Don Q, A1 – Freestyle on Funk Flex Show 

I took a break from blasting Don Q’s ‘Trap Phone’ to check out his freestyle on the Funk Flex show from a couple weeks ago. I’m definitely down for Don Q freestyling over the Blocboy JB ‘Rover’ beat and as dope as that was, the real highlight here is Don astutely handing the spotlight over to his talented Highbridge protege A1, who certainly makes the most of the opportunity.

Things really pick up around the 5:00 mark or so…

“I was born on Highbridge, raised on Courtlandt, I thought y’all should know that cause I’m telling you to be cautious, I love my Highbridge niggas, I call them, they’ll off him, then my Courtlandt niggas come and spit on the coffin. And we from the bottom we dealt with plenty of losses, I sat in the trap the residue had me nauseus. We went to war with some suckers and then it cost us, now my brother sitting in prison cause niggas crossed us. We ain’t comfortable with the workers, only deal with bosses, they try to take me out so we bulletproof the Porsches.”

“Any nigga that stood on my corner gotta pay rent… you niggas that go against me going to be starving to death. All these chains on my neck telling me I’m blessed, toughest thing I ever did was lay my father to rest.”

“Niggas only carry their pistol so they can make it known, man I carry my pistol so I can make it home.”

Don Q cuts in at this point declaring that anyone he cosigns is fire, and thus far based on what we’ve seen how can anyone really disagree with him? But instead of ending there, Flex throws on the all-time classic ‘Banned from TV’ beat and A1 proceeds to slaughter that as well…

“These fraud niggas couldn’t walk a mile in my sneaks, bro home it’s time to smoke a pound in the jeep. My heart cold, I’m tired of seeing murder when I sleep, the park closed, niggas got murdered every week… It feel good to stand on corners we took over, niggas got the mind of a kid but they look older, me I got the mind of a king I don’t pull over. Hard to really count all the bodies a nigga stood over, hard to really count all the product we had to cook over, and you know that body don’t count if you don’t get closer, … if that pistol not around me that’s when I get sober.”

I don’t know why but I also loved the ‘Now my stomach getting big I feel like my Uncle’ line; a lot of people are stunting by talking about the chains they have, the designer clothes, the cars etc. but in reality one of the oldest and truest ways that you truly can show your status is because you’re eating good and getting fat, eating steak and shrimp, a status symbol going all the way back to biblical times. Now this hasn’t really worked for me or enhanced my status thus far at this point in life, instead it’s just made me an easier target of more fat jokes, but I still support the sentiment nonetheless!

You’ve also got to love the Karlton Hines shoutout and the Oun P shoutout, Oun was one of my favorite battle rappers/freestyle DVD type rappers of the late 2000s/early 2010s scene.

Don Q’s young protege showed a ton of potential here and really put his name on the map with this video, I’m looking forward to checking out more of his stuff and seeing what he does next as he continues to grow as an artist especially being under the umbrella over a successful brand like Highbridge. Highbridge really is starting to look deep with talent, and I haven’t even mentioned A Boogie! (Side note, I really hope that A Boogie really is working on something with 50 Cent like he recently alluded to on Instagram). A1 mentions his new mixtape ‘God’s Favorite Child‘ which I’m going to check out next.