20 years is a long time to spend doing anything, as Murs could tell you this week. To commemorate two decades in the hip-hop game, he’s planning a series of live performances, interviews and more, culminating in a 24-hour live show, Bars For Days, during which he will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the longest freestyle rap ever.
The LA rapper will be launching these events alongside Boost Mobile, in a promotional series to launch its new streaming plan, which includes unlimited music. He’s set to host a five-episode live series titled Where You At?, which will be streaming for free for Boost Mobile users via Facebook and Twitter. The first hour-long episode premieres today, with subsequent programs streaming live from LA River Studios on July 27, August 17 and September 7, before culminating in the big world record finale on September 28. Eah show is set to contain interviews, performances and more.
In an interview with Billboard, Murs spoke about his intentions, his relationship with Boost Mobile, surprise guests, and the grand finale.
Speaking about the show in general, he explained, “I want to represent hip-hop’s diversity and multiculturalism in general and L.A.’s hip-hop culture specifically. My goal is to shake it up every episode with someone who is currently popular, someone who represents the future and someone who has done it in the past. I want to get new and older artists sharing the same platform so that there’s some unity whether you’re a gay artist, female, Latino, old school, new school. They’re all part of the L.A. hip-hop culture: past, present, future, overground and underground.
On the world record attempt, he joked that, “My mother constantly told me that if I spent as much brain space on other things as I did rap, I’d get somewhere. So now I’ll be running my mouth in a rap marathon. I have a bunch of songs in my head so I think I’ve got 24 hours’ worth of raps.”
Much like any other kind of sport, he reveals that there’s some pretty serious training involved in a 24 hour freestyle. “I have a rehearsal space in Tucson,” he said. “I’m going to take it in three-hour chunks, move up to eight-hour chunks and then an 18-hour chunk the week before. We’re also thinking of building some type of booth for me to sit in with a one-way mirror so people can come by and watch me. But this will be live streamed for all 24 hours. People can go to bed, wake up and make sure I’m still rapping. Whenever you want to tune in, I’ll be there for 24 hours. The more I talk about this now, the more I think about ‘what did I get myself into’.
Murs also said that once the five-episode series is over, he plans to take the same idea through other hip-hop hubs, including New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Texas and Chicago, as well as revealing that special guests like Terrace martin and Reverie may pop up across the series.
It’s an interesting concept, especially for a cross-market promotional platform. It’s cool to see Murs taking that marketing strategy and pushing it to a very real and important place, hopefully one that will seek to teach, explore and celebrate hip-hop culture in the right way.
The current known world record for longest freestyle rap goes to Red Cloud, a California rapper who freestyled for 18 hours, one minute and 14 seconds back in 2011, with the official Guinness World Record previously being held at 17 hours. Good luck Murs!
Image:HipHopGoldenAge