that when you rap tracks, you got it in the what?
Got it in the backpack.
So, you walk around that so you can practice.
When I see a microphone, I'm going to attack it.
I got the hip hop, it's in my jeans, like the color of your jacket.
And yeah, we come to ball.
I want to help y'all get involved and improve overalls.
I mean overall.
That's what she's wearing.
So, these skills are not quite apparent, but when you walk around, you can't stop.
I'm just out here to shout out my dogs.
Your dog is adorable and cute.
Thank you guys for helping my brain to boot.
And I've dialed in the dialect to make sure that I work on my reflex with all the words that I'm creating.
I'm just on this mic to flex my communication.
So, that's pretty much like a really good thing you can do.
You can walk around your room.
How I got really decent at rapping is I'd rap to my dog.
Like I'd walk around, rap to my dog.
I'd rap to my house plants.
When you're sitting in the car, people really, really like that.
Not to anyone, but I feel like the car, like not only does it have really good acoustics, but also when you freestyle rapping in a car, not that I encourage distracted driving, but when you're in a car, it's really nice because I feel like the part of your brain that really has a lot of inhibition.
Do you guys ever find when you're either walking or running or doing something completely off task to what you're working on, inspiration strikes you?
Hands up if that happens.
Yeah.
So, I feel like whenever you are engaged in something, either like mentally stimulating or physically stimulating, divine inspiration just hits you.
I feel like the part that monitors your brain kind of shuts off a little bit.
So, a lot of people love rapping in the shower, rapping in the car.
I just rap all the time.
Now, all right, so we had a few of those easy drills there.
So, now I'm actually going to show you how to rhythmically pair that knowledge with different kind of rhyme patterns.
There's a science to this, supposedly, and I'm not saying if it works or not works, but it does work and it would have saved me a year or two of being way less good at rapping.
So, you can apply this to kind of anything.
You want to, guys, if we want to update building an AI that's really good at rapping, these are the kind of things you got to put in there.
There's a lot of like OpenAI, Chats, GPT, Google's DeepMind.
It's crazy what AI out there can do.
They can mimic voices.
They can mimic rhyme patterns.
They can mimic emotion.
But you know what they can't mimic?
It's getting a crowd reaction up on the stage.
So, first of all, what are music measures?
So, a measure or a bar in music is a unit of time typically about four beats.
So, when you hear music, you can automatically usually like one, two, three, four.
It's typically, you can always kind of feel it.
Music usually changes every 32 beats or 32 bars, but each measure or bar is typically like a sentence.
Rappers use bars to stay on rhythm.
And a lot of the time, the lyric or the word, whatever they're trying to land on to get that crowd reaction or get their message across comes at the end of that bar or sentence.
If one element is out of sync, just like any kind of script in a code, everything is going to be whack.
So, you got to make sure that you have it all together or else it probably won't work like it's intended to.
So, first off, a couplet.
A couplet is a set of two consecutive lines.
They rhyme with each other.
So, an example is, I came to CypherCon because my passions include tech, AI, security, and hacking.
So, that's an A and an A, you can see right there.
Two rhyming bars, sentences, measures, there's many different words for the same thing.
And again, there's an example.
I very much encourage you guys to always make use of the slanted rhyme.
I was rapping for like a year before I kind of, that opened up to me.
But the meaning of your words will matter so much more than any kind of perfect rhyme.
So, that's one thing that, because I've delved into looking like what AI can do in terms of rapping.
They don't got the slanted rhymes down yet.
So, that proves your humanity as a rapper.
Okay.
So, simple four-bar phrases, so many A's up in there.
In case you guys didn't know, I told you I'm from Canada.
So, the example that I have in here is, I came to CypherCon because my passions include tech, AI, security, and hacking.
I can train any skills that are lacking to become professional at freestyle rapping.
So, pretty simple, but that's the same.
See how every bar ends in the very same rhyming word at the end?
Cool.
So, that's a four-bar.
Does anyone have any random word for me?
I'll do a demonstration.
Any word at all.
Bitcoin.
Perfect.
So, if you're doing a four-bar phrase, you'd want to make sure that your focus is on the target word being the last one.
I don't want to disappoint.
When I'm on the mic, they go make some noise and drop punchlines that people rejoice and take it over the internet like my thoughts Bitcoin.
So, you want to make sure it's the fourth punch, mainly because if you throw it away in the first sentence, everyone's kind of like waiting for it.
So, by the time they hear it and something else happens, it's kind of less exciting.
That's another thing that I learned really quickly on when I first started this, because at first, you kind of, you're throwing the word in there, but you're not really going towards it.
So, when you're practicing different rhyme patterns, the A-A-A-A is a nice one.
Literally any word, you can walk around your house rapping, rhyme four things with cat, you're already doing it.
So, another one that's over here is the A-B-A-B.
So, very, very similar to that one, but pretty much the algorithm you write in your mind is that the target word, there's two of them.
So, instead of just rhyming everything with passion, you're rhyming one with passion and one with tech.
So, it would go a little bit something like, I came to CypherCon because my passions are hacking, security, AI, and tech.
I can train any skills that are lacking and see my improvement as the effect.
So, it's pretty much the A-A-A-A, but with a little bit of a switch up.
