So You Want To Rap?

[Yelling At Cats]

okay, don't make music about horses

you'll regret it forever

real shit

the money you make milking it is not worth it for how much of your soul you sell in the process

[Fimbulin]

First post yeah.

Emotion and rhythm, every good line
Sequenced together- like most of the time.
Following through with whatever seems fine.
Make up rhymes, all the time- and they'll be better than mine! yea...

[colortwelve]

Gah, every thread/video like this I see only manages to piss me off for being such a perfectionist with my writing.

Someday soon I'll get over that. I think

[Beetie Swelle]

One of the most important things you need to do for rap (or anything you want to learn, really) is keep practicing. It doesn't matter if you think you sound like shit, if other people think you sound like shit, or whatever; practice. It's not like you're going to regress if you keep working on it.

[/hypocrisy]

[Dr_Dissonance]

Besides the unnecessary swearing, this seemed like a good guide. I wouldn't know, I only know how to write vocals for choir!

[Mischief Max]

Sweet.... RAKIM ALLAH!

[Navron]

Besides the unnecessary swearing, this seemed like a good guide. I wouldn't know, I only know how to write vocals for choir!

Get a hip hop beat going with a bass drum, some timponies (can't spell that worth a damn), a snare, and some triangle.

Add a harpsichord and upright bass for a swinging back drop.

Throw in some sharp orchestral hits and quick string sections to accentuate the rhythm.

Have your choirs rap in latin.

Congratulations, you have now installed swag.

[MC_Flowny]

This is magnificent! I'm reading a book right now called 'How to Rap' and YAC has summarized these ideas into easier to digest concepts on how to actually put together a solid verse. It's a great guide to get anypony started!

http://www.amazon.com/How-Rap-The-Scien ... 1556528167 <-The book I'm reading ATM.

[Freewave]

This is magnificent! I'm reading a book right now called 'How to Rap' and YAC has summarized these ideas into easier to digest concepts on how to actually put together a solid verse. It's a great guide to get anypony started!

http://www.amazon.com/How-Rap-The-Scien ... 1556528167 <-The book I'm reading ATM.

psst anyone can read this online too thanks to google books.

[Rainboom]

My respect for Yelling At Cats just went up immensely.

Congrats, Cats. you are no longer my least liked person in the fandom.

Now its PurpleTinker.

[Gray Ham]

I highly recommend listening to a lot of rap...

This needs to be bolded, underlined, coloured in red, and three times the size.

While the rest is useful, it's useless if you don't listen to hip-hop/rap regularly. Good post.

[soultensionbenjamin]

lol me and flowny are reading the same book

[Kushy Kallous]

My respect for Yelling At Cats just went up immensely.

Congrats, Cats. you are no longer my least liked person in the fandom.

Now its PurpleTinker.

Thanks cats,
Always nice seeing breath inside the Technique forum.
Well worded and easy on the eyes enough for most anyone to read.

[indeable]

holy shit a post by yelling at cats!.......thats better than mine........damnit.

[Stu Beef]

This is an incredibly useful guide for anyone who wants to think about rapping in a technical way. If there was some sort of Pedagogy of Rap class I would put this in the syllabus, but some personal points I'd like to make:

Please, always be real*...whatever that may mean to you. There's nothing worse than when you (seriously) posit something that is completely untrue.

Also, please be able to describe why a track may or may not be "ill" before attempting to write. Hip Hop is like any other musical genre: you must listen before you speak** (at least in front of other people, homie).

Practice that rap voice***! Learn to project like a singer, preach like a preacher, and be as punchy as Muhammad Ali. There's some give and take when it comes to styles these days, but you always gotta be able to hook people on your sound.

*rap, like all music, is heavily steeped in a particular kind of culture. It is not necessary to emulate this if it is foreign to you

**may take years

***don't force it too much, but don't sound like you don't want to wake your parents up, man.

Just some things to think about.

[Yelling At Cats]

Updated OP yo.

[Yelling At Cats]

please learn from my mistakes and be yourself rather than a stupid pseudo celebrity

[Hammock]

One thing I found that kind of hindered writing a rap was my accent.

A lot of rapper you hear have "street" accents, if you don't mind me saying.

I feel that if I wrote a rap for the fun of it, I'll be criticized based off of my "posh" English voice.

[Kushy Kallous]

One thing I found that kind of hindered writing a rap was my accent.

A lot of rapper you hear have "street" accents, if you don't mind me saying.

I feel that if I wrote a rap for the fun of it, I'll be criticized based off of my "posh" English voice.

