How To Rap Tutorial For TR Rappers

[Slim Fiasco]

Link to PT. 2 of the Tutorial - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=165230

Note:I’m fairly competent in this field and I think this tutorial can only help you, especially if you’re a beginner and all. I don’t have any of my music online to show you, but even if I did you wouldn’t be able to understand me since I don't make rap on English, so you’ll have to trust me on this one.

With that being said assholes, listen to what I have to say and even if you don’t grasp it all at once, I suggest you to bookmark this enlightenment and revisit it every now and then. The reason why I’m calling you assholes is because most people in that “Say shit about TR Rappers” thread pissed me off.

So anyway, I’ll break this down in few steps/points:

1. Know this, becoming a good rapper requires a lot of time and having in mind that most of you are around 18, there’s no need to fucking worry and hurry. After acquiring the info on a lot of domestic and well known rappers i.e. when did they start rapping and how long did it take them to become (fairly) good/very decent, the average number of years is 5-6; and many of them didn’t have an album until their 8th or 10th year. Take Em for example, he started rapping at 13-14 (this was around 1985-86), became fairly good with Infinite (1995-96, when he was 22-23), became very decent/great around ’97 (at 24) and became the best in ’98 (at 25). As you can see, it took him 11-12 years to reach such a high level and it wasn’t until the age of 26 that he had a major release. Nas started rapping at 8 and dropped Illmatic at 20 (made it around 18-19 i.e. in 10-12 years). Jay also released his first album at 26. The first conclusion is, take your time and don’t expect to be dope in 3 years rapping (not that you can't be, but don't get discouraged if it takes you longer); you just have to keep going at it.

2. Read the How To Rap book in case you don’t have a clear view on the technical aspect of lyricism. Knowing your shit on rhyming and figures of speech is very important. If you can’t get hold of the book, just search around the net and read shit on wordplay, metaphors, similes, punch-lines, rhyme scheme, couplet/triplet, assonance, alliteration, polysyllabic rhymes (multies), internal rhymes, homonyms, homophones, double entendre, personification, oxymoron, allegory etc. Storytelling is important as well, along with content in general; so that book gives a great view at it, you should really check it out. Fuck, you can find the PDF on Google and read it that way.

3. Writer’s Block. This bitch should bug you in the first 3 years. Not that it can’t happen to more experienced people but writing lyrics at first is usually hard. Now English has 500 hundred times more words than my language so it should be easier for you assholes. I suggest you to not worry about the content quality and try to write a piece because the more rhymes you write the easier it’ll get. Plus, you’re bound to be wack at first and you have to start somewhere, don’t you? Freestyling helps a lot but that’s the next point. Giving yourself a task, like writing one verse (of at least 8 bars) per week is a great and helpful habit.

4. Freestyling. Most important thing here is confidence. When you do it and feel like you the best, it'd be easier to maintain the necessary focus. Of course you need to practice as well. The best way to practice is to say things and MEAN/THINK to say something that makes sense!! Like, say a line and wait for 4 minutes if you have to, but the next thing you say should make sense. It can be something retarded like - I'm teaching you assholes how to rap/ This ain’t preaching everything I say is fact. It really doesn't matter because with time you'll come up with better rhymes and you'll be fast at it, but the key is to make sense. Because if you focus on not stuttering and not stopping - you'll end up saying gibberish. It's also very important to do it in yourself when walking around or before falling asleep and to do it as often as possible. And remember that things in freestyle always get a pass, no one will judge you on the lyrical complexity as long as it's off the dome. Also, you're bound to repeat words and lines in your freestyles, and stutter to a certain extent so don't sweat it. Other thing is that freestyling acapella is easier than on a beat but you need to practice both "versions". The first one will be of a better quality but the 2nd one will improve your flow and that's the way to building a good delivery.

Here comes the fun part, what follows is tips on flow/delivery. I’m copying this from another post of mine so excuse the weird transition:

5. I think that at first you'll need to practice the changing of your intonation solely, instead of trying to change the pace as well. Like, if you listen to Hopsin's verse on Am I Psycho he flows the same after saying "but with the wicked..." but he changes the intonation. To sum it up, we have intonation patterns and flow patterns.

