# Freestyle question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 17, 2003, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freestyle-question/149200 "2003-01-17T10:18:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fallus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5e925/32.png) [@Fallus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fallus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freestyle-question/149200/1 "2003-01-17T10:18:12Z")
Anyone familiar with hiphop culture? There is this freestyle-“game” where someone tells an MC a new word every, say, 10 seconds and the MC has to keep freestyling, changing his subject accordingly. Does anyone know how this is called? I’m pretty sure there is a word for it, but I can’t remember… Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![dauerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freestyle-question/149200/2 "2003-01-17T10:56:10Z")
I don’t have any idea, but I always wondered what an MC was. Master of Ceremonies doesn’t seem right, but maybe. What does it stand for? ---
**Author:** ![Fallus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b5e925/32.png) [@Fallus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fallus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freestyle-question/149200/3 "2003-01-17T11:06:50Z")
It is a Master of Ceremony, because an MC started out as something different as it is now. > [@](#): > > Jamaican born DJ Kool Herc moved to New York in the late 1960’s and brought with him the Jamaican tradition of “toasting”, which involved reciting improvised rhymes over instrumental sections of reggae records. He used twin turntables and cut back and forth between two seperate records to create a new sound. He would chant things like “Throw your hands in the air/And wave’em like ya just don’t care!”. This type of crowd pleaser was known as “rapping” to the crowd. At that time rap was not yet known as ‘rap’ but called ‘MCing’. Hope this answers your question… ---
**Author:** ![dauerbach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c2a13f/32.png) [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freestyle-question/149200/4 "2003-01-17T11:29:59Z")
Answers my question, thanks very much fallus.