Page 4: How to Write a Rap

Now we have looked at figurative language in actual songs, lets begin to look at how you can use what you have learned to create your own compositions.

We can break the concept of writing your rap into 10 steps.  I have borrowed the following from Emcee Escher’s web page located at: http://flocabulary.com/freestylerap/ and edited for content to fit my needs.

Step 1. Start easy

Begin with brainstorming.  Just get your ideas down on paper.  Try to find a subject that speeks to you that you want to talk about.

No need to start off rhyming “the toasty cow’s utter” with “most o’ my flow’s butter”. No need to even rhyme. Just forget everything else and flow. The rhythm can be simple, the words might be second-grade level, but you’re still freestyling as long as you make it up.  An example of a simple flow might go:

I am funny,
I like bunnies,
Touch my tummy,
Mummy

Step 2. Keep flowing

You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to sound silly. Make your first freestyle rap verses your silly verses just to get them out of the way. Keep flowing. Can’t think of a rhyme? Keep flowing! We will get to fixing those rhymes in step 3.

Stutter over words? Keep flowing. It’s inevitable that at some point some of your lines won’t rhyme, won’t make sense.  Just keep flowing. If you make a mistake, do your best to incorporate your mistake into your next lines like Eminem did on this freestyle:

I take a beat and loop it,
I take a beat and choop it,
Choop it? What does that mean?
I don’t know but I got fat jeans on,
And I already said that,
I don’t know where my head’s at,

Another technique to use when you find yourself in a bind is to whip out a quick filler. Fillers are just little phrases that you can insert occasionally to give you more time to think of a great line. Every emcee has his own fillers. For example, Eyedea says “I grab the microphone.”

Try to come up with a few fillers that you feel comfortable using. They’ll bail you out of some awkward pauses. As you get better, you can rely less heavily on your fillers.

Step 3. Rhyme in your mind ahead of time

Here’s the biggest trick to freestyle rapping: as soon as you know what word you’re going to end line 1 with, your mind should start racing to find out a word you can use at the end of line 2. Let’s say your first line is, “I’m colder than a Dairy Queen Blizzard.” As soon as you realize that you’re going to end the line with “Blizzard,” you should immediately think of something that rhymes with that word and might possibly be related:

wizard
lizard
scissor
miss her
pins hurt

Pick one and then try to carve the second line to lead toward that word. Let’s say you pick “wizard,” your next line might be:

I’m colder than a Dairy Queen Blizzard,
This is Lord of the Rings, you’re the hobbit, I’m the wizard,

If you pick “scissor,” you might say:

I’m colder than a Dairy Queen Blizzard,
A rebel since I was five, went running with scissors,

The real trick of freestyling is to have your mind constantly racing ahead of what you’re saying. This isn’t easy, but you’ll get quicker with practice.

To help you get rhymes with things you have been brainstorming with use our rhyme dictionary!!!! -

http://www.rhymer.com/

Rhymer offers six different ways.  Type the word you want to rhyme with and then choose the way you want to rhyme.  Simple.

Now you are ready to move on to step 4.  Follow the link below to move on to that page.

http://flocabulary.com/freestylerap/