6. Intonation is the tone/melody of your voice and it doesn't affect the speed of what you're saying. It ultimately leads to inserting emotion into your rapping but that's a more advanced part of flowing so you should worry about it later. But let's say you have a line to act, you can say it with a more angry voice, a sad one, as if you're laughing etc. This is very important, and you should try to come up with as many as intonation patters i.e. voice melodies as possible. Try sounding gay, angry, hard, drunk, childish, etc. Don't be afraid to experiment with your voice.

7. Ok so, you need to fit your pace to the tempo of the beat, with a more probable attention to the drum pattern and you may change the intonation according to the various melodies of the beat (like you're almost singing them) or simply add a random melody to your voice. The best way to practice this is to try rapping by saying "one, two, three.. one, one, two three" (or "one, two, three, four"), you'll notice that catching the beat like this is much easier and you almost can't miss it. When doing so, you should also try to change the sound of that "three" which should hit the 2nd snare of the loop (the repeated beat pattern) and that's usually the ending rhyme of a line. I suggest you to change the intonation on every 2 bars, or 4 the most. That way, you'll keep the verse more interesting, as the transformations of your delivery will be more captivating and the flow will remain fresh.

8. So when you write, try to make your lines to end in a rhyme and make pauses when you say each line (more on this in the next point). You should also make pauses within the line itself (not always but more often than not) and you'll notice this when you'll try rapping the "one, two three" thing. Pay attention at the short pauses between each word (and the longer ones between each group of "one two, three" ...(pause here)..."one two three"; this should correspond with the first snare of the loop)! Of course, it's not a set in stone rule where to make pauses, but be mindful of them so that you learn how to do it naturally. Reading some text that doesn't have rhymes while trying to catch the beat may be a good exercise because you'll need to make weird pauses, but you'll make them more naturally because you can't plan them in advance.

9. This is an important point. The pauses you make between lines could and often should be long. Now when you rap, making a long pause usually turns out to be kinda short when you hear yourself afterwards, and this produces a common mistake. You assholes make short pauses when you can make longer ones and therefore fucking up the timing – badlyyyy. Because when you flow, if you wait too long between lines (or wherever), you think it will turn out too long, but it really doesn’t. The best way is to show you through examples. Listen to these two songs – Lupe Fiasco’s Failure and A Tribe Called Quest’ Bonita Applebum. When you assholes listen to rap songs, you think that the MCs basically don’t make pauses between lines and the shit sounds like a long sting of words. Well they do make pauses, you just don’t notice them as of yet. That’s why when you rap along a certain song the actual artist is either ahead of or behind you (and hence the bad breath control); though it's a bit different when you rap to a beat with and without vocals. Also, you can catch the beat with the same lyrics differently than some other artists, so it's not that big of a deal. But anyway, back to the two examples. If you listen to Lupe’s opening lines:

It's mean, soldiers (long pause here))
Now let me put the streets down like streamrollers (long pause here)
With the CATS that push

You’ll notice the extensive pauses, and this is how it could be done. The 2nd example is even better, listen to Q-Tip’s verse. He says one line every half an hour and the shit still sounds dope. That verse should teach you a lot; don't hesitate to make longer pauses if you get that feeling. Don't make them shorter just because you think it won't turn out good. Again, don't be afraid to experiment.

*Another common mistake is to not make pause until you run out of breath, this can result with, for example, saying 2 and a half lines at once, and the result of that can be messed up timing. However, there are many instances when rappers can rap a long string of words and turn out just fine. But for beginners, try to keep it simple and progress with time.

10. Among other things you should understand the concept of a beat. The best way is to download the demo of FL Studio (or watch a tutorial) and make a simple loop. You'll notice 16 small squares for the kick, the hat and the snare. There should be only 2 snares, each at the beginning of the red groups of squares which are the 5th and the 13th square. There should be more kicks just don't overlap them with the snares, and hats you can put in-between. There's also a bass line but it's not very important to your delivery. If you do end up making your own beat (loop) don't forget the tempo which could be from like 80-110 (but preferably around 90-97, for slower tempo is better for practicing).

11. To conclude, start practicing the "one, two, three; one, one, two three" pattern and you should get a better feeling of the beat, which afterwards you'll start doing with actual words/lines. Oh and let me give you a good example of a flow pattern which is to "chop" words like Em does in Lose Yourself when he says:

Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity
Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked
He's so mad, but he won't give up that
Easy, no
He won't have it , he knows his whole back's to these ropes
It don't matter, he's dope
He knows that, but he's broke
He's so stagnant that he knows

And by chop I mean adding an extensive pause ala emphasizes at certain words (this is some sort of a pause between syllables).

