“16 Bars,” The Boombox’s original video series, celebrates the art of rhyming, the skill that is freestyling, and the overall craft of MCing. Not only do we give hip hop’s elite lyricists a chance to rock the mic with an exclusive freestyle, we also interview them about how and why they do what they do.

And when we say “elite” we mean it. We’ve had underground king Tech N9ne demonstrate his intricate rhyme patterns for us; Common’s shown us why he’s still one of the best off-the-top-of-the-head freestylers around; and Slaughterhouse’s Joell Ortiz has crushed it, too.

With heavy hitters like these featured in the video series, we had to make the "16 Bars" LIVE experience something special. So when The Boombox partnered with Honda to take "16 Bars" from your computer or smartphone screen to the stage at NYC’s storied Le Poisson Rouge, we we were determined to make the event unforgettable.

For the first "16 Bars" LIVE event, we enlisted Black Thought of the legendary Roots crew. Renowned as one of the best technical MCs ever, Thought got a chance to show off his virtuosity with a high-energy set inspired by the music of James Brown. While DJ J. Period played the tracks, Thought flipped flows and phrases doing new solo material, dramatic a cappella verses and Roots album cuts like "Thought @ Work."

If you weren’t there to witness history, get a glimpse of what went down in the video above.

Presented by Honda.

 

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