And it's kind of nice, because when you practice all of these things off camera on your own, you have all these different techniques at your disposal, so that when you're actually utilizing these skills in real life, you're able to switch it up, be exciting,
go different ways that people aren't going to think you're going to go.
But in practice, if you were to pull any of these up, you'd practice just these for like 10, 15 minutes.
You know, nothing crazy, but doing them just for 10 minutes every couple times a week, it'll help your brain get them cemented in.
So, when it's performance time, you have those algorithms in your brain without overthinking it.
And your brain can focus on other crazier stuff, like all the things going on in the room, shouting out the person that just walked in, like remembering what his baby's named so you can surprise him while you're on the stage, you know, little things like that.
So, this rhyme pattern right here is Canadian as it gets.
So, you can get pretty crazy with these ones.
You know, eight bar phrases are... I'll give you the example here, but some people practice like 16 and 32, and sometimes when you're in it, it's just kind of fun to do.
And if you're listening to hip-hop in the future, sometimes if you kind of pay attention to what rhyme scheme they're going, you'll find that popular hip-hop songs, some of them, they'll keep the end rhyme going for like 16, going for 32 bars, like half the song,
and it's what makes it so impressive.
But as a listener, you're not really thinking and breaking apart the rhyme pattern algorithmically.
But what makes a lot of things catchy sometimes is how many internal rhythms and stuff they have.
So, all this stuff you might see happening in real life, but you might have not noticed it before.
So, an eight bar phrase would be, I came to CypherCon because my passions include tech, AI, security, and hacking.
I can train any skills that are lacking to become professional at freestyle rapping.
I do not have time for slacking.
Always working, never napping.
I'm AI when I'm in action encrypting rhymes like cyber attacking.
That is a lie.
I took a nap all morning.
You guys were working way harder than me on my redline flight yesterday.
All right.
So, this is my favorite thing ever.
Set up punchline.
I realized I had a lot of work to do on my own bars.
Do you guys know what I say when I say filler?
Filler lines.
Hands up if anyone does not.
Yeah.
So, a filler line is pretty much like a throwaway.
A filler can be in any category of existence.
But in terms of rap lyrics, it's when it doesn't really mean anything.
People are kind of, you have their attention, you're trying to say something cool, you want it to be dope.
Or at least relevant to something going on in the room.
But sometimes people's flows are a little bit made fun of or they don't commandeer the attention they deserve because their rhymes are all filler, no killer, as it is said.
So, the set up punchline will help ensure that all of your rap lyrics are geared towards having a lot of fun meaning.
Usually it's either some kind of wordplay, double entendres, kind of stuff like that.
A little bit of braggadocio.
You got to make sure that you establish an idea or a situation.
You got to entice people with it.
Otherwise, what are you using the power of the microphone for?
So, the set up is establishing kind of your idea and then the punchline kind of delivers a surprise, a twist, or just has just a little bit of word flow, you know?
So, for an example, I have in my little meta screen on the screen there, no AI can predict my moves, flow so advanced the hackers approve.
That would be a set up punchline, a simple one, they don't have to be crazy, but you would say that instead of, I came here to do what I do, my bars are cool, dude.
And they'd be like, okay, that's good.
But when you throw in a little bit of situational humor, it adds a lot more punch to it when you're performing.
So, videos of me with the dopest raps take over the web like cyber attacks.
That has a little bit more of a punch because it's actually geared towards the situation that we're in.
Rapper sets the scene at the tech event, hinting at innovation, and then the punchline uses kind of hot topic words indicating that we have secure flow.
So, you can kind of weave that into whatever situation you're in to make things exciting.
This one should have music, I think.
Yeah.
All right.
So, I'll give you an example of a set up punchline.
If you want to practice set up punchlines in your brain algorithm, pretty much just put on a random word generator for a year, for a whole year, and just focus on making couplets.
Those were those two measures with that at the end.
So, my name's Thug Shells and I'ma put it on.
Getting hyper at the cypher while I'm at CypherCon.
And when I'm in it, I drop it a boom backer.
I'm taking over the internet like I was a hacker.
That's the punchline, rockin' a set.
I'm not Peter Parker, but I take over the web.
And I be saying, damn, I'm taking over the web like I was Spider-Man.
Okay, you heard what I said.
I'll protect you like I was VPN.
And when I'm in it, they gon' turn it up louder.
I'm protecting all my homies like VPN up on your browser.
Keep it rockin'.
I'm shouting out my raps.
I know that I'ma hack it over and I'm the white hat who gon' protect it.
I'm in your neighborhood, white hat rapper.
I promise I be doing good.
And I do not stall.
I got computer-upgraded software installed inside my brain so that I do not drop the ball.
Taking over the web through all the firewalls.
I get you so excited and the vibes be the highest.
I'm taking over internet like I'm a virus, but I do not stop at all.
I'm a good virus, so I don't need no firewall.
So that's an example, right?
The punchline is at the end.
So whatever you're saying, wow, the timing worked out really well.
So if you practice this for a while, you'll find like these beautiful synchronicities.
You kind of really get fluid with music, just as I imagine with coding or whatever it is that you guys love doing.
