RappingManual.

com presents

THE RAPPING
MANUAL
Hack Your Way Through Climbing the Rap Ladder

WRITTEN BY:
MAYTANE WINNER
 Rapping Manual
Table of Contents

1. Count Music/Bars 14. Draft vs Freelance

2. Rhyme Schemes 15. Song Structure
3. Sound Schemes 16. Rap Chorus
4. Fast Rapping 17. The Sacred Process
5. Compound Rhymes 18. Improving Rap Delivery
6. Double Rhyming 19. Improving Breath Control
7. Internal Rhyming 20. Melodic Rhymes
8. Style Combinations 21. Rap Microphones
9. Metaphors 22. Audio Editing Software
10.Wordplay 23. Improving Rap Performance
11. Feel the Instrumental 24. How to Treat Your Engineer
12. Rap Content 25. How to Stay Motivated
13. Translate Speech/Bars 26. What is a Record Deal

Bonus:
27. How to find your rap style
28. Tricks and Tips of Live Performance
29. How to Get Ideas to Write Lyrics
30. How to Keep Your Lyrical Content Concentrated
31. How to Rap-Summary
32. The Rapper Builder
Lesson 1-Count Music/Bars
In this lesson you will learn how to count music
Music is sounds combined together in a repetitive manner, which is pleasing to the
ear. These sounds are made by instruments. Now just think of your voice as an
instrument on the track. That’s all there is to it.

Singers hold melodies, we talk and rhyme, but we both map our voices as just
another instrument on a song. Therefore, you need a system with which you can
“map out” (put) your voice on the instrumental, in any way you desire.

Now let me scare you just a bit. One standard song has three verses. Each verse is
made up of four quatrains. Each quatrain is made up of two couplets. Each couplet
is made up of two bars. Confused? For the sake of learning, I will be using the
instrumental from “The Game-Dreams” as an example. Okay, find it, press play on
it and read on. Are you listening? What you have is:

bass drum bass drum

bass drum bass drum
bass drum bass drum
bass drum bass drum (in some instrumentals that’s usually the transitional phase,
where the melody changes a bit) and it starts again!

Now just change the basses and drums with numbers from 1 to 4. It goes like..

1 2 3 4 <——-That’s a Bar
1 2 3 4<——-That’s a Bar
1 2 3 4<——-That’s a Bar
1 2 3 4 <——-That’s a Bar

One standard song has three verses. Each verse is made up of four quatrains. Each
quatrain is made up of two couplets. Each couplet is made up of two bars. Did you
manage to grasp it?

Bottom Line-How to Count Music

All you have to do in order to count bars/music is to just sync in with the speed of
the instrumental and count the four beats. Let me give you a good analogy with
working out in the gym.Think of it as sets of repetitions. The set is your verse. The
repetitions are your bars. You do 16 bars for one verse.It’s the same like doing 16
repetitions for a set.
Another Way to Look At it

Listen to the melody. Any melody. You will notice that there is some kind of
repetition to it. Even if the rapper is laying his lyrics all over the instrumental, you
can still see that the melody has a pattern.

The structure of an instrumental is 4 bars, which are repeating constantly. Put four
“marks” on the bar. The distance between them has to be equal. This “mark” is the
beat which we count. Let me give you a visual way of looking at it.

——-(that’s a bar)
——-(that’s a bar)
——-(that’s a bar)
——-(that’s a bar)

Now dissect it in 4. The distance between the marks(numbers) is the same.

1—2—3—4
1—2—3—4
1—2—3—4
1—2—3—4

Each Number is a “beat”. That’s what we count. Listen to your melody and
recognize what kind of a sound is placed on that beat. By knowing this, you can
now navigate your lyrics on the instrumental.

Why do you need to be able to count bars?

First of all, it allows you great freedom when you write. You can start your rap
from anywhere. Second of all, next lesson you’ll be learning how to write couplets
with different rhyme schemes. For example 4-2-4. This means, 2 bars(couplet) with
a rhyme on the 4th beat on the first bar and rhymes on the 2nd and 4th beat on the
second bar.

It’s absolutely normal to find this quite intimidating at first, but don’t worry as it’s
easier than it seems. We will talk about rhyme schemes next lesson.

It’s essential to know how to count bars. Without this knowledge, you won’t be
able to rap. So, make sure you have that part down, before reading any further into
this book.

Homework
Why don’t you pick a few instrumentals (your own choice) and start
practicing your music counting. Go on youtube, find a random instrumental
and start counting. Sync in with the speed of the melody and remember..
1 2 3 4..1 2 3 4..

Lesson 2-Rhyme Schemes

I hope you did your homework and understood the concept behind counting music,
since it’s really important if you want to do this course properly and learn how to
rap.Critical perhaps.

Rhyme Schemes
It might sound complicated for some of you, but it really isn’t. Rhyme scheme is a
scheme which determines on which one of the four beats, your rhyme should be
placed. Let’s start with a simple and easy example. Perhaps it’s going to get clearer.
We'll start with a basic couplet (2 bars).
1234

Knowledge on its own cannot make you paper

If it was so every gun would be an undertaker

Now what we have here is two bars with their rhyme words (paper/undertaker) on
the 4th beat of an instrumental. This couplet would have a rhyme scheme of 4-4.
Meaning that when you rap over the instrumental, you say your rhymes at the end
of the bar, right on the 4th beat.

Perhaps some of you got confused. Let me try to illustrate this concept by another
example. What if you want to write a couplet with a rhyme scheme of 2-4-4? Could
you do it?

This means that you have to write 2 bars. The rhymes of the first bar are going to
be placed on the 2nd and 4th beat and the rhyme of the second bar is going to be
placed on the 4th beat. It should look something like that-
1234

Trynna find a balance, many sweaty gallons

but name a mayfly that created a palace

This is a Rhyme Scheme

Rhyme schemes are the technical foundation that you need, in order to be able to
write rhymes freely, all over the instrumental. Drop them where you feel like,
without feeling any restraint. So YOU NEED TO LEARN THEM! Lastly, what if
you feel like writing a couplet with a rhyme scheme of 3-1-4? Yes, you guessed it
right. You put the first rhyme on the 3rd beat, the second one on the 1st beat and
the last one, on the 4th beat.

