This weekend, RAW doesn’t mean professional wrestling—Friday is the Rap Assembly of Wesleyan (RAW): Freestyle Collective’s first show, headlined by acclaimed underground rapper Edan. In light of its upcoming debut, I figured it was time to recount my experience with the RAW Collective. Two months ago, I checked out the Rap Assembly of Wesleyan’s Freestyle Workshop. Hosted on the top floor of Albritton by David Stouck ’15 and Izzy Coleman ’15, the workshop guided newbies and hip-hop heads alike through the basics of freestyle rapping while peppering us with clips of hilarious and downright impressive freestyles.

Preparing us for our journeys to become Wesleyan’s next fire-spitting dragon god, Stouck and Coleman were quick to make one point: you will suck at rapping at first, no matter who you are. Before we have drilled our minds towards certain phrases and trains of thought, our brains will be soups of senseless or embarrassing nonsense (or nothing at all). Thinking ahead to the next bar will become reflexive with practice, however, and all emcees get better with time. Recalling one of his early rhymes—“demons” with “semen”—Stouck seemed embarrassed, but was also proud of his growth as an artist.

From there, the RAW heads showed us examples of freestyle masters at their game. After an impressive, but dubious juggalo (a follower of rap group/cult Insane Clown Posse) freestyle, we received broad exposure to greats like the Roots and Eminem. Our hosts deconstructed the finer points of expert rapping finesse: when emcees can rap at prompts or start babbling in hilarious Pig Latin, you know they’re masters of their craft.

Finally, the group moved outside and kicked off a cypher, a social gathering in which people gather in a circle and take turns freestyling (no, I didn’t). Unlike the competition of battle-raps, the environment here was supportive: the positive and confident mood freed people up to experiment and push themselves.

“Freestyling is a chance to speak what’s on your mind, sometimes topics you haven’t really allowed yourself to consciously contemplate, and be listened to,” Stouck said. “There are very few other art forms that can put you in the center stage so quickly. Freestyling has matured into a meditation process for me; I get things off my chest that I didn’t always know were there.”

The hosts often cycled back to “self-expression” as the core of freestyling, and members of the cypher were obviously finding fresh and unexpected aspects of their personalities to articulate. Witnessing Stouck and Coleman’s passion and the burgeoning talent of many Wes kids, I gained a lot of respect for the Wesleyan rap scene and freestyle culture in general.

Coleman knows that the sharpness and creativity needed to rap are everywhere on campus, and has great ambition for where the RAW can go.

“I am a big advocate of freestyling even beyond rap,” Coleman explained. “Improvisation in any art form is organic and breaks away from formulas or structures that are sort of imposed by their sheer popularity. Freestyling often glimpses genius and you’d probably be surprised at how many works of art in all disciplines today have been created partially or mainly by inspiration and execution being simultaneous.”

Building support and interests through events like this one, the RAW plans to launch a much bigger campus presence in the future. The Edan concert this weekend is part of its effort. To see these Wesleyan masters spitting bars for yourself, get over to Psi U at 10 this Friday night. If you’re an inspired English major with flows and words running through your head, itching to get out, contact raw@wesleyan.edu and realize your wildest dreams of dropping mad rhymes.