Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Former Western Michigan basketball player aims to make history

chyme

Rick Chyme/mlive.com

In four seasons as a member of the Western Michigan basketball program, Pat Cleland played in 41 games and averaged less than a point per contest after originally joining the program as a manager. His name likely won’t be found on too many of the pages in the school’s record book, but Cleland may find himself in the Guinness Book of World Records at the end of the weekend.

Why? Cleland, a hip hop artist whose raps under the name of Rick Chyme, will attempt to break the world record for longest freestyle rap. With the current record being 16 hours, 31 minutes and 22 seconds (set in May), Rick Chyme aims to rap for 17 consecutive hours beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday morning. His attempt at making history will be part of ArtPrize 2013, an annual festival held in Grand Rapids, Mich. that aims to celebrate various forms of art.

Chyme, who lives in Grand Rapids, will begin his journey at John Hartman Photography on Division Avenue. He will rap about most anything almost continuously (he is allowed three-second breaks) as spectators shout out words or phrases, show him objects or send him tweets.

He plans to reach The Pyramid Scheme at midnight, where he will be joined by musicians for the final hour.


Per Guinness rules the longest he can pause during the attempt is three seconds, and given the need for fresh subject matter it’s probably a good idea to do this while walking the streets of Grand Rapids. The longest Rick Chyme’s gone in a practice session (not even sure how you can practice such a thing) is six hours, and if you can go that long what’s 11 more hours?

Obviously the goal of this exercise is to break a time record, but it would be interesting to see what kind of content Chyme comes up with during the freestyle. Will it all mesh together? Hopefully there’s someone along for the show who happens to jot down his words, because it would make for an interesting read.

h/t Deadspin, CBS Sports

Follow @raphiellej