You achieve a level in it where things just feel natural and feel right.
And little fun moments like that happen.
And again, that really feeds back into the positivity loop of your progress, right?
So it's like you'll have the rap and you'll be like, okay, that feels good.
And you realize the song's ended because your brain's internal rhythm has already kind of checked the measures of the music.
So just like in any kind of craft, passion, hobby, the more you do it, the more joy you get out of it.
So hands up if everyone kind of gets this set-up punchline.
Yeah?
Does anyone want to try?
I thought I'd ask just in case, you know?
It's okay, you got me if you need anyone battle-wrapped.
All right.
So these ones are going to be some advanced techniques.
I just wanted to talk about them.
If you were to program your brain like AI, this is the ones that you would actually kind of put in there.
So this set-up punchline, here it is, what I just demonstrated.
So you pick a target word and you make all four of the bars rhyme with it.
You keep the target word as the last bar, again, so that the meaning really, really hits.
That's what you like to do.
So if the target word was algorithm, rap in every day I'm living, so my freestyles sound like writtens, each line is a code I'm scripting, so my brain knows the algorithm.
So that's kind of how the set-up punchline works in terms of the four-bar punches.
The last one where I demonstrate it, you do the couplets, which means it's the two of them rhyming.
This is if you do that with four.
So this is set-up punchline, four-bar punches.
Everyone got it?
Yeah.
All right, so advanced techniques.
So this one is ABAB in a couplet.
So that means that you're putting another rhyme within the first bar.
So you're thinking of two words, and these ones are really interesting.
So does everyone see where the start of those first sentences are in blue?
So that's about how much time you have for your brain to mentally process where you're going.
These ones require a lot of training.
The ABAB ones specifically, you literally you'll sit there when you're practicing these on your own, you'll want to keep it simple, but you can sit there and you can practice these, because these ones I think out of all of like some of the techniques are kind of the hardest,
because if your target word is algorithm, you have the amount of time that the music goes for the blue words to think of your setup.
So you think algorithm, train flow, brain sew, and then hitting.
But you have to think of all of those words in a half second while the music is playing, while it says decoding my.
So it'd be decoding my brain, so every beat hit in, every day I train flow, it's my algorithm.
So those internal rhymes like that, they sound so smooth and flawless when people practice them, but it's a very kind of advanced technique that you can practice.
And just like anything, if you just keep practicing it, when you start, for myself anyway, it's really frustrating, because like you want yourself to be better and your skill level is maybe less so at these ones, so you might not want to practice it.
That means that's what you have to practice.
If you get frustrated, it means you got to push through it, because we don't give up, we're tough, we're gangsters.
So definitely if you start practicing the ABMBs in a couplet, don't start multi-syllabically, there is no point, start with simple ones.
So for the second one, hack your brain, then you'll know how to train, crack the code.
Start slow, start simple, it's super easy.
So again, the script that's written in blue is kind of what your brain, the amount of time that your mental processing has to think of the rhymes.
So if the target word is code, you're thinking of the word train, because you're training the code, and then your algorithm is inputting brain to rhyme with train, because that's coming into the sentence in like a half second, and then you'll rhyme no with code,
but it can be the first bar, don't worry, it can be kind of like a throwaway, but the second bar is kind of what you want to focus on.
So hack your brain, then you'll know how you can train to crack the code.
So that's ABAB in a sense.
Any questions on that one?
Cool.
So this one is actually pretty fun.
So see all the script in blue?
Even though this is an advanced rhyme technique.
Anyone listen to ABBA back in the day?
Mamma mia, well this is the ABBA rhyme scheme.
I like to call it the ABBA.
This one's a lot more fun.
The other one, because you literally have like a split second in order to practice it, gets a little bit frustrating, especially if you drill it for like 15 minutes.
It'll like go good a couple times, and you'll mess up, and you'll be like ABBA is a good time.
Everyone has a good time when they're hanging with ABBA.
So all that blue sentence there, that's how much time you have to think of it.
So you pretty much, you have your target word, your target word algorithm, and you kind of set up the red ones right there to go off algorithm.
And then you think of the one up top.
So I got the code, now every beat is hidden, train, so my brain flow, my algorithm.
And you can see how those internal rhymes that are nestled in the couplet add a little bit of schwager, add a little bit of steeze up in that.
A simple monosyllabic one would be, got hacks inside my brain, I know the code because I've trained.
So it doesn't have to be anything simple, like phonetically it's good.
The more you get into it, the more meaning you can add to it, but monosyllabic ones are awesome.
It just adds a little bit of a funky rhythm, the more internal rhymes you have, and you can get kind of crazy with it, but those are kind of the simple ones that I'd recommend starting your brain algorithm with.
So like I said at the start of this PowerPoint, your brain has a mental workbank.
There's a lot of data that's already up in there, and there's a lot of slang, phrases, all these things are in your repertoire to learn from.
And one of my favorite things about going out and freestyling to people, with people, listening to music, going out networking, is you learn a lot.
You learn a lot by being with other people, you learn a lot about being in the real world.
You can learn an infinite amount online as well, but whenever you go out, you gain a lot of information and a lot of knowledge from your experience.
And anytime you get experiences, you add it to that data set that you have up in there.
