How to Rap: Delivery

              

  Though people may overlook “delivery” when thinking about rapping, the thing is it matters a lot. You can have good lyrics, but if the delivery is off, you can instantly get written off as a whack rapper. The BEST advice I can give to begin with, is to sound natural.

                Rap like you’re reading your lyrics, but don’t “read” monotonously.

Most people I’ve known try to go the other direction and stylize their sound by changing their voice, putting too much emphasis on unnecessary lyrics, overdoing their hand gestures, and stretching out the sounds of their rhymes just to make sure their audience heard it. That’s a no. That stuff comes to you naturally in time, you shouldn’t by any means have to force it.

Also, sometimes space needs to be filled, or you want to hype your audience for a rap. You DON’T need to say “yo” 5x before you start rapping, that’s also a turn off. Before you start rapping, sound natural and you can even say nothing special, like:

“Yeah…okay,” and maybe one “yo,” before starting.

If you want to get more stylized go:

“Listen up,” “I’m gonna drop this,” “Check it,” or even “Alright, let’s go.”

Work on hand gestures. Try to move your hands at the speed of your rap and try to make gestures that if possible can match the nature of the subject you just mentioned. If that doesn’t quite apply, you can use generic hand gestures like using a pointer finger and swinging it down at the end of a line. Having both hands open palms down or palms inward like carrying a box, and shifting it left and right. Doing a swift slap, and swinging your hand down at stomach length.

If you’re sitting, make sure to keep your eyes as well as your hands moving. Eye contact with many people.

If you’re standing, walk around with a mic like you’re the center of attention.

That sums up this edition of delivery for now. Thanks for reading.

 

How to Rap: Content Part I

               Now that you have a slightly different perspective on how to look at rhyming, we’re going to take a look at how to build the rap, the content that includes the rhyme and constructs the rap itself.

                Two editions ago we worked on inspiration, so hopefully given that time since then (or within a few minutes from now) you can develop your own inspiration. Your inspiration should...in a way…be able to sum up your whole rap. Good rapping has to have a characteristic called cohesion. This means that everything that you speak when you begin should be related to your hook or inspiration in the some way. Though at the same time you want to avoid repetition in your raps.

This is my technique. I feel like I do this subconsciously, but feel free to try it out.

1)  I pick a topic, (like mentioned above)  time, love, travel, etc.

2) Then you have to break that segment into points you would like to discuss regarding those topics. Does time travel too fast or too slow? Are you in love or heartbroken or even confused about love? Do you take pride in your hometown or do you want to go on a world tour?

3) List as many key-words or little descriptions to modify or describe HOW time travels too fast or slow. What features that boy or girl must have as in their personality, or what memories you have experienced to get you to feel the way you do about love? What kind of vehicles will you travel in, places you’ll travel to, and things you’ll do at those places?

4) Once you write these points, find keywords in them you can rhyme with, and arrange your sentences accordingly. Keep it flowing with your content.

A good goal to try to last would be for about 30 seconds or maximum to a minute. The only way I limit it to a minute is because when I first started rapping, my lyrics would just ramble past that mark, and without enough real substance, creative flow or punchlines, my audience usually lost interest and literally zoned out while I was rapping. But don’t worry, in due time I’ll help you work around that too.

Listen to This #1

Every few posts or so, I will update ya with some (good) rap music to help introduce you to new artists, develop your tastes for rap, keep you motivated with your interests.

Remember the Name -- Fort Minor ft. Styles of Beyond.

How to Rap: Rhyming Part I

It’s evident that rhyming is the most crucial and the most identifiable aspect to rapping. Deconstruct all the lyrical elements out of this form of music, and it basically boils down to the rhyme. It will absolutely have to be the first thing you learn to do before you attempt it. Because, without rhyming, rap would totally lose its structure, no matter how much stylization and flow you may have; you might as well just drop the act and say it in your natural emotion. Try rapping a page out of a newspaper article for example.

