Kanye West played a show the other night in New York at the Casio G-Shock party and a video has surfaced of a pretty weak freestyle during the performance.

I love Kanye. I think he’s doing great things in trying to move hip-hop forward with his production skills and the way he can attract a mainstream audience with his written raps. But ever since I saw him play at the House of Blues in Chicago right after The College Dropout came out, I cringe every time I see him try to freestyle.

One of his opening acts that night was MC Supernatural, who holds the world record for the longest freestyle. He had the crowd roaring as he went down along the front of the stage, grabbing objects out of the hands of people in the front row and effortlessly threw the stuff into his rhymes. (Here’s a video of him doing it somewhere else. Grainy video quality. Audio is fine) Kanye freestyled during his set, but still being awestruck from Supernatural, I was less-than impressed.

I know Kanye has the spirit of hip-hop’s roots deep within him. But I think if he’s really going to progress the art form like he wants to, he should just stick to what he does best and continue to surround himself with and promote the talents of those who possess the amazing freestyling skills he so obviously desires.