Freestyle rapping specifically requires you to use improv a lot.
Some people might like public speaking, others not.
I haven't been on a professional stage like this in a hot minute.
I don't think I've made a PowerPoint since I was in elementary school, so this is really, really cool for me.
But improvising, pulling on that database that you have inside your brain, and being able to adapt everything to real-life situations, it just makes it so fun.
So I'm from Canada, and we don't have... question for you guys.
Do you know what a... what was it called?
Diconderoga?
Do you guys know what a diconderoga is out here?
Anyway, it's a pencil.
Apparently, it's like the Sharpie of pencils.
I was freestyle rapping outside a show in Oakland last week, and someone said that word.
And I'm walking around the circle rapping, and I'm rapping about it, and I've clearly forgotten the word.
Like, how can you remember?
How is that a well-known word, diconderoga?
It took me four days to remember that word, finally.
But I go up to somebody, and I was like, what was your word again?
And I hand it to her, so she could say it.
And then I go, ah, you could have said pen.
You know, and you walk away.
So being able to improvise like that, off the fly, that'll all help you.
Those are all things that we have above AI, is being able to kind of add the comedic of it.
So anytime you make a mistake with it, roll with the punches, learn to improvise, have a good time.
Those are honestly rules in life, I do believe.
All right.
So neuroplasticity.
Does anyone know what that is?
Yeah?
Does anyone have like a semblance of what that is?
Yeah?
Awesome.
So neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to rewire and adapt.
It is happening in your brain constantly through repeated practice of everything, and it's why if you start practicing even a little bit of something, you'll find that you'll make strides and leaps within that facet quite quickly.
Does anyone know what flow state is?
Yeah?
Does anyone kind of get into flow state when they're hacking or like working on their computers?
You guys have experienced that?
If you guys have experienced flow state, you'll realize that there is nothing better.
I'm going to come talk to this side of the room for a second.
I'm going to hang out with you guys.
How are we doing back there, gang?
Doing good?
Awesome.
So flow state is amazing.
If you guys have ever experienced flow state, you'll realize it's the time where everything stands still.
Time flies.
You don't care about the clock.
You're just in what you're doing, and your dopamine increases.
You also, the part of your body, your brain that inhibits what you do or thinks about any external circumstances, consequences, it kind of shuts off.
So in flow state, you can create, make, work on your projects, and it just feels like you're the happiest you could have ever been.
Flow state, once you enter it, is number one at providing that positive feedback loop.
And in order to give flow state, there's a little graphic that I was talking about.
So flow state, if your skills are high and the challenges are really low of something that you're doing, you will enter the boredom category.
If someone asks you to do something and you're way overqualified, you're like, this is easy.
I could do this while napping.
However, if someone asks you to do something and your skills are way lower and it's really hard, you get anxious because you're like, I can't do this at all.
This graphic doesn't say frustrated, but I think that for me personally, anxiety runs with frustration.
I'm like, I can't do this.
This is stupid.
I'm going to give up right now.
But the beautiful, magical spotlight is kind of in a minute where your skill levels and the difficulty of your task kind of line up.
So that's what flow state is, is when you're working on your craft, whatever project that you're really, really into.
It's when the skills and the difficulty level of it are kind of at an equilibrium.
If you're practicing a skill, you slowly want to kind of raise the baseline of your difficulty level as you get better.
And that'll just help you continue getting better while staying in flow state.
So flow state's in the brain.
Flow state really affects a couple different parts of your brain, but the prefrontal cortex, as well as the medial prefrontal cortex, the prefrontal cortex affects the self-censorship that deactivates.
So you're no longer thinking about what someone is worried about.
You're not thinking about how that glass is about to fall off that table and you want to save it.
You're not thinking about your grocery list when you get home.
Your inhibitions are gone.
You're more creative and you're in whatever you're doing.
The medial prefrontal cortex engages and creativity and expression activates.
Freestyle mode on.
Your dopamine levels go up and your neural pathways strengthen.
The more you practice, the more neuroplasticity it gets, the happier your brain is.
And you know, I'm not a neuroscientist, but I do know that when you practice something you love and you feel good about it, you feel better as a whole.
So whatever project, whatever passion you guys have, the more you practice, anything can engage flow state.
From coding, to painting, to wrapping, to running.
It is not in one career.
It is not in one facet.
Flow state is a gift to us.
And if you have that gift, you got to use it.
Because I think some of the best moments that you could ever have happened from flow state.
You're just like, how did I do that?
And it feels really good.
All right.
So AI, just like different kinds of GPT, predicts words based on probability.
The more you train your brain, literally use all the practice techniques that I showed you, but even just basic practice, even if you're not going to get into like the rhythmic structure or the ABBAs or the ABABs, as long as you practice a little bit,
your brain will get used to music measures and trying to reach for words that rhyme in a way that you'll kind of surprise yourself.
So just like when you're texting and your phone tries to finish a sentence for you, if you start practicing a little bit, your brain will be reaching for these rhymes for you.
Freestylers do that, but with some added emotion as well as creativity.
Similarities to machine learning, there's models and neural networks.
So just like AI, you can teach yourself and you can keep that rocking.