Bottom Line
Now since you know how to use rhyme schemes, it gives you great freedom to
express your creativity. Feel free to start your rap after the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th beat.
Feel free to put breaks wherever you want. The way you structure your rhymes
determines your actual flow. The rhyme scheme is the blueprint for developing
attention grabbing flows.

I’ve had conversations with people, discussing the importance of rhyme schemes
and the fact that they add another layer to your rapping. You might have
spectacular content, but if you cannot make it sound good, nobody is going to
listen.

Rhyme schemes are the bones of your melodic skeleton. They are the feature which
gives melody to your lyrics. First, make the skeleton (determine the rhyme
schemes) and then fill it up with spectacular content. This way, people will get
great lyrics, packaged nicely in a pleasant melody.

Why don’t you try and do these rhyme schemes as well. Pick an instrumental
and write couplets with the following rhyme schemes:

a) 2-4-2-4 b) 4-1-4
c) 3-2-4 d) 3-4

Lesson 3-Sound Schemes

Have you ever heard of Tupac? If not, why don’t you find a song of his right now.
I’m going to be using his type of flow used in his song “Me and My Girlriend” as
an example.

I have extracted one of his couplets, just so you can see the technique with which
this is written.
1234
We closer than the
hands of time, deeper than the drop of mankind
I trust you dearly I shoot blind

Now I know you might get confused because this is a rather complicated subject,
but I will try my best to make it as clear as possible. In Sound Schemes, the rhyme
is secondary. We put our focus on the vowel of the word. What kind of vowels do
we have? A, E, O, I. When we write in a sound scheme, what we really do is play
around with the vowels of the rhyme words. In 2Pac’s couplet, monitor closely..

hAnds of tIme, dEEper than the drop of mAnkInd

i trust u dEErly i shOOt blInd.

He rhymes HANDS with MAN. The other rhyme cluster is TIME/ KIND/BLIND.
He rhymes DEEPER with DEERLY as well. “Hand” is not a rhyme for “man”. Nor
is “Deeper” with “Dearly”. However it still sounds good, because it’s a sound
rhyme.

The secret to those sound schemes, is to try to raise your voice when rapping that
stressed vowel. Everybody knows rappers can’t sing, but holding that note for a
short time is as close as we can get. Plus, it sounds incredibly good once you learn
how to use them correctly.

Let’s try something which is more complicated. What if you want to write a couplet
with a Sound Scheme of 1E-3O-4O-1O-3E-4O. This would look something like
this-
1234

HEy, I'm wondering who shOt PAc maybe I should

stOp, what if he's okAy? Is he nOt?

It’s a silly example, but this is written to solely illustrate the technique. Right now
we are learning the technical side of rapping. Practice your rhymes. The lessons on
content will come in due time.

You would want to use sound (slant) schemes for two main reasons.

The first one is to spice up your flow and bring variety to the listener. You should
never stay on one level musically and employ the same schemes over and over
again. Changing it up, helps you keep the attention of the listener. Otherwise,
he/she gets bored extremely quickly.

The second reason is out of necessity. Sometimes, you might not be able to think of
perfect rhymes for a particular word, for example “orange”. Then, you can use your
slant rhymes and bend certain words, so they sound similar to “orange”. For
instance “four inch/door hinge/porridge”.
You can either think of sound schemes prior to writing the actual content, or during the
creational process-devising them as you go. Choose the process you feel more comfortable
with.

Lesson 4-Fast Rapping

Jay-Z-“I can’t get with that”

The whole song is done with the Fast Rhyming Style. The Fast Rhyming style is
best understood when you think of it as block of words, which you say really fast.
This block has a clear start and a finish. For example, go on the 0:27 mark. He says
this:

1234

Original rap, I’m makin it slap, I’m hemmin it up like

that Stingin it, strikin it, swingin it fat

So if we analyze it, we will find out that:

-His first block is from beat 1 and finishes just before beat 2. (Original Rap)
-His other one starts right after beat 2 and finishes at beat 3(Im making it slap).
-The next one starts at beat 4 and finishes at beat 1(Im hemmin it up like that).
-The last one is from beat 1 to beat 3(Stringin it strikin it swingin it fat). So
basically we have 4 blocks, each finishing with a rhyme.

While you think about it, just keep going back to that 0:27 mark. It would be easier
to understand what I’ve written, while you listen to the track and hear it yourselves.

Example
I’d like to show you the technique in practice. I’m going to do 3 blocks.

First bar is going to have 2 blocks-one starting from beat 1 to beat 2(where I say
my lyrics real fast) and the other starting from beat 3 to beat 4(where I say my
lyrics real fast). The block of fast rapping on the second bar is going to be from
beat 1 to beat 4. Each block of fast rapping will end with a rhyme word(which I’ll
say with normal speed) Here I go-

1234

(People are talking too much), (hating and holding a grudge)

(Does all the hating affect me you look at my work and you just be the judge)

See what was done?

One block(People are talking too much) from beat 1 to beat 2 on bar 1.
One block(Hating and holding a grudge) from beat 3 to beat 4 on bar 1.
One block(Does all the hating affect me you look at my work and you just be the
judge) from beat 1 to beat 4 on bar 2.

About the Style

That style of rapping requires quite a bit of practice and patience, because at first
you are likely to find it difficult to pronounce words in such a fast manner.
However over time, you will get the hang of it. Rapping fast brings in crowds,
since just a handful of people can do it.

It’s an entertaining style. If you want to say something serious and you want people
to comprehend and think about it, that style is not the appropriate one, since most
listeners find it hard to understand what is being said. But it’s a MUST for the MC.
The MC has to strive to develop a well-rounded skill set, which he can deploy on
various projects.

For homework, practice this some more. A good instrumental for practicing
that style is “Nigga What, Nigga who” by Jay-Z. Play it, get a notepad and
start making your blocks. Be creative. You can do a block from beat 1 of the
first bar to beat 4 of the second bar, if you have the air for it that is.

Lesson 5-Compound Rhymes

In this lesson, we will learn all about Compound Rhymes. Compound Rhymes are
really the start of the staircase, which leads to the more advanced rapping
techniques.
Compound rhymes are very commonly used by various artists all around the world,
because they sound great and are a display of a rapper’s advanced skills,
intelligence and creativity.

