u/Alone_Charge_406

I just freestyled an hour like usual, and it always feels like I gain 1 to 3 new words or rhymes from each session. I honestly don’t know what "normal" progress looks like in freestyle rap, so I’m unsure if I’m improving at a typical pace. When I freestyle, I notice I reuse the same rhymes and sound family's 90% of the time even when I try to search for new rhymes while rapping, but most of the time I still fall back on the same material. I’m not completely new to freestyling, so i can do more than just say rhymes like "car/far/star" repeated alone back to back, but I definitely rely on a lot of the same rhyme chains and ideas in my bars. What I’m wondering is: is this normal when you’re developing as a freestyler? Does growth usually happen slowly around this stage, or does it sound like I’m practicing the wrong way? I just don’t want to spend 1 to 2 hours a day doing something that isn’t actually helping me improve. I also wanna say that I have heard that the practice Isn't even searching for something fresh/new when freestyling. I have heard that the practice is writing down list of words/rhymes and adding what's on the list to your freestyles as you freestyle so you can internalize them and eventually freestyle them without the list and that is the practice but I don't know if that plays a role in this but at this point I don't know what to do any help is appreciated.

I’ve been freestyling for about a year, spending 1 to 2 hours a day on it. I can keep rhythm and flow well, but I have one main issue. When I freestyle within a sound family (like “-ow,” “-ee,” “-it”), I always reuse a small set of rhymes: “-ow”: flow, blow, snow, grow “-ee”: tree, bee, see “-it”: hit, spit, lit I want to add more words to each sound family, going beyond just 5 or 10 obvious ones. However, during practice, I struggle to think of new ones in real time. Even when I slow down to think, my mind goes blank. I might know more words passively without thinking about them, but I can’t access them during freestyle. Sometimes a new word pops up randomly, but my rhyme sets don’t really expand. So my question is this: How can I expand a specific rhyme sound family during freestyle practice, rather than just focusing on general vocabulary? I’m not looking for “listen to more music” since I already do that. I want to understand how freestyling can turn passive rhymes into active ones.