While both human freestylers and AI rely on predictive modeling, there's a lot of key differences.
So let me take a moment to talk about creativity.
So with creativity, a lot of people, they enjoy original ideas, humor, they can draw on experiences that everyone's had.
AI can also pull from all of those things, but with an AI model, existing data is usually what it's drawn from.
So all of the open softwares that could try to emulate freestylers as well as hip-hop, they don't really have the depth of human emotion yet that we as people can draw from.
Context awareness.
So when we're out live, we're reacting constantly to what is happening around us.
AI isn't able to do that.
It's limited to what it is pre-trained.
Humans have the bonus of creativity where they can adapt instantly on the spot, real-time, to things that are happening, to people that walk into the room, to a prop that's pulled out of a pocket.
And moments like that are those eureka crazy moments where you can't believe that everything is happening on the fly.
You can train your brain to be like that.
The more you practice, the more quick-witted you'll become.
I think the brain just likes to be used.
So the more you start utilizing it a little bit, the more it wakes up.
It's honestly, sometimes you just nap for three days, you're like, oh, and then you start doing whatever it is you're doing.
And it's like getting on a treadmill.
You're like, okay, I remember how this works.
In terms of physical execution, who here has ever been to a concert?
Perfect.
So performers on a stage, right now since I'm doing pretty much a TED talk, I'm just casually walking around like this.
A lot of the time when you go out to see a performance, people are doing crazy stuff on stage.
They're dancing, they're on a speaker, they're headbanging, some people are doing backflips.
Something that AI never has to deal with is breath control, as well as the dynamics of being on a stage.
So freestyle and brain has to think about all these things.
We have to think about how we're holding the microphone, how far away we're holding the microphone, if we're running out of breath, all these different constraints.
With AI, it just outputs either text or the audio that it was given to transform without performance elements.
So it's impressive how much AI can mimic things like that.
However, humans will always have our physicality of the constraints of our voice and the mistakes that we could make, but that also makes us human, and I think that that's really cool.
So memory and experience, again, we can draw from our personal life, emotions, and culture.
And with AI models, really the data set that's been fed to it is what drives off it.
All right.
So I would love to go around and get a couple words from you guys, and we'll do a bit of a live demonstration.
If you guys got a word, hold it up.
I don't want to bombard anybody.
Yeah?
Okay, we got one here, one here, one there.
Birthday.
Is it someone's birthday?
Okay, cool.
Okay, what we got?
Jacket.
Birthday jacket.
Koala.
Perfect.
Okay, could we get my beat up a little bit?
Okay.
I grab the microphone, it's a piece of cake.
I light the flame up like it was a birthday.
When I be seeing microphones, I attack it.
I just stole the show.
I steal it, I jack it.
And y'all feeling dope.
I got you covered with the flow like I'm putting on coats.
The flow that we dropping, it's gigantic.
Bar so hot, you're taking off your jacket.
And I know I got the formula to keep it going.
I'm gonna take the words farther.
I get the green.
I ain't talking about a farmer.
I'm a bear at all, like I was a koala .
And we rap in excessively.
I'm no koala, but these are the bare necessities.
And I came to rock for y'all.
Koala, that's a really tiny animal.
Other rappers be soft as koalas.
I keep it rocking every time that I'm on the microphone.
I'm shouting out all of my people.
How we doing guys?
Let's go.
All right.
Can I grab another word from you here?
Party.
Perfect.
Okay, Sean, I have a question.
I think I went off kilter.
Do you have any of the instrumentals from yesterday accessible?
Could you play a couple of these?
Perfect.
Oh my goodness.
That's okay.
Boom.
Guys, can we make some noise for the amazing team in the back right there?
That's crazy.
$100 billers.
All right.
So we had party.
Party.
Okay, let's get another one here.
Chipotle.
Party chipotle.
Hell yeah.
What do we got?
Shenanigans.
Those are good words.
Yay.
Thank you so much.
Again, it's some noise for the AV team.
I thought I had less time.
So we're going to have some, make some noise if you want some freestyle rap demonstrations.
Cool.
Thank you, guys.
You've been amazing.
All right.
So we had party, shenanigans, and chipotle.
Spicy.
Okay.
You guys ready?
A thug shell gets it started.
It's CypherCon and we be having a party with the fam.
Shenanigans.
We keep it spicy like chipotle.
We gon' eat it up.
When I see a microphone, I give it in your cup.
And I'm rocking in my Nikes, making sure that I'm giving you words that's spicy.
I pick up the word.
I'm rude.
You gon' want it up.
Yeah, you eat it like food.
And when I'm in the mix, I'm rapping always to make sure that I'm giving you words that all say that they delicious like chipotle.
When I serve it down, I know you on these beats, which you like.
And we get it started.
CypherCon, baby, and we here to party.
And when I see it, I'ma drop a jam.
I'm looking at CypherCon, and I see my fam.
How y'all doing?
Y'all know who I am.
Name is Thug Shells, and I arrive with shenanigans.
And now I'm walking down this hallways to make sure that I'm doing it right always.
Okay, do you got a word for me, Mr.
Homie who be chillin' in this seat?
Power.
Perfect.
All right.
Now I'ma be that thug.
And I be in the power when I'm holding the M-I-C.
