Charles Hamilton Drops a Crazy Freestyle on Hot 97

After disappearing from the public eye for an extended period, Charles Hamilton is once again courting the media. Only this time, as Hot 97 host Peter Rosenberg points out, the rapper is doing it through more conventional brick-and-mortar means, where his mid-2000s heyday was orchestrated mostly through the tangled web of the rap blog world. Hamilton stopped by Rosenberg's show for a frank discussion about his mental health, a topic the prolific rapper has opened up about in his return from solitude. Saying that he was an introvert who simply felt the fame made him more introverted--and lamenting that he only registered the negative comments he, his music and his public persona received, while he ignored the myriad of compliments--it seems as if he simply had to go away for a while.

But on his return, Hamilton made no bones about going for the jugular in the way that endeared him to rap fans after "Brooklyn Girls" hit RSS feeds and airwaves. In a very evidently off-the-top freestyle session, he exercised his considerable skills, toying with English to the point where his politics ("I'm not brown enough") are embedded in the verses' DNA. With his trademark extra pair of headphones hanging around his neck--the radio station's red Beats were fixed atop his head--he hopped over a series of instrumentals with vigor. Hamilton will be performing his new, Rita Ora-featuring single, "New York Raining" on the March 18 episode of Empire.

Filed Under: Charles Hamilton, Empire, Hot 97

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