Since now, we have been constructing single rhymes-meaning that the rhyme word
was only one. Compound rhymes are rhymes consisting of two rhyme words. For
example, I’ll write a couplet with single rhymes, with a rhyme scheme of 4-4. It's
going to look something like this-

1234
Can I kick a fast one just to show you how it’s done
That’s just simple rhyming and its really not that fun

Now what we have here is one rhyme word on the 4th beat on each bar. What if I
tell you that I want to write a couplet with compound rhymes, that has a rhyme
scheme of 4-4? It’s going to look like this:

1234
Man it keeps on hurting cuz im dealing with pain
Even if it’s sunny I keep feeling the rain

You see how that technique works? It’s harder to think of it, but the philosophy
behind the style is quite simple. All you do is rhyme two different words at a time,
instead of one. The important thing to remember is that your two rhymes have to be
together. One after the other, one beat apart at most. Otherwise, you’re getting into
Double Rhyming, which is the next lesson.

If you find it difficult to think of compound rhymes at first, try rhyming a word in
“ing” form(like dealing) and a one syllable word(like hat). It’s real easy, since you
got a tonne of words finishing with “ing”, plus it’s easy to think of a rhyme for a
one syllable word.

Let your creativity do the work. It’s not hard, you just need practice and you'll be
able to knock them like tequila shots. The same method is used, if you have any
other rhyme scheme. 2-4-2-4, 2-4-4, etc.

If you’re trying to master the compound rhyming, start by writing rhyme schemes
that have their compounds on the last beat. Once you feel confident enough, change
the scheme and write compounds on the second/ third or first beat of your bars.

Get playful with it and you will eventually begin to combine compounds, singles,
fast rapping, slant rhymes and everything else that we’ll to go over, in one quatrain
or less.The magic of rapping is truly infinite, wouldn’t you agree?
Advantages
Being able to rhyme two words at a time is an advantage. First of all, it shows that
the writer has a wide vocabulary and it sets him apart from all the other novice
rappers, because a lot of people can think of a single rhyme that makes sense, not
everyone can think of a compound one.

Second of all, it’s one of the first ways you can truly put your creativity on display.
Within the hip hop community, compound rhyming is regarded as an advanced
technique, so it’s a highly respected skill to have.

Lesson 6-Double Rhyming

It’s time to do the technique called Double Rhyming. Until now, we were writing
couplets containing only one rhyme word. Let's take it up a notch. I will teach you
how to rap using two simple rhyme words.

Let’s think of two simple words, which have alot of rhymes. For example: “fame
and trick”. Start thinking of rhymes for those two words. Group them in categories,
like-

Category:

a b
fame trick
game tick
name kick
lane chick

Now after you have the rhymes written, think of a rhyme scheme. Perhaps a
couplet with a rhyme scheme of
---a-b
---a-b

This couplet is going to look something like this-

1234

Now I know you wanna pimp your game so use that trick
Carve your very name open the door with a kick

Did you see what happened here? We have “game” and “trick” on the first bar as “a-b”
combination, then we have “name” and “kick as the “a-b” combination for the second
bar.
It’s just another technique for rapping that you might want to try. Sequencing rhyme
types, one after the other, changes the actual sound of your bars. Experiment and
morph it even further. Using the same method, write longer schemes, include more
than 2 types of rhymes.

For example, you can include three rhyme types within a couplet, in a rhyme scheme
which might look like that:

-a-b-c
-a-b-c

This is the test I really want to do

Kiss on my desk and I’m wondering from who

This is the underlying principle. You can change positions and whatever else you
wish. It’s all creativity from that point on.

Why don’t you try making one? Try writing a quatrain this time and see how it
goes. Don’t worry, it's not as complicated as it might seem.

That’s all there is to it. This was the introduction to the technique. It’s your
responsibility to practice and master it, so when it comes time for you to be
writing bars for your song, you’ll be comfortable with using double rhyming.

Lesson 7-Internal Rapping

We’ll go over the technique called Internal Rhyming.

An example of internal rhyming is the following quatrain:

I desire an entire empire you know

As my name reigns the game making lots of dough

-1-1-1-2
3-3-3-2

*
1-desire/entire/empire
2-know/dough
3-name/reigns/game
What we have here is rhymes within rhymes. As you can see, each bar has an end
rhyme “know/dough”. The internal rhyming part comes from the set of rhymes,
nested before the end rhyme.

For the first bar, we have “desire/entire/empire” and for the second bar we have
“name/reigns/game” as internal rhymes.

This is the main principle of this technique. You have end rhymes and nested
rhyme sets before them.

The important thing to remember is that the internal sets need to be different than
the end rhymes. If you make them all from the same rhyme root, then the technique
won’t be called “Internal Rhyming”.

Different bars can have different sets of internals or they can be the same. In our
example we had:

-1-1-1-2
-3-3-3-2

If we want, we could make it like:

-1-1-1-2
-1-1-1-2

It doesn’t matter, as long as you follow the principle of nesting rhymes within end
rhymes.

How to start practicing it?

1.Write a basic 4-4 couplet.
2. Reword it in a way, which allows you to put a couple of internal rhymes
before the end rhymes.

This practice will help you get the hang of internal rhyming. Once you’re
comfortable with this, you’ll be able to place internals on all kinds of couplets and
quatrains.

Only imagination restricts you from doing what you want to be doing. We are at a
point where we don't use rules no more. It's all creativity from now on.

Lesson 8-Style Combinations

I hope you’re ready for that one, because this is the last lesson of the first chapter.
After this, we’ll be diving in deep waters with the advanced material, so make sure
that you’ve learnt all the techniques which were presented to you up to this
moment. Without knowing how to apply them properly, you’re likely to get lost
when we are going over the poetry chapter.

Practice verses
Practice verses are verses which are intended to polish up your styles(techniques).
What you do is, you include all the writing techniques that you know in one verse.
Changing your technique each couplet or quatrain.

So starting from full 4-4 bars, then going over the slant rhymes and fast rhyming,
coming back to double rhyming on the next quatrain and so on. As you learn more
techniques, you’ll have more combinations available for you to play with.

The Practice verses are a great method of morphing your newly learnt rap skills
into concrete extensions of your creativity.

