Monday 19 November 2012

How To Be A Rapper: Write Good Lyrics And Rap Better

By Christopher Washington


Writing good rap lyrics is just a matter mastering a certain set of skills. Follow the steps below and watch your raps go from plain and lame to polished and professional.

Find Your Subject

First of all, you need to decide just what it is your rap is about. This is called Content. Your content content can be anything, from experiences you've had, to politics, to the sinister thoughts of an imaginary alter ego. You can write about important real life issues or trivial pleasures - there's no right or wrong way.

Whatever it is you decide to write about, it's important that you know your subject matter well. Don't feel like you need to write about something just because everyone else is, this will only get you into trouble. Not only will it make the writing process a lot harder and slower, but it will also require you to spend a lot more time practicing your delivery later on.

Choose The Right Words

Once you've decided what your going to rap about, you need to start thinking about exactly how your going to say it. This is the real art of rap - the words. And, the words you use and how you organize those words is called flow.

Flow is a lot like poetry. And just like poetry it's goal is to convey ideas, feelings, and images, through words. But choosing the right words can be somewhat difficult depending on your subject matter and your experience level as a writer. As a rule of thumb, they should be efficient- that is, they should be able to convey whatever it is you're trying to get across to your listeners in an interesting, but not overly complicated way. My suggestion is to go with what comes most naturally.

As an exercise, spend the next few days paying close attention to how you talk to other people, and how you talk to yourself. How do you communicate differently than your friends or family? Which parts of a story do you find more interesting or important than everyone else? Take notes and incorporate them into your writing.

The Delivery

If you've gotten this far in the writing process congratulations, the hard work is done. You've established your content, crafted a flow, and roughed out an arrangement. Now it's time to perform. The transition from lyrics on a page to an actual rap is known as delivery and it's what brings your lyrics life.

Think of your delivery as a performance, either on a record or in front of an audience. It's how you take a sheet of lyrics and literally deliver them to your listeners. The level of energy you bring, the way you accentuate and emphasize words, and the tone and pitch of your voice are all part of your delivery. How you perform your lyrics is a matter of personal choice. You can be smooth and confident or choppy and sarcastic, it's up to you so experiment and have fun.

Final Assembly

You can probably see by now that there is a strong relationship between each of the elements within a rap. The way you deliver a lyric can depend on the words you choose. And, the words you choose can be influenced by what you rap about. Even the rap beats and hip hop instrumentals you choose can affect how you write.

The different elements of a rap fit together like a puzzle, so pay attention to the relationships between them when writing. And if you get stuck remember, writing a rap is an expression of yourself and who you are as an individual, so just be yourself.




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