Lightshow Steers Clear of the Law in New Freestyle

Lightshow is focused on the future. “As an artist, I can say something today, but it might be able to resonate like 10, 20, 30 years down the line and that’s motivating,” says the 27-year-old Washington, D.C. native. “If you’re just doing something that’s here today and gone tomorrow, you might not be that motivated to give it your all.”

Since popping out on Wale’s 2012 track, “Georgetown Press,” the “Shoot for the Stars” MC, who came up on lyricists like Jadakiss and Nas, has stayed committed to his grind with the release of projects such 2014’s DJ Khaled-hosted The Way I See It, 2017’s Kalorama Heights and his Life Sentence series. Here, the forward-thinking rapper behind records like “Boss Moves” delivers some bars for XXL’s Flex Zone.

Although the rapper and music engineer wants his team to shine, he prefers for the competition to stay in their lanes. “You must have lost your mind/You better fall in line/We’ll come close your curtains, we’ll come draw your blinds/We got sticks, logs, pine/I don’t fuck with the law or swine,” raps the Sleep When I Die artist, who later adds, “Anyway, I like them tall and fine/She said I just crossed her mind/And she want me to call her mine/forever, but we gonna take all the time/And we gonna floss and shine/And I know the cost, it’s fine.”

Known to tell it like it is, Lightshow describes his most recent album, If These Walls Could Talk 2, as a documentary, and says that there is a story or message in every one of the songs featured on it. “You just got to listen to it and let it motivate you,” he says when speaking on the 15-song project, which features Wale and Tate Kobang.

Watch Lightshow cruise through his Flex Zone freestyle in the video below.

See Every XXL Freshman Cover Since 2007