I got the spark like plugs.
And I be going on flowin' like a shower.
I'm plugged in.
I'm sparkin' like it's the power.
Every time I'm on the mic, I drop heat to make sure I'm plugged in like it was AC.
I'm sparkin' up, and that's how we do.
Do you have another word for me, my dude?
Mango.
Ooh, and now we rock flow.
Got the fruits of labor sweet as mango.
They delicious, you my dudes.
I'ma slice it up like it was fruit.
Give me a review.
And I got thoughts that like vegetables or fruits.
They delicious and they edible.
Snake.
Okay, I'm going through the flow, but I ain't no snake.
Every time I'm in it with my freestyles, I'm going like a snake.
They call me a reptile.
I make it happen.
Yeah, I be the captain.
Spittin' acid on the mic like a Komodo dragon.
But I know that the stress dissolves like a snake up in the flow.
I'ma go with it all, and I make sure to keep it rockin'.
I'm winner is what you all.
We know slakes that sliver, but we be slithering through the field.
That's the way we do it.
We do it for real.
Yeah, cold as a blizzard.
When I was young, I didn't have snakes, but I had lizards.
And now the crowd's going wild.
Make some noise and we be rocking out with our reptiles.
And now we get in it.
Lydia, I'm so glad that I pulled up.
I'm seeing my kitties and I do what I can for my fam.
I pull up and I be wheeling like Vans.
Ethernet.
Okay, the set is what we rock.
I'm plugged in like it's Ethernet.
When I be in it, there's no encryption.
I'm flexing.
What I got is that direct connection.
That's how we do it.
And I know that time flies, but we plugged in.
We keep it worldwide.
With y'all here, I cannot be upset.
Maybe I should stream this using an Ethernet.
And I be watching on the table.
You watch it right now like cable.
This ain't no fail.
It's real.
We can't be upset.
Okay, we needed another word like Ethernet.
Milk.
Ooh, perfect.
Smooth as silk.
Don't have a cow, but when I be in the mix, you gotta drink it up like it was milk.
Make it bounce.
We rock it now.
And I know that we got flow large as cows.
Speaking of milk, the microphone, I be on it.
Making sure that I be dripping words like they chocolate.
We mix it up too.
I know spit is what I do, but we be making up that nest quick.
We sip it with a straw when I'm at the steering wheel.
Milk and hip-hop is me and cereal.
What we got back here, homie?
Y'all got something to say, yeah, if that's okay.
All right, all right, all right.
So normally I don't really rap, I sing.
But this chick here taught me a couple things.
Yeah, I'm eating it up like I'm in the lunch line.
She just taught me about the setup and the punchline.
Oh, all right.
Okay, so in freestyle, you can't cheat.
You can't write it down.
You can't use no sheet.
But if it's cool with you, right after this, we're about to be making some live beats.
So if you want to spit some heat when you're done with your talk, yeah, we can go head it up and just go walk around the corner.
The beat's switching up, so there's no real rhythm right now.
But you give me a word.
Pylon.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Yeah, they don't understand the type of stuff I'm on.
I'm right here at CypherCon.
Yeah, I don't know what a pylon is.
Is that the thing in the garage that you put stuff on?
Is that something you could pylon stuff onto?
Is that like a beam in the sky?
Because I want to be done rapping.
I'll give you the mic back, and it's cool, but this has been so fun.
Yo, guys, make some noise.
Grant, guys, make some noise for Grant.
Do you know how scary it is to get on a microphone?
Have you freestyled before?
Oh my god, striking like a python.
Call back to snake.
We brighter than the pylons.
A pylon is like a fluorescent cone.
That's what I know.
No, it could be a pole, whatever.
Now we got the homies keeping it clever together.
Yo, squad, the vibes don't stop.
CypherCon, how we feeling?
Make some noise for hip-hop.
All right, so I'm going to take a look at the time.
We still have 15 minutes.
That's crazy.
Okay, cool.
Let's rock one more song, and then I'd love to open the floor up to some questions.
That'd be super cool.
All right, so I'm going to come over here and not trip, fall, and splat on my face.
That'd be embarrassing.
All right, so I need a word from each of you.
Water.
Epical.
Epical?
Does that mean to be epic?
Tell us about epical.
Epical is the term for something changing in history.
Okay, perfect.
Awesome.
Dice.
We're on a roll over here.
All right, Sean, one more instrumental, please.
Ooh, this one's got like a kind of Austin Powers.
Epical?
Dice and water?
Okay.
We keep it rockin', we goin' full throttle.
When I'm in the mix, I'm a-drippin' like it's water.
When I'm in it, I'm goin' like I'm a bottle, never stop, and we got drip like the axolotl.
And when I'm up in here, I rock for my pals.
We changin' up the history.
That's epical, and it's no mystery.
It's the place to be.
I think we all got to rewrite that history.
And when I'm, I'm the M-I-C, I'm tellin' you the words that I drop the heat.
And right now, the world's goin' kinda crazy.
We need epical change.
That's why we here to make it on beat.
We be preachin' the peace, tellin' to the people.
Epical times, we gettin' rid of evil.
We got the vibes up in here at CypherCon.