Combining all of your styles in one verse, doing it over time, will eventually polish
up your skills. When it comes time for you to write poetry rap, having the technical
side taken care of, would give you more brain space to just think of the content,
since all of those techniques would be engraved in you, thanks to all of the practice
verses.

When you do them, don’t feel that you have to figure out how you're going to write
every individual technique before hand. You can create them as you progress
through the verse.

The main idea is to get comfortable with using what you’ve just learnt. Otherwise,
if you don’t practice it, it will get rusty and you’ll eventually forget it.

Don’t worry about your content right now. We are focusing on polishing your
styles. Be patient. We will talk about content further down the line.

Bottom line is that after this chapter I want you to be able to use all the techniques.
Therefore, it’s vital for you to do those practice verses. Get better. Polish your
style. Hard work pays off. Experiment. See what sounds good. Which style works
as a good transition for you?

Lesson 9-Metaphors
This lesson will teach you all about metaphors. At the end of it, you will be able to
answer the following questions:
1. What is a metaphor?
2. Why should you incorporate metaphors in your lyrics?
3. How to incorporate metaphors in your lyrics.

1. What is a metaphor?
The official definition is “a figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is
made between two unlike things that actually have something in common”.

A metaphor is when you say something in an indirect manner. That’s the simple
definition.

For example, think of saying “I have no heart.” If you want to use a metaphor for
it, you can say: “Even Mama thinks hugging me is useless.” You said the same
thing, in an indirect way. It still holds the same meaning, but the message is
wrapped in a subliminal package-a metaphor.

An important thing, worth remembering is that you should avoid getting entangled
in the technical jargon. There is a difference between metaphors and similes.

In a simile, you compare explicitly.

For example, if you want to say “I miss you”, you can use a simile and say:
“I miss you like the desert misses the rain.”

If you want to use a metaphor for this statement, you can compare yourself to the
desert and the person you mis to a rain drop. So, the metaphor might look like
“You’re the rain drop, my desert sands are missing.”

Similes are explicit comparisons, while metaphors are implicit. With similes, we
use “like” in the sentence.

“I love you LIKE flowers love sunlight.”

Metaphors compare something implicitly and give it desired features.

“You’re my radiating sun that makes my heart blossom.” –Compared her with a
sun and your heart with a flower (implicitly).

However, they are both used to express something, in an indirect manner. When
you write, don’t try to differentiate between similes and metaphors. Let your
intuition guide you, since they are fundamentally the same.
Don’t let your mind block your creativity, just because you’re not sure what would
be better-using a simile or a metaphor for a particular bar.

2. Why should you incorporate metaphors into your

lyrics?
First and foremost, metaphors are a sign of intelligence. Incorporating them into
your bars add richness to your lyrics and this will give you a great first impression.

The second reason is that metaphors help people understand you better. You can
present a very complex issue to them, with an incredibly simple metaphor, which
they can follow.

Another benefit of using metaphors is that they are immensely engaging and help
you spark the imagination of your listener.

Metaphors are very useful when you have to describe intangible objects and matter
as well. Feelings and emotions are best described with metaphors, due to the
complexity of their nature.

3. How to incorporate metaphors into your lyrics?

If you’re a beginner, the best way to start using metaphors is by writing single bars.
Not even attempting to make bars rhyme, will get you to focus on the actual
metaphor.

1. Write a statement.
For example, “I’m better than you.”

2. Say this statement indirectly.

You might use a simile, you might use a metaphor. Whatever feels more
comfortable. For example, “Your arrow is useless as my rhyming bullets got the
game bleeding already.”

Do those two steps, until you’re comfortable with thinking different metaphors and
similes. The next step is to make them rhyme together. So, you have your
statement, you have your written metaphor, all you do is re-word it, so it still
carries the same message, while it rhymes.

3. Re-word it and make the metaphor rhyme

For Example:
Your arrow’s useless as my rhyming bullet renovated
rap’s head, and made it roofless

Lesson 10-Wordplay
This technique might seem rather confusing at first, but once you get familiar with
its underlying principles, you’ll find it easy and enjoyable to work with.

The main idea of wordplay is that you’re playing with the meanings of words,
writing words/phrases that can mean more than one thing.

Take for example, the phrase “weight lifter”. It means a person who pumps iron.
However, watch what happens when I wrap it in a specific context. Example:

“I love stealing coke, I’m a weight lifter.”

The meaning totally changed, because of the content before it. Now you’re
referring to stealing drugs and not being a person who works out. Both meanings
are still there and the listener has to hear what has been said before that, in order to
choose the right meaning.

This is wordplay. Another example can be the phrase “making money”. If you wrap
it in a different context, it can mean something other than earning it.

“Counterfeits all around the floor, yeah I’m making money.”

Once again, you have two meanings for “making money”-earning money and
counterfeiting it. People need to listen, so they know what meaning is applicable to
this bar.

How to Start Using it?

It’s all about playing with the meaning of words and it’s very easy to start
practicing it on your own.

1. Think of a phrase or a word.

I’m thinking of the word “speaker”.

2. Think of as many meanings to this word as you can.

I have speaker, as a stereo speaker and a motivational speaker.
3. Think of content, which addresses and marries at least two of the meanings.
In my case, I have two meanings, so I thought of
“His speech was slicker than music, what a speaker.”

Another example can be the word “battery”, meaning phone battery and as a
criminal offence. You can marry both meanings by writing:

“My phone was dead, so I beat him up and took his. Now I’m in jail for a battery.”

Doing it in rhyme form is basically the same.

All you need to do is write a bar, which shares the same end rhyme like the one,
which holds the wordplay. The other way is to reword the sentence, include a few
rhymes and make it rhythmically correct.

Lesson 11-Feel the Instrumental

This lesson marks the start of the Poetry chapter, in which I'm about to share with
you the essence of my rap knowledge.

This section of the book will address abstract constructs, which aim to explain
creativity, emotions and the subconscious connection between you and the beat.

Have you realised that some songs are just complete?

Whenever you're listening to those songs, you often find yourself travelling to
another realm, diving into the environment and the feeling that is being projected
by the song. The melody, the lyrics, the voice-all perfectly fitted together, making
you want to listen and forget about everything else surrounding you at that
moment.

Music is all about the emotion. Music is all about the feeling. Listening to different
sorts of music makes the recipient of the melody feel a certain emotion. You should
remember this dynamic and use it to your advantage.