12. When you say a line with a certain intonation, keep it like that for at least another bar. It will sound out of place if you say one rhyme in one way and leave it hanging like that. But again, try to change the intonation as often as possible, and 2 bars should be optimal for one intonation pattern.

13. Don't yell or go too fast (don't mix this with double time rapping, because that still includes correct pauses)! Yelling is not the way to convey emotion, it is done by changing the intonation in the proper way which will come natural to you after a while. Just start practicing things step by step, don't you dare quit and all will be good.

14. Remember that even with knowing how to the certain things, you still need to practice your way through. I know all of this and yet I still get off beat and shit like that, but as I said, I'm improving rapidly and it's certainly better to have read all this than not.

That's it assholes, and don't give me that "didn't read, lol" bullshit, because it's your loss and you don't have the excuse of being ignorant. This gold is right in front of you!

EDIT (adding a quote from a recent thread): This is another way of looking at things, as it is explained in the How To Rap book.

Do you know how to count bars? If not, hear me out. Each instrumental has bars, and each bar has 4 beats (usually one verse is 16 bars). These 4 beats are evenly spaced out, and they're going in a certain tempo. 99% of the time, there's a snare on the 2nd and 4th beat. Many people put their rhymes on the snares (usually on the snare that falls on the 4th beat) but remember that this isn't mandatory and you can definitely ride a beat without paying attention to the 4 beats and consciously putting rhymes at certain places. If you can flow good, you can ride a beat even without rhymes.

If you, for some reason want to put your rhymes on the snares, know that in order to feel and anticipate the snares, you should practice by counting "one, two, three, four" when listening to instrumentals. You should say one when the 1st beat of a bar falls, 2 when the second etc.. This comes naturally to a person, and whenever you nod your head you actually do it on each of the 4 beats. So start either by saying one/two/three/four everytime your head nods, or say two or four when you hear a snare, and you should get the feeling immediately, and start counting all beats. By doing this, you'll get the feeling of when a snare is about to hit, and after that you can practice this with lines, and make your rhymes fall on the snare. But again this isn't mandatory, and I personally wouldn't suggest it, because I think it's better if you go for the feel of the beat.

But anyway, you can hear the above mentioned exercise here:

http://soundcloud.com/brannubian/wib-po ... -art-of-16

You may and should also check out:

http://rappingmanual.com/

[Slim Fiasco]

I've added some minor but still important points when editing this after I posted it, so if you read it right away, go through it again.

*in point 16, it should say "how to do certain things"

[Trimss]

I was already satisfied with that other post in the thread and kept reading it for some times, but now it's even better. This shit is bookmarked.

Thank you Slim Fiasco!

EDIT: This should be a sticky either in the audio section either here.

ALSO: this is a tip from Hopsin and the whole Funk Volume team:

If you want to appeal people with your shit, post a video. Whether it's just you rapping in front of the computer with a shitty ass phone quality, it'll be better than a picture.

[Slim Fiasco]

FreeSpeech ain't the best poster alive no mo'.

Hahah, thanks man. I know that you're into rapping as well, so I hope that this will help you. And I gotta thank FreeSpeech for indirectly inspiring me to sum this up. Oh and, the term asshole is obviously not applying to the likes of you, Trimss, Kez etc. I'm just mad that certain people aren't open to advices (though FreeSpeech should've been more polite, but I get where's he's coming from).

[Slim Fiasco]

I was already satisfied with that other post in the thread and kept reading it for some times, but now it's even better. This shit is bookmarked.

Thank you Slim Fiasco!

EDIT: This should be a sticky either in the audio section either here.

ALSO: this is a tip from Hopsin and the whole Funk Volume team:

If you want to appeal people with your shit, post a video. Whether it's just you rapping in front of the computer with a shitty ass phone quality, it'll be better than a picture.

Haha, you're welcome man, I'm glad I can help. I really hate all those advices like "just keep doing it", which isn't saying shit. And I hope that you read the same part of that post again, because I improved on it.

And I do think it should be a sticky, not that I wrote it but more people should read it. Feel free to share this with anyone.

