Learning To Rap

[cloud90]

Hi guys,

 

i know this sort of thread has probably been made countless times but i really couldn't find the exact thing i was looking for. Anyways, here goes. So yeah, i want to get into rapping. Has anyone got any advice as to where or how i can start my journey apart from obviously listening to loads of rap. Also, would you guys suggest that i learn to freestyle off the spot first, before learning how to write raps or should i do a bit of both at first?

 

As mentioned in my previous threads, i am occasionally song write and i have noticed that written songs and written raps are very different in the way, they are written or said out. Like i don't know if it's just me but whenever i listen to rap, it always sounds like the guy rapping is, rapping in a tense where it's like they are talking to the listener where as singing is more of a variety but less in the sense of talking...not sure if you guys get where i am coming from lol. I am just not sure how to write or say raps..like do i speak in a past tense or in a present tense...I am not too sure, if i am getting myself across properly....Hopefully, someone gets where i am coming from ha

 

Also, i am not too sure if i posted this in one of my previous threads but has anyone got any tips as to how i can improve my metaphors? I seem to be coming up with the same ones all the time..or ones that sound more or less the same..

 

Thanks!

 

 

[cloud90]

anyone?

[stikman]

Very generic suggestion. Read poetry, pull apart the rhyme schemes. Listen to rap and learn the rhythms. Understand "freestyle" is almost always a very practiced thing. Comedians dealing with hecklers aren't freestyling they are hitting them with practiced lines. Freestyling rappers are mostly using practiced lines, they just adapt them to the situation.

 

Learn to write vs learn to rap. I can't see why they couldn't be done together. Pick any object and just work on saying and writing good line about it as quick as you can. Then the next one till you dry up. Move on rinse repeat. Its like any kind of training, in this case brain to mouth,

[cloud90]

Very generic suggestion. Read poetry, pull apart the rhyme schemes. Listen to rap and learn the rhythms. Understand "freestyle" is almost always a very practiced thing. Comedians dealing with hecklers aren't freestyling they are hitting them with practiced lines. Freestyling rappers are mostly using practiced lines, they just adapt them to the situation.

 

Learn to write vs learn to rap. I can't see why they couldn't be done together. Pick any object and just work on saying and writing good line about it as quick as you can. Then the next one till you dry up. Move on rinse repeat. Its like any kind of training, in this case brain to mouth,

 

Hey,

 

Thanks for the reply. Hmm, i sort of get where your coming from with reference to poetry but how will it help get better at rapping? Justt by reading poems over and over?

[Steven52]

I remember once hearing about Nate dogg and snoop dogg (lion) standing at school or somewhere and one of them would just point something out and the other would freestyle on it and they would just keep it going on and on whether it be about somebody's shoes or a car passing or anything just to get that quick eye to brain to mouth action. Get that standard no frills hip hop beat ingrained in your head or get a beat going and just start trying to write. One of the things I really like about rappers is the way the great ones interact with the beat and can weave in and out of it and fall behind and catch back up to it. Practice doing that with beats and using different rhythms With the same beat. Listen to some old ice cube and you can hear some of the beats feel kinda like they are lethargic and heavy but the way he rhymes over them give it this kinda smooth breezy feel. While you are doing this you don't have to really free style the lyrics you can freestyle the rhythms and let the words come to you as you practice.

[omenrama]

Hey,

 

Thanks for the reply. Hmm, i sort of get where your coming from with reference to poetry but how will it help get better at rapping? Justt by reading poems over and over

When you learn, understand and memorize a poem; your embedding that data into your psyche, whether that data be an idea, structure, or rhythm. When I began to rap it seemed to come slightly natural because I had already committed to memory a large number of compositions. Reading poetry, or anything for that matter, is about the incorporation of information.

Edited March 18, 2014 by omenrama