Epical times, we be switchin' it up if it's wrong.
We up in it, makin' sure we go full throttle every time that we be pickin' the microphone, and it's nice.
I wanna be givin' you what you need.
And when I be spittin', I be on the roll like the dice.
Okay, and I won't stop for y'all.
The party tonight, the theme, Casino Royale.
So we gon' be rollin' the dice, and it won't be a slow burn.
Got the people up there maybe playin' poker.
It's gon' be dope, and you roll the dice.
Pickin' it up, and I'm just here to break the ice.
We'll bring it back up.
CypherCon, make some noise.
This is love.
And now we see, I'm gonna walk around and tell you, this is the place to be.
See my homies, and life is gettin' better.
You got Epical, yeah, written on your sweater.
Cause that's the company.
And I know we make it bump, the fist bump right here.
Cause we gon' love that bump.
Go get it, we get it clever together.
And I'm shoutin' out the stripes up in here on that sweater.
So this is the demonstration of when you're walkin' around, rockin' around the crowd.
You wanna make sure that you do like set up punchlines to what people are wearing.
So like hypothetically, I'd go over here, fist bump my new homie.
If the beat was still goin' loudly, I'd probably be rappin' about freestyle homin'.
Home of the free and the brave, that's the USA, baby.
Okay.
And now the mood is great.
My style's so free and brave.
We up in the states, and I'ma give you a flow state.
Cause that's where we represent.
I'm from Canada, the city is Edmonton.
But now I'm over here, colder than hockey.
I'ma show you how it's done in Milwaukee.
This is the way we play the funk.
And like I said, I would narrate our fist bump.
And then you walk this way just a little bit.
I'm so glad you guys are here.
Immaculate vibes from every single one.
We put it on.
Party people rockin' CypherCon.
I'll let you the bomb.
You're amazing, I like the vibes.
Hey, I fly, my mind is computerized.
Takin' over, rockin' the set.
I told you, we all up on the internet.
We break it like it's a hacker.
Every time I'm rippin', you payin' attention.
My bars are not encrypted.
Lovin' what I do.
Shout out to all my friends.
You know who I am.
I don't need no VPN.
Awesome, thank you guys so much.
So that was a bit of a demonstration.
I wanted to leave some time at the end for questions.
They can be about anything at all.
Do I have any questions from you guys?
Ooh, yay.
Sometimes I get on stage just to hop back off it.
Perfect, go ahead.
How did you come up with your rapper name?
It was actually a joke.
So my name is Michelle.
And my friends, like seven years ago, they're like, what's your rap name?
And I was like, I don't know.
And they're like Thug Shills, because it was Michelle.
And it stuck.
Yeah, it stuck like 10 years later.
I also fought a shark once.
Yeah.
Okay, another question.
What we got?
What do you think is the best way to increase your lexicon?
Honestly, there's a lot of different ways.
But I find reading.
Reading really helps.
Watching like certain kind of movies and stuff, you can really do it or going out honestly doing research for when I was invited out to CypherCon here.
I did like a mass amount of research.
I literally used chat GPT.
And I asked, I wrote exactly what I was doing.
I was like, I am a freestyle rapper that knows very little about hacking as well as like cybersecurity, what are really good words and their definitions.
And so I find that a lot of the time when you're going out and experiencing life, depending on what you're doing, you can do this like beautiful amount of research.
And you learn a lot once you're like on the grounds talking to people about stuff.
But just doing a little bit of research in regards to the field that you're going into is like, we have so much at our fingertips now.
You can put on like YouTube videos.
But yeah, for me, whenever it's like something I really want to learn about, I'll just like put on a documentary about it.
Or like, I guess for this one, yeah, I was like, what are the words?
Yeah, of course.
Okay, do we got any questions over here?
Yeah.
I have two.
One, how long have you been doing this for?
And then two, you have to tell us about the shark attack.
I don't know if I can.
I talked to my lawyers, they told me I'm not supposed to anymore.
Yeah, Canadian sharks, man.
Might meet them at the casino tonight.
Pull sharks.
Yeah.
So I've been I've been rapping since 2017.
I was at a music festival in like Western Canada.
And there was a group there freestyle focus group.
And they had a mobile like stage setup.
And they were roaming around with microphones kind of encouraging people to freestyle.
And I was like, that looks so cool.
And I had written, oh, yeah, I forgot I have stickers.
I have stickers to any more people who ask questions, and then also stickers to everyone later.
But they were rolling around and they were encouraging people to freestyle rap.
And I tried it for the first time.
And I was like, oh, I really like this.
And I was like a little baby festival goer.
Like I'd never thought music was part of what I was gonna do.
And I tried it, fell in love with it, started rapping the next year or so.
And then when the pandemic hit, a friend of mine had told me about live streaming.
So I started a DJ and a rap show on Twitch and really built my community and my audience for a couple years online.
Practiced all of that, got way, way better so that when the world opened up.
So I've been, I've been rapping about seven years now.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Are you excited for casino night?
I'm so excited.
I'm your DJ tonight.
Yeah, I'm so excited for tonight.
Are you guys excited for casino night tonight?
Yes.
Oh, it's gonna be, it's gonna be really good.
Are you excited?
I'm ready for Blackjack.