The Streets were a good outfit that had that sort of accent.
I'm sure you could make that posh into street-posh.

[Stu Beef]

One thing I found that kind of hindered writing a rap was my accent.

A lot of rapper you hear have "street" accents, if you don't mind me saying.

I feel that if I wrote a rap for the fun of it, I'll be criticized based off of my "posh" English voice.

This is all probably true.

So what? Do what you want, man.


Just don't be fake



seriously, don't do it.


edit. Uhh excuse me *adjusts glasses, you have a very nice OP there mister "Yelling At Cats" but I believe you forgot to add a very important detail. It is of undeniable importance that every aspiring MC understands that the Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nothin to Fuck With

that is all.

[TheSunAndTheRainfall]

One thing I found that kind of hindered writing a rap was my accent.

A lot of rapper you hear have "street" accents, if you don't mind me saying.

I feel that if I wrote a rap for the fun of it, I'll be criticized based off of my "posh" English voice.

That's when you own your accent and integrate it into your style, play around with it, maybe even exaggerate it or make fun of it. Pull it off right and you got something fresh that people might be interested in hearing. Just don't try to work around it, more likely than not you won't succeed at it.

[indeable]

People need to realize no matter how many forums you read or how many help guides there dont treat them as if there tailored to you.
Rap can be as intricate or complex as it needs to be to match your skills.
Allot of people are told that there is a style or vibe they should stick to there isnt.
Im a stereotypical nerd that prefers not to cuss or be vulgar , or even hate on people. does this mean Im not a rapper? No this is just another type of the spectrum.

So for the love of god stop trying to follow a set of rules treat this thread and all others as suggestions. Not rules.

[Stu Beef]

Alright, let's get into this.

So, if you’re like me, and you happen to know a few jazz studies kids, or just jazz musicians in general, you know they do a lot of transcribing just starting out. Transcribing solos, analyzing chords, writing changes, etc. They may just be in it as performers, but you need a lot of technical know-how in order to be a professional jazz artist.

I think the same concepts can be applied to rap, so what I’ve done is taken Mr.[don’t forget the Muthafuckin’] eXquire’s verse from this song*: http://youtu.be/W2ed5osQYvU and analyzed it as deeply as I could (considering how lazy/busy I am).

Now, it probably would have been helpful to transcribe the lyrics myself, but I don’t have that kind of time so I just googled em. You should def try doing that on your own, it will help you pay closer attention to the lyrics and their effect rather than just thinking of words on a page. The transcription you find could also be wrong (ex. the third line of my example they had as “conscious of all I desire” but I’m PRETTY sure that’s not what he’s saying). (this is the transcription I used btw: http://www.songlyrics.com/el-p/oh-hail-no-lyrics/ )

So, just for reference: the lyrics:


1Jesus turned water to wine, I turn liquor to urine
2Sex with one whore is deplorable I need four at a time
3Maybe I’m lost in the grind, haunted by all I desire
4Forcibly caused to be normal, bonded and tossed in the fire
5Cross hairs of corporate design, cogs that all move in align
6Meant to be something other than this but I think I forgot
7Shymalan twist in the plot, Camelot sword from the rock
8No I won’t piss in your pot, life put that bishop in pac (pie?)
9Visceral, villainous, vindicated by venomous vibes
10Viscious, concealing my mental illness by willing a smile
11Endless intentions to climb uphill and piss in the sky
12(Brooklyn is up in this motherfucker so suck on our) cock

12 lines (with each line being a measure if you consider the bpm of the song to be ~98)

Ok, let's go deeper. I want to look at the rhythm first (for this section, if you don't know what I'm talking about, sorry. I could explain sometime later if anyone asks.):



Alright, so just looking at this, I notice he seems to be alternating between two rhythmic patterns (with the very last measure varying slightly; I'll get into how it is different and why it is still effective with the same beat later). So the basic idea seems to be 16th notes with every third one being accented with the 2-16th 1-8th rhythm coming in every 2nd or 4th beat. I see this as a common way to subdivide 4/4 in a way that gives it a sort of triplet feel (if you count the accents as mini-downbeats it works out to 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2. Thinking of the other pattern [14-16ths and an 8th] this way works it out to 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2-3). Ok, that's cool, but also kind of repetitive, but I don't really care because I know he knows what he's doing. How? Because he switches it up.

Let's call the pattern in the first measure pattern 1 and the pattern in the second measure pattern 2.

In the 7th and 8th lines he uses pattern 1 instead of alternating between the two. In the 9th and 10th lines he uses pattern 2 instead of alternating between the two. He goes back to alternating in the last two lines, but the last measure has a slightly different pattern of accenting** (1-2-3 1-2-3 1-2 1-2-3 1-2-3 1).