Now, even when writing, rhymes can take a considerable amount of time to come to your head. You will often find yourself running through the alphabet looking for a word with the same rhyme ending. So, if you ever need to use that technique, don’t forget about consonant combinations like “sp” “ch” “cl” “sl” “st” “tr” and “dr”.

When you first start rhyming, you might be tempted to pull out a rhyming dictionary or go online to search rhymes. To just have started, this is okay to use the rhymes from the dictionaries to help create your rap.

HOWEVER

I will give you some tips that surpass the knowledge of a rhyming dictionary.  The first tip and one of the MOST IMPORTANT is that the vowel sound is more important than the consonant sound. This means you can substitute the consonant sound for similar consonant endings, and it will still be acceptable as a rhyme and the subtlety between the pronunciations will be overlooked by your audience.

Some examples:

 

-Ace, -Aze, -Age, -Ange

 -Add, -At, -Atch, -Adge

 I, -ide, -ine, -ime

 -ot, -op, -ock, -alk

-oh, -oal, -old, ode

 

Now you may be reading these, able to hear the distinct changes between the endings, saying “That doesn’t rhyme!” But, even in everyday talk, we don’t put that much emphasis on the consonant endings.

To say “I read a book,” when you say the “d” in read, you just tap your tongue. If you say to someone (normal speed, no emphasis) “I read an ode book yesterday,” you’re not going to get a “WHAT?!” reply. What they heard was a slight muffle on “I read an old book.” They subconsciously give the “implied” ending to the word and dismiss it.

                So for those who would crave an example: Here’s one using the first scheme.

                   

                This new kid challenged me to a race,
                But I run so fast I'm leaving suckers in a daze

                Then stealing the spotlight when I'm on the stage.

                They can't compare with me, they are not even in my range.

If you read that at just a normal reading speed…by the time you got to the next rhyming word, that “emphasis” or “difference” was probably starting to disappear, and the faster you go, the lesser you are likely to notice it. So, although rhyming dictionaries separate them, try to find some endings you could link together.  Basing all your rhymes off of one-syllable dictionary matches make your raps sound elementary. Linking similar endings together will make your rap sound more natural, and your rhymes sound more knowledgeable. Next up we will go over content, followed by delivery.

 

 

How to Rap: Inspiration

 

                So in the first edition of How to Rap, I’m going to teach you inspiration, which you cannot start writing a rap without! It is the inspiration that sets the drive, story, imagery, mood and feel of the whole rap, which is why I’m putting this first. The right inspiration can make it a success. The wrong ones can make it bomb. Luckily, there’s more “right” inspirations than wrong here ;)

                To get inspiration, you have to think about a topic that weighs you down, that you think about constantly, that you are really engaged with, have a lot of knowledge about, really like/dislike…etc!  It can be anything from a feeling, an experience, a place, a person. Maybe it’s that feeling you want to escape. Or the experience when you won a championship match. Time, love, school, work, clothes, style, win, loss, thoughts, your city, power, food, music itself, even a car chase! B.o.B even does raps about Outer Space! (No rhyme intended)

                All the above have the capability of being deeply expanded upon all while sounding legitimate. If you want approval and to be taken seriously, what you DON’T want to base your rap off of is:

                1) Fan-art, like Pokemon, cartoons, and videogames. Popular Internet memes, like trolling or kittens. Something uber-specific that doesn’t need its own rap…like “my rock collection”. Or anything that would be considered “too much information” or something that could be used against you, keep out!

                Also, what NOT to do with your inspiration of your rap.

2) Unless for the sake of scholarly vocabulary, don’t say words that you WOULDN’T say, like saying n****,  strong swear words, or sounding ghetto for the sake of sounding cool. If you didn’t grow up in that environment or grow up in that culture, it is just an insult to those people plus it will NOT get you respect trying to imitate them. Quite the opposite, it can really get you in trouble.