And I agree about the whole video thing, but I think you should have something decent to show in order to expect positive feedback. People should be a little more patient, and have the rookie steps walked.

[JamaicanPattlez]

Definitely took a LOT from this! Lately I've been fuckin' hard on myself that I practice all the time and I can't freestyle. But you pointed out that it takes a long time for rappers to get good. And I've only rapped for a year so far. Seems really silly now that I think about it. Thanks for this!

[Slim Fiasco]

Definitely took a LOT from this! Lately I've been fuckin' hard on myself that I practice all the time and I can't freestyle. But you pointed out that it takes a long time for rappers to get good. And I've only rapped for a year so far. Seems really silly now that I think about it. Thanks for this!

Now that's what I want to hear . Glad I could make a positive difference. And yeah, don't ever be hard on yourself and remember that you can only get better! And even if you're the least talented rapper on earth, the worse case scenario is that you'll be better in couple of years and you'll know that you've tried your best, and haven't quit. Talent doesn't make a big difference though, so if other people can do it, you can as well!

One year is nothing indeed, but I'm sure you've noticed a certain progress. It will only get better!

[SajN]

Asshole.

[SG.]

You're sure English isn't your native language?

[Slim Fiasco]

You're sure English isn't your native language?

Yeah man, haha. I study English language and literature so I know it quite well . Most foreign folks in here do so too tough.

[Steve Spag]

Interesting read, nothing really new to me since I've been doing this for a long time but I can see it helping some beginners. Why does everyone think they're some sort of Rap Guru or something though? This is the 2nd thread I seen this past week where someone who isn't really known is giving advice like he's famous. Not hating, I can see you're just trying to help others, but unless you're a credible name in the music business with success what should your tips matter?

Good looking out though, some people will find this info useful.

[BigBoss]

TL;DR version?

[Slim Fiasco]

Interesting read, nothing really new to me since I've been doing this for a long time but I can see it helping some beginners. Why does everyone think they're some sort of Rap Guru or something though? This is the 2nd thread I seen this past week where someone who isn't really known is giving advice like he's famous. Not hating, I can see you're just trying to help others, but unless you're a credible name in the music business with success what should your tips matter?

Good looking out though, some people will find this info useful.

As you said, I'm doing this hoping to help other people, and if someone told me all this few years ago, I'd have improved more rapidly. I never stated that I'm the best MC around or something, and if my attitude says otherwise than I don't care.

My tips matter because no credible name is doing shit to help people on this. If you think the flow diagram bullshit in the How To Rap book is more clear and insightful, then I'm sorry but you're wrong. And if there's a better tutorial than this, my atheist ass prays to God to see it, because I want to learn more too. And if we wait for more credible people to teach us things, on let's say stuff like, how to produce or use a certain program - we might as well not give it a try at all, because Kanye won't be posting a video tutorial anytime soon. Nor will Peter Jackson teach us how to direct.

[Steve Spag]

Interesting read, nothing really new to me since I've been doing this for a long time but I can see it helping some beginners. Why does everyone think they're some sort of Rap Guru or something though? This is the 2nd thread I seen this past week where someone who isn't really known is giving advice like he's famous. Not hating, I can see you're just trying to help others, but unless you're a credible name in the music business with success what should your tips matter?

Good looking out though, some people will find this info useful.

As you said, I'm doing this hoping to help other people, and if someone told me all this few years ago, I'd have improved more rapidly. I never stated that I'm the best MC around or something, and if my attitude says otherwise than I don't care.

My tips matter because no credible name is doing shit to help people on this. If you think the flow diagram bullshit in the How To Rap book is more clear and insightful, then I'm sorry but you're wrong. And if there's a better tutorial than this, my atheist ass prays to God to see it, because I want to learn more too. And if we wait for more credible people to teach us things, on let's say stuff like, how to produce or use a certain program - we might as well not give it a try at all, because Kanye won't be posting a video tutorial anytime soon. Nor will Peter Jackson teach us how to direct.

Excellent response sir, respect gained!

[Slim Fiasco]

Excellent response sir, respect gained!

Thanks, lol. And I didn't take any offense from your post (just saying). However, I do agree that we should take advices from people who have been successful at that certain field or whatever. Like, I've never been in a long ass relationship so I can't tell my friend much about it, but giving my honest opinion in the "what would I do" manner is fine. And that's all that this is.