Basically, his whole verse has got a groove that he plays with. The beat itself is already bumpin enough, but his rapping really makes your head bop- COOL.



Let's look at that other thing that I think sort of just hits you on first listen, and is also apparently the most important thing in rapping or something, RHYMIN:

I've horribly color coded the lyrics to illustrate rhyming relationships:



I've highlighted some of them weirdly or even just colored the text instead of the whole word because he does this cool thing where he rhymes words with different words on different syllables, and that is pretty tight. Notice how he keeps it all pretty locked in by utilizing the same rhyme throughout several lines, and how he doesn't constrict himself to end rhymes or rhyming on the same count.

I also totally count half/slant rhymes; I really don't get why some people don't. If your accent makes what are supposed to be two different vowel sounds sound the same, well, what's wrong with that? I think, if you're savvy with dialect and can pull it off tastefully, play with how words sound; it's interesting.

(also, as a note, I have "something other" in colored brackets because I'm not sure if he meant it to have that rhyming effect. It's close, but I don’t think I can give it to him.)


What is sort of the meat and potatoes of someone’s verse for me, is all those allusions, metaphors, puns, etc. that dudes do. I like a rapper to be hard hitting and live, but also witty and intelligent. I don’t think I really need to go in and point out every little thing that eXquire does here, but I’ll go through and highlight a few:

You get a taste of eXquire in the hook, but I think the first two lines he comes out with really shows his character

1 Jesus turned water to wine, I turn liquor to urine
2 Sex with one whore is deplorable I need four at a time

He uses a comedic sort of set-up punch-line routine: juxtaposing his temperament with something that is on a different extreme of the morality spectrum to accentuate his “fuck you” attitude. His verse is full of that kind of humor, as he often cuts off deep, poignant thoughts with statements that are vulgar/seemingly ignorant.

4 Forcibly caused to be normal, bonded and tossed in the fire
5 Cross hairs of corporate design, cogs that all move in align

Here is where he shows his awareness of his situation by alluding to some possible force behind his attitude/lifestyle. Is it simply due to society that he is so, or is the design of it more intelligent, more sinister? Also, what does he mean by normal? Is he calling out the aimless, hedonistic lifestyle, or is he criticizing what most people would define as normal?

6 Meant to be something other than this but I think I forgot

Hell, can’t expect the dude to have all the answers I guess.


9 Visceral, villainous, vindicated by venomous vibes
10 Viscious, concealing my mental illness by willing a smile

Some nice alliteration here, and by nice I mean pretty damn aggressive. It’s not just the stressed starts of repeated consonant sounds that gives these lines more edge, but I feel like staying on that [ih] vowel sound (sorry, I don’t quite know my IPA) almost gives it an extra tense/angry feel (just try sayin it, you’ll see what I mean). It contrasts nicely with the more open [ah] sound at the end of each line.


8 No I won’t piss in your pot, life put that bishop in pac (pie?)

Ok, someone’s gonna have to tell ME what the second half means. If the line IS pac…the hell is that? As for pie, I looked up bishop pie and I dunno if that’s a specific reference to something, or if there is a reason they call it bishop pie (I dunno man, I’m not a baker) that he might be alluding to.


So, I got fairly deep into it; definitely deeper than I would on most tracks (even ones I really dig), but there’s still more that I could get into. Either way, just doing this exercise once has taught me to look at my own lines in a different light. Most people probably won’t be as scrutinizing (at least not on a super technical level, though I’m not saying that this is), but there’s no wrong in being your own biggest critic. I encourage y’all to try this out; sure, listening to a bunch of records is the only way to really get a feel for how rap works, but going in and analyzing all the little things that could’ve gone into making a tight verse can be mind opening.

*Off of El-P’s latest album Cancer-4-Cure; I highly recommend it. He’s a fantastic producer and rapper and he’s got a tendency to make you think. Go check out eXquire’s other stuff too (this is an excellent tape): http://exqomaniarules.bandcamp.com/albu ... ck-my-dick

**debatable

[CommandSpry]

because swearing makes you edgy and a better rapper

[Stu Beef]

you know it


e. ok, now that I'm in a position to actually respond

because swearing makes you edgy and a better rapper

Umm, I'm not really sure what inspired you to post this; are you calling me out? The OP? If you're saying that swearing in rap in general is dumb, I don't know what to tell you; that's just how some people talk. I had prepared a whole rant, but I really don't know all the details of what you meant to say and I don't want to assume too much.