3) It’s OKAY to exaggerate the truth, but don’t stretch it too much that it changes your image. Don’t say you’re rich if you are not, or that you will do this violent act or sexual act when you’re really a good kid. (I myself might imply something mildly/moderately violent but even then it’s stylized like “I’ll roll you all over like I got legs made of tires” and not “I’ll put a gun to your head and pull the trigger”).  So don’t flat-out LIE. You can however exaggerate and make some claims here and there to blow off steam.

4) Don’t HATE in your rap. It may be hard sometimes depending on your topic. But you want your audience to be as wide as possible with nothing against you. So don’t rap negatively against race, gender, orientation, a type of music, a specific person, an interest, etc. That can only send arguments your way and you don’t want that.

You probably just want to try out a new interest and develop it into a SKILL, or you probably just want to impress some friends. Just think about sitting in a lounge chair with a counselor, cleanly pouring out all your feelings about a given subject. That subject will be your inspiration, and soon we will shape it into a rap.

Friendly Tip #1

Familiarizing yourself or exposing yourself to any form of art can only make you better at it. In the past case, the more you listen to rap, the better you will be able to imitate its styles and understand its concepts. (You will also develop what I call "a rapper's ear". This means your mind has that you can concentrate on the lyrics at faster speeds, hear and distinguish most of the words instead of only bits and pieces)

This advice can be used anywhere.

In the same example, if you like writing novels or short stories, the more reading you do, the more techniques you can pick up on.

Or the more you visualize an art form like painting or dancing, the more you will be able to picture how the forms work efficiently. So keep your eye out!

My Stance on Rap

Although it’s not commonly regarded as such, rap can be one of the most complex, expressive, and inspirational forms of art and music out there. My theory of rap versus the general public (which unfortunately, has a lot of aversion) is that majority of people have the capability of appreciating it like any other music—as I have been able to win over multiple friends, coworkers, and even people online who claim that they can’t stand it or that it’s not their taste. That’s because they only associate it or stereotype it into gangster rap—and I’m clearly providing the alternatives (Note the ‘S’). Saying that all rap is gangsters boasting about cars they drive, money they earn and women they get is as accurate as or as ignorant as saying that all rock is just emos complaining about how much their life sucks and that they go through changes they may or may not understand. In The End—Linkin Park, Animal I Have Become – Three Days Grace, Gives you Hell—All American Rejects are just some examples—(But just so you know…rock has a place in my heart as one of the genres I like to listen to. I like Muse, Faith No More, Rush, Apocalyptica, Kiss and others--I even have "In the End" on CD)

 Back to my stance on rap, I usually stay away from rap where profanity dominates the lyricism, where excessive slurring, droning or autotune is used in the speech, if the rap is too aggressive or violent, and feature beats heavy on bass drums and clap-style percussion.

Rappers I listen to:

Lupe Fiasco, B.o.B, The Roots, Common, Nas, Dub Pistols, Lecrae, Kanye West, T.I. Styles of Beyond.

Check these 2 different styles of rap, 2 of my favorites:

   Dub Pistols-- Gave you Time: Downtempo, simplistic, relaxing    

Lupe Fiasco -- I Might Just Be Okay: Fast, symbolic, upbeat



Welcome to Prestoverse!

Welcome to Prestoverse!

As I mentioned in my profile, I have a passion for art, especially writing raps and novels. Writing makes a great stress-reliever and sometimes I feel that it is the one of the best ways to express myself. Opportunities have come up such as talent shows (rapping) and magazine entries (writing), both of which are a pleasure to look back on and a great boost to the high school or college experience.

What I would like to do at Prestoverse is use some of my gifts to help teach others through tutorials effective techniques to write raps as well as write stories. This blog is dedicated to anyone who has that passion or wants to dive into the interest.

So, that's it. Thanks for reading! Stay tuned.

Dana T.