The rise of competition freestyle in Chile: batalla de gallos as a renewed way of making and consuming hip-hop

The article studies the phenomenon of competition freestyle in Chile, a musical practice that is popularly known in Latin America as batalla de gallos, stylistically linked to the hip-hop genre, and based on the improvisation of rhymes. Although freestyle exists in Chile since the 1980s, it was not until twenty years later that it gained greater recognition and autonomy in the Chilean hip-hop scene. The boom of this modality coincided with the “crisis of the mp3”, which restructured the field of music. In this new panorama, some musical practices that previously could not be developed because they were not of interest to the hegemonic record labels, now became feasible. The phenomenon of competition freestyle in Chile is justified both for being a new way of making and consuming hip-hop, and for its full adaptation to the current context of popular music in the world, especially with regard to the circulation, dissemination and distribution of a music product. Today it seems more practical to be a batalla de gallos competitor than it does to join a hip-hop band.