We got a Blackjack champ over here.
Do we got any challengers?
I'll just be supplying the vibes and background.
I'll be rooting for you.
All right, squad.
Do we have any more questions?
I got stickers.
Yeah.
Stickers as incentive.
Everyone loves stickers.
Have you ever like just, or talking and just started rapping accidentally?
Most definitely.
I've also woken up with like rap lyrics from my dreams.
And if you don't write them down, as I'm sure, like I said, with anything that you do in life, whatever your passion is, if you don't write it down, like if you have a dream about it, like I don't know how brains work, but I think sometimes they like solve weird behind the scene processes.
And I'm sure when you're like writing code or something, you'll have like the weirdest code in your brain some nights.
And if you don't write it down right away, it's gone.
It's gone to the dream logic ether.
But yes, I heard as soon as you put your feet down on the ground, your your knowledge is gone when you wake up.
Oh, really?
I heard I don't know how true it is.
Don't put your foot down.
I'm used to putting my feet down.
Do we have any more questions?
And this one's for you.
Okay, you did really good on the mic there.
Is there actually a beat working workshop after this?
So yeah, we're in a group called Fearjoy.
And we're going to be right outside these doors, literally right outside.
So if you got like 10 minutes when you're done, if you want to stop by, we're going to be literally making like live hip hop beats all night and like playing like psychedelic music and stuff.
So if you want to join, like we will be right out there.
I will.
I will be there.
That's awesome.
We'll put auto tune on you.
What type of beat do you want so I can tell the other producer?
Trap beat?
Literally anything.
Boom bap?
Okay.
Yeah, I feel like I've been boom bapping for days.
So maybe some trappy stuff.
Yeah, let's do it.
You rock.
Did you ever meet Harry Mack?
Yeah, I've opened up for him in Canada.
And I was just with him in Oakland last week.
He's legend.
Yeah, Harry Mack is one of those new age completely crack the code.
So we were talking about how long I've been doing this about a year into me streaming.
So I was rapping for like a year or two performing around Western Canada, world shut down, I started streaming.
A year into my streaming journey, Harry Mack, who's like a world renowned freestyle rapper, rated me on Twitch, which means he brought all of his viewers to my Twitch channel.
And that's how I got personally familiar with Harry Mack.
And I was on his happy hour show years ago.
And it was really pivotal to my career because waiting in like the discord green room to rap with him.
I was so nervous that I was shaking.
I was like, I'm terrified.
And that was the day that I practiced an hour off camera, repeatedly set up punchline for full year because I was like, when the next opportunity comes up to freestyle rap with somebody that is amazing.
I don't want to be nervous.
I just want to have fun.
Because that's what life's about, right?
So as long as you prepare for what you love to do, you're going to kill it.
I believe in all of you.
I'm pretty sure I'm pretty close to my time.
We got four minutes.
Does anyone have one more question?
Yeah.
Hi, guys.
Welcome to the room.
Do you typically try to stay like not rated R, somewhat clean?
I personally do.
But that's just kind of who I am.
I know tons of people who are not.
But yeah, I don't really have to cuss to sell records.
Yeah.
I also, for some reason, get booked for a lot of like children's parties.
So it works out well.
Do you see this?
I don't know if you can see.
I have like a remnants of a black eye.
Anyway, that was from a bat mitzvah I played.
Kids are ruthless.
That's not a joke.
I was late to my DJ gig because I had to go get my USB from the bat mitzvah.
And like, do not give five-year-olds pool noodles.
Five-year-old boys.
Like, I don't want to discriminate.
But like, the girls were fine.
And they were nice.
All right, guys.
I think I have like two minutes left.
We could write out on one more beat if we have time for it.
Yo, make some noise if we want one more rap cypher, y'all.
We got some new faces in the audience.
Perfect.
Do you guys have a random word for me, my kitty cats?
Meh.
Perfect.
All right.
We're taking it back.
I keep the microphone rocking.
Never stop.
I get your litty.
I'm looking at my front row.
I see a bunch of kitties.
And I'ma demonstrate that the thug will deliver.
If someone steps to you, I'ma put them in cat liver.
We don't need that.
We gon' leave them feigning a threat.
Other rappers try to talk .
I be saying, meh.
In fact, I got the words that are raw.
I say, meh.
And then I'm about to go , meh.
And now we take it back.
Never stop.
We got expert speed.
I got the referee with the double stripes.
I get it lit.
Oh, we're off like a pager.
I, too, am a big speed racer.
We going around the track.
Staying on my cats.
All my cool cats in the front row with boom bap.
We do it like this.
And we dropping the bomb.
Yo, make some noise for me.
How we feeling at CypherCon?
Oh, baby.
Perfect.
Energies we created.
So, the next talk is coming up soon.
But till then, I'ma keep the vibes high in the room.
Shout out to my people.
Shout out to my hackers.
The name's Thug Shells and I'm a boom backer.
Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, CypherCon, it's the part where y'all make some noise.
Thank you guys so much.
My name is Thug Shells.
I will be DJing the Casino Royale Glitch Party this evening.
So, if you see me there, please come say hi.
That is my time.
And if you have any questions or anything, come find me after.
Thank you guys so much.