A song has three elements-melody, lyrics and the voice of the singer/rapper.

Teaching you how to use your voice correctly, in order to project a certain emotion
is going to be disscused in the next chapter(so stay tuned).
We are going to focus on the other two elements in this course-the melody and the
lyrics. Be patient. Becoming a skilled MC is not going to happen over night. There
is a process you have to go through, in order to create a good song.

If you have a beat, the lyrics you’re planning to write for it, have to match the
emotion that the beat releases. Think about it.You cannot talk about making money
and rocking jewelry over the theme from the Young and the Restless right?

It's going to sound ridiculous. That's really an extreme example, but you would be
surprised how many rappers don't know this and write their hard core lyrics on a
mellow beat.

If lyrics and melody are not aligned emotionally, then the song doesn’t have power.

The First Action Before Writing Lyrics-Feel the beat

Close your eyes. Concentrate. Stop thinkin about your daily troubles. Clear your
mind. Let the instrumental play. Really sink in to it. Dive into the instruments
playing.

What emotion does that beat inject in your system? How does it make you feel? Are
you feeling relaxed? Does it make you angry? Does it motivate you?

It all depends on your own mind frame, but I found that the easiest way to analyze
a beats emotion is via the imagination. I visualize actions and scenes that would go
well together with that melody. Almost like the soundtrack to a movie scene. What
scene would it be?

Yours might be different

You might picture yourself talking to someone and the type of topic you would be
discussing if that melody was playing in the background. You need to test this on
your own and figure out your way of finding the emotion of beats.

Figure out what kind of emotion does the beat express. Now just think of the beat
as the background to your lyrics. The melody is there, to just amp up what you’re
about to say, giving it more strength and power.

So, when listening to the melody, feeling the emotion, ask yourself: What kind of a
topic does that beat make me want to discuss. Listening to it-What does it make
you talk about?

If the emotion that the beat emmits is peace, calming sounds, making you feel
relaxed, maybe you will feel that you want to talk about how hard your day was
and that you are happy it is over. Another topic might be the time spent with your
girlfriend.
You’re associating the feeling from the beat, with a specific
time/event/action/routine/person in your life.

Remember, a song has three components-melody, lyrics and the voice of the
singer/rapper.

A good song, has those three elements tuned in to the same emotion. Tuning the
three components is hard and much practice is required, until you get experienced
and skillful enough to get them right.

However, when you get the hang of it and start geting the combination correct, the
songs made by you will now have power. People will listen to them, because they
give them pure emotion. Listeneres can forget about their own problems and enter
your world.

So what can you do now?

Get some instrumentals and try determining the emotions that are being expressed.
Once you get the feeling of the melody, figure out the kind of topic you feel like
writing about.

Remember, try matching the emotion of the beat with the topic of your lyrics.

Lesson 12-Rap Content

Now, we will talk about the content of a rap song.

1. What is rap content?

Have you heard of the phrase “It's not what you say, its how you say it” ? I believe
that this statement is only valid for the technical side of rapping, like developing
smoother flows, thinking of new and fresher ways to say words, inventing different
rhyme schemes etc.

However, after you’ve played with the technical side of rapping for quite a while,
you'll realise that if you want to truly express your emotions and connect with your
audience, you have to start following a different philosophy. This philosophy
would be:

“It's not how you say it, it’s what you say.”
Since most of rap is not about holding a melody, we pretty much talk throughtout
the whole song. This gives us the opportunity to share more information with our
listener, as opposed to singing.

This is because singing is technical. With singers, it's how well do they sing a given
song. Can she/he hold the higher notes and hit the right ones all the time. With
rappers, it's the opposite.

Rapping allows us to share feelings, life experiences, views on life and lessons with
our audience. It allows us to inject a certain emotion into our fans, just by talking to
them. If you ask me, when done correctly, a rap song has the potential to be much
more influential than any other kind of music.

So use this to your advantage.

I will tell you from my personal experience that when you make a song, for which
you’ve focused 80% of your efforts on the flow and 20% on your lyrics, it would
have a much lower chance of standing out from the rest that’s out there.

On the other hand, if you put 70% of your efforts on developing a structure for your
argument and focus on the content, the chance of that specific song becoming
popular is going be increasingly big.

Why?
When you write a song with good content, content which resonates with the soul of
your listener and he is feeling your every word, it's very likely that he is going to
develop a personal relationship towards your music, after which he is probably
going to separate your songs from everyone elses.

It’s almost like becoming his spokesman. If you both share the same ideals, morale
and life principles, he’ll refer to you as the person who represents him. Then, he’ll
see you as different from other rappers and that’s the most important wisdom for
building a loyal fan base.

Do you actually have something to say?

Well, you do. Everyone does. The secret of writing good content is:

a) Target your audience.

Who do you want to talk to? Who do you want to affect with your words? Your
friends? Your family? People who feel a specific emotion on a regular basis?
You have to know to whom you want to speak to, otherwise your songs will fall on
deaf ears. Don't worry that you might restrict the total number of people who would
want to listen to your tracks. You won't.

Rapping is all about emotion. So people hearing you talk to your mother for
example, showing your love and appreciation for her, are likely to be able to relate
to your words, just because most of them feel the same emotions for their mothers.

The more personal your lyrics are- the better. This is because, by sharing your
deepest secrets and feelings, you allow the listener to enter your world, with your
problems, worries and dreams.

For instance, have you ever wondered why Eminem has so many views on a
song where he only talks about his daughter?

It's because when you listen to his personal issues, you can feel the emotion he
gives out to his daughter and you sympathise in some way with him and relate to
your life situation as well.

b) Figure out what kind of emotion do you want your target to feel, while
listening to your song.

For example, if you want to show your listener some understanding and
compassion, first start off by stating the similiarities you two have. Whether it's
character similiarities, the philosophy you both share or something as basic as the
way you look. Reassure him that you are really similar to him and you know what
he is all about.

Then go about sharing some experience you had and the way you felt. Now if both
of you, look similar, went through the same experience and felt in a similar way,
you and your listener are likely to build a personal connection just from that one
song. You can take this construct to new heights, by adding more and more factors
that connect you with your listeners.

Since people nowadays have been told that everyone is different, anytime they see
someone similar to them, they automatically want to associate themselves with that
person. So that way, you are becoming their spokesman from now on. You
represent them. You represent that demographic.

Lesson 13-Translating Speech to Bars

I'm going to share with you a technique of writing lyrics that I'm currently using.
This technique came about as a solution to one of the problems I had when I first
started rapping.
The problem was that after I stopped experimenting with the flows and all the
technical bits, I actually wanted to say something throughout my songs. I wanted to
present an argument, give my point of view, share experiences and emotions.

However, the problem I was experiencing was that even if I had the argument in
my head or on paper, I always managed to dillute it in a way. I started to talk about
one thing and after a couple of rhymes, I'm talking about something entirely
different.

That's because I was governt by the rhyme words and the lyrics in-between were
just connecting them. This kind of problem made my lyrics quite vague and
shallow, not being able to present my listener with a well-developed argument
argument. I had to do something about it and the technique was that something.

This technique will give you freedom to say anything you want in a rap form. It'll
give you the ability to express your emotions, discuss in depth topics and become a
great story teller. However, you could only use this technique if you have taken
care of the technical side of rapping and your skill level is high enough.

The best way to teach you the fundamentals of this technique is by giving you an
example. I will write what I want to say to you in the form of normal sentences.
For example:

“Once we become enemies, there is no turning back. I cannot risk you ruining
my business.

Okay. Now what you do with this technique is you take each statement and you
translate it in rhyme form. So what I just said will look something like this in
rhyme form.

Once we enemies, there ain’t no taking back

Eradicate the danger of my profits lying flat

As you can see, we said the same thing, but reworded it in a way, which makes it
rhyme, while still maintaining the original meaning.

This is the magic of the technique. You never know how the rewording will work
for you. All kinds of metaphors and wordplay will jump out on their own, as long
as you keep concentrating on the actual meaning, not the rhymes.

So the process of using this technique is the following:

1. Write a couple of paragraphs of the things you want to actually say on the song.
Write it normally, no rhymes.
2.Pick the first statement and instert it in your bar. Formulate it in a way, which
makes it fit within the 4 beats of the bar.

3. Think of your second statement then look at one of the words you want to rhyme
from the first bar. This is the connection.

4. Since you have the second statement and a rhyme word (from the first bar),
reword your second statement, so it has that connecting rhyme word in it. The
difficult part is to keep the essence of the phrase, without diluting it.

5. Once you’ve reworded it, change a few minor details and get it to fit within the 4
beats of the bar.

Now you have a couplet, which was written by using the Phrase Translation
technique.

You have to remember, that the rhyme sctructure is not important here. It's not
about the rhymes really. It's about what you say. It's important not to get lost when
constructing the rhymes. I know it might be very difficult to think of a rhyme for a
statement, but try and translate it as accurately as possible. Otherwise, the effect of
this technique will not be utilized fully.

Once you get familiar with the basics, you might want to try picking out more than
1 word from the first phrase. Try to rhyme 2 or 3 words at a time and still maintain
the essence of the statements you have. You would find it quite challenging and
fun.

Lesson 14-Draft vs Freelance

We are about to discuss the two methods of writing your lyrics on paper:

The Draft Method

The Freelancer Method

Each has it's advantages and disadvantages, which I'm about to discuss with you.
Let's start.

The Draft Method

What you do with the draft method is you pretty much write your whole argument
on a piece of paper, like you are writing an essay. Everything you want to say on
your song, but in a regular form, no rhymes.
After that, you can dissect the essay into verses. For example, from here to here it's
going to be the first verse. From here to here, it'll be the second verse.

After that, start the instrumental and just begin translating your sentences from
regular form to rhyme form, fitting each one on the melody-using the technique
which you learnt in the last lesson.

Advantages

1. This method gives you the opportunity to prepare the structure of an argument.
Making it possible for you to think of the introduction, the alternate theory, the
evaluation, the analysis and so on.

2. It restricts you from distracting, going off track, talking about something else,
diluting the content of your verses.

3. After you’ve wrote all of your ideas and opinions on paper, it's impossible to
forget or miss any of them.

Disadvantages

1. It gets boring after a while, since you have written everything you want to say
already, now you just have to translate it. It might get tedious.

2. One of the biggest disadvantages of the Draft Method is that you write your
essay with passion, pouring your emotion in those words and when it comes time
for you to translate it into rhyme form, the emotion is not there anymore and your
lyrics might sound pretty stiff.

The Freelancer Method

With this method, you start the melody and think of the topic you would like to
discuss. After you’ve decided, imagine there was a person right infront of you. I
had a crack in the wall, so I decided that's where my person's eyes are going to be.
Now start talking to him about your thoughts on the topic.

Pause after each statement you make, repeat it to yourself and convert it in a rhyme
form. This method is about converting each statement you make individually.

Advantages

1. It captures the emotion, with which you’ve said your statement to the person,
straight into your lyrics.
2. It keeps your mind working and thinking. It's challenging, eliminating any
boredom.

3. The lyrics you'll lay, using this method are going to sound natural, fresh and real.
It leaves the impression that you are having a conversation with your listener,
rather than just reading words from a piece of paper.

Disadvantages

1. You might forget your train of thought easily, since you have to think how to fit
the previous statement in your lyrics.

2. It requires practice, intelligence, imagination and brain flexibility.

3. If you stop doing it for a while, it gets pretty difficult again quite quickly.

Personal opinion

You are probably thinking why the hell is that guy making his life so difficult.
That's not the case. Not using any of those methods, leaves your lyrics with a pretty
basic sound. Not capturing any feeling, nor following any type of argument.

Remember, rap music is a person speaking to you, while there is some music in the
background, empowering his words. You have to make your lyrics sound
as real as possible. That's the only way, you can capture somebody’s attention.

As far as the Freelancer method, I'm using it right now. I love it, because it makes
my lyrics look like I'm having an authentic conversation with my listener, it allows
me to switch my emotion whenever I want to, plus I believe I have the imagination
for it.

However, after all this time, I'm still finding myself forgetting what I was about to
say next. That technique requires great memory and focus. Unfortunately, when
you get tired, you often realize that you lack those two mind assets.

My advice would be to experiment with both methods. See which one suits you,
which one you like more. Since everyone has a different style and a different head,
I can't say that there is a “right” method.

Start experimenting and see what works for you.

To be honest, my method is a combination of the both. I first structure my

argument, but just with bullet points. After which, I start talking to my imaginary
target audience. It might sound crazy to you, but that imaginary person is my
listener and I prefer seeing the guy who I'm talking to.

Lesson 15-Song Structure

Now we're going to look at song structures. Song structure is the structure of the
song. Obvious isn't it? However, there are different types of structures, suited for
different types of songs. Each structure has its own benefits and drawbacks. Each
structure gives the song a different feel.

Today, we'll look at the different types of structures and their components. The
only thing that is present in all kinds of structures is their components. Each
structure has them, however their length and order varies from structure to
structure. The song components are:

1. Verse

2. Chorus

3. Intro/Autro

4. After/Before Chorus

5. Bridge

1. Verse

A standard verse is 16 bars. That's 4 quatrains per verse, 3 verses per song, which is
enough for you to give your point of view. That's where you actually do the
rapping, showing your rap skills and your ability to ride the beat. It's the most
important component of a song in my opinion.

Nowadays, you get to see verses that are around 8 and 12 bars. It’s a format, taken
from pop music and it’s used when your song is concentrating on variety of
elements.

However, if you want to tell a story or something which has more depth to it, you
can use the 24 bars verse. The song usually gets longer, plus you might have to cut
back on the chorus, but you'll have the opportunity to say what you want to say
fully. So, bottom line? A verse can be: a)8bars b)12bars c)16bars d)24bars.

It's the place where you do the rapping.

2. Chorus

Now the Chorus is important too. It's main aim is to sum up the whole meaning of
the song. Also, choruses are used and constructed in a way, which helps the listener
to remember your track easier.

They are sometimes called “hooks”, which literally means “Hook up the Listener”.
Its length can vary between 4 to 8 bars. In most cases, the chorus is 1 quatrain
which is repeated twice, however there is no rule to this. You can repeat one
couplet 4 times or have 2 individual quatrains, with no repeat.

3. Intro/Autro

Those two are not always present and not that important. However, when included
they can reinforce the feeling of a song. They are both usually up to 8 bars long.
They are inserted before the start/end of the song. They can be anything really,
from regular speech to sex sounds, depending on the content of the song.

4. After/Before Chorus

Now, not alot of people know about this, that's why you don't see the up and
coming rappers using it. However, all the experienced rappers know about it and
are not scared to use it. 50 Cent’s first album was full of songs with after or before
choruses.

All there is, it's a 4 liner(in most cases), which has the job of assisting the chorus.
Most of the times it's repeating a statement or something really simple. Since the
chorus is the element which makes the song memorable, the after/before chorus is
there to assist it, in this objective. Most of the times, it's so repetative that you can't
stop repeating it inside of your head.

5. Bridge

The bridge is an element, which is placed between two choruses, usually at the end
of the song. The bridge is 8 bars and serves as a breath of variety for the projects.

It’s being proved that listeners attention span drops right after the second chorus, if
the song continues as it began. That’s why, the bridge is placed there, to give
something new to the audience and keep their attention a little longer.
Song Structures
Now you know about all the components of a rap song. Let's continue with the
different types of song structures. There is no concrete number to the types of
structures, so we cannot cover all the possible combinations. Therefore, we’ll cover
the most popular ones.

1. The Standard Structure Verse(16)-Chorus(8)-Verse(16)-Chorus(8)-

Verse(16)-Chorus(8)

This is the standard structure. It has 3 verses and 3 choruses. Used commonly due
to the fact that it's neither too long nor too short. This song structure length is
around the 4 minute mark, which is the usually norm.

Advantages

-People seem to like this structure.

-The Choruses are long enough, making the song easily remembered.

-It's content orientated. Because of the standard structure, the listener pays more
attention to the content.

Disadvantages

-It's verses are not long enough to tell a story.

-Unless your content is not good, the song would be easily forgotten, since it's one
of the many.

-Some listeners might find it tedious after the second chorus.

2. The Pop Structure: Before Chorus(4)-Chorus(8)-Verse(8)-Before

Chorus(4)-Chorus(8)-After Chorus(4)-Verse(8)- Before Chorus(4)-Chorus(8)-
After Chorus(4)-Bridge(8)- Before Chorus(4)-Chorus(8)-After Chorus(4)

This one is concentrating on variety. The structure usually works when you have
thought of a great chorus and want to showcase it. It’s great for pop songs and
audiences that get bored easily.

Advantages

-Introduction with a Chorus is a great way to let the listener know what’s the song
all about from the start.
-It makes the song more memorable, due to the higher number of choruses in it.

-It has great variety, capturing people’s interest for longer.

Disadvantages

-It concentrates too much on your chorus, leaving your verses out in the cold.

-It's possible that you condition your audience to just wait for the choruses, not
paying attention to your verses.

-It might get repetative, because of the high number of chorus repetitions.

3. The Story Telling Structure Verse(24)-Chorus(4)-Verse(24)-Chorus(4)-

Verse(24)-Chorus(4)

Okay, now this structure is used when the song is in the form of a story, with
introduction, characters and so on. The Length of the verses is 24 bars, giving you
more writing space for developing your story. The choruses are smaller, otherwise
the song would’ve been too long. This song structure can go up to the 5 minute
mark.

This structure concentrates on the content and the emotion of the story, rather than
the repetition of the choruses. The only way people would remember your song is if
your story is worth remembering.

Advantages

-Long verses, giving you an opportunity for the presentation of a fully developed
story.

-If the story is well written, it is likely to affect your audience on a bigger scale.

Disadvantages

-If the song gets too long, the listener might lose interest quickly.

-If this structure is not used for a story based content, the excessive flow might not
grab the attention of the listener.
-It doesn't have variety, since throughtout the most part of the song you are
rhyming and the choruses are short.

We’re going to stop here. These are the main types of song structures. All the
others are the sub-categories of these. I would recommend trying out each of them.
See how they feel. You have to remember though, there is no “right” structure. It
all depends on the type of content you have.

Lesson 16-Rap Chorus

This lesson will answer the following questions-

1. What is a rap chorus?

2. Why is the rap chorus important?

3. How to write a good rap chorus?

4. What are the different chorus structures?

1. What is a rap chorus?

The chorus is the section of a rap song, which connects it's verses. There is usually
only one chorus, which is repeated before/after each verse. A chorus is usually 4 to
8 bars long. It’s also called “a hook”, meaning that this section of the song is meant
to hook up the listener's attention. It can be consisted of anything, from different
types of rhyme schemes to a number of single statements or phrases.

2.Why is the rap chorus important?

The chorus is the only section of a rap song, which is repeated a number of times.
Therefore, that's the part which your listener is likely to remember first, so anytime
he thinks of this song, the first thing he would think of is the chorus. A chorus helps
the listener differentiate your song, from the others.
A chorus is like the cliff notes of a song. It basically tells the listener what is the
song about, right from the start. With a bad chorus you are likely to put off people,
because if the most memorable and important element of your song is not good,
why should they give you a chance and wait for your verses?

So think of this as if you were the listener. Would you waste 4 minutes of your life,
listening to something, which gave you a bad first impression?

3. How to write a good rap chorus?

In my opinion, a good rap chorus is memorable, melodic and it sums up the content
of the song. In order to create a good chorus, you have to take into account those
three components(melodic/memorable/sums it all up).

How to write a memorable chorus?

A memorable chorus should really stick to your audience memory. This chorus has
to be so memorable, that they can't stop singing it, in their head. This would make
them come back and listen to your track one more time.

There is a number of techniques, which will achieve this task, however there is no
recipe for a successful chorus. For example, repeating part of a word might do the
job. Ever heard of lil wayne’s song Lolipop? Isn't part of his chorus something like,
luk-luk-luk look like a lollipop?

That repetition of sounds, seems to penetrate the listener’s memory and they
remember it. I don't really know why, but I did my own research once. I went on
youtube and checked out most of the songs, which have over 50 million views.

Almost all of them were using this repetative technique. Pitbull can be used as
another example.

Another way to make your chorus memorable is to think of a really fly punchline.
Something original, never written before. If it's original and stylish enough, there is
a big chance that your audience will remember it.

After you have your phrase, fill in the bars with it. Create a structure, which
concentrates on that phrase.

For example, if our phrase is “I’m the king of this rap kingdom”, you can create a
focused structure like:

I’m the king of this rap kingdom(rap kingdom echo)

I’m the king of this rap kingdom(rap kingdom echo)
I’m the king, king, king, king,
I’m the king, king, of this rap kingdom

All you do is play with the phrase. Play with intonation, pronunciation, repetition
etc.

If your audience starts quoting your chorus throughout their day, you can be sure
that you’ve done a pretty good job.

How to write a melodic chorus?

1. First of all, you can try writing your chorus in a flow, which is different from the
one you’ve used for your verses.

2. Most of the rappers nowadays try singing on their choruses, making them more
melodic. It’s not as difficult as you might think. All you need to learn is how to
hold a higher note and then rap your chorus, while staying on this higher note.
Check out the melodic notes ladder exercises. It will help you get started.

3. You can use some sound schemes. This might break the ice and bring some
variety to your sound. The thing you need to remember is that your chorus has to
have a different sound from your verses.

How to sum up your verses in a chorus?

Now what you can do, is read your verses, one after the other and then ask
yourself: What is the bottom line? What do I want to say with this project? What is
the whole purpose of this song? What is the overall message I want to send?

If you don't come up with something, read your material again, asking yourself
those questions and your brain will eventually start working, giving birth to a great
idea.

Pay attention to the feeling of the song.The feeling of the whole project. This will
guide your choice for chorus very well.

4. Other chorus structures

-The most common structure for a chorus is the repeating quatrain. You basically
think of a quatrain, which you repeat twice, filling in the 8 bar space. It's so
commonly used, because of it's wide variety, giving you an opportunity to use any
kind of rhyme schemes you want.

-1 on 1 off is another chorus structure. It's basically 1 bar you rap, 1 bar you let the
melody stay clean. So you are missing out every second bar. It's used to bring more
weight to your words.
-The conversation is another chorus structure, but you need a partner for it. It's
basically: I rap two bars, then you rap two bars. You switch places each couplet or
quatrain.

-Anything original. That's the truth. If your structure is fresh and original, it’s likely
to be noticed.

Bottom line is that there is no strict recipe for making a sucessful chorus. However,
I'm trying to write mine in accordance to those guidelines. My advice would be to
try and write the chorus in a way, which represents the feeling of your song.

Lesson 17-The Sacred Process

This will be the last lesson from this course, in which I will show you my process
of writing a song. All the methods and techniques I'm about to use were discussed
in the previous lessons.

After all these lessons I know some of you still don't trust me, thinking I can't rap.
By going through the process of writing a song and giving you a song, ready to be
recorded, I think I would successfully eliminate the doubt in your minds.

1. Get an instrumental.

I can reassure you that I'm doing this as I go and I have no prepared lyrics or
something. I'm listening to the game-dreams right now, so let me find that
instrumental on youtube and I will make a song on it.

Okay, it's playing. While it's playing, I try to figure out the feeling of the
instrumental. What kind of emotion does it emmit.. I'm doing this because the topic
I will rap about would depend on the feeling of the instrumental.

I imagine what kind of a conversation I can have, if I have this melody as a

background. I feel pain but a willingness not to give up. Feels like a person saying
that he is feeling bad and is hurting, but at the same time he keeps on fighting.

2. I match this kind of feeling with a topic concerning me and my life.

When do I feel pain, but I keep on hanging? The truth is that my life has always
been like that. I can relate to this feeling.

For example, right now Im an illegal emmigrant in a country, trying to make some
money so I can fund the start of my rap career.
Anyways, people around here don't like us, because they think we are all thiefs,
thugs and burglars. The point is that, this is the topic I'll talk about. It matches the
feeling of the instrumental.

3. I'll figure out the structure of the song.

I think I will leave the introduction clean, let the listener feel the instrumental, feel
my pain. Then I'll start with a verse(16) and do a Hook(8). Basically I'm going to
do the song in a regular structure, putting my focus on the content.

4. Now it's the time I start writing.

I won't use the Freelance approach, nor the Draft approach. I will use a
combination of both. I'm going to list some bullet points and based on that, I'll lay
my lyrics.

 This country is good if you have money.

 I try finding a job and get enough money to start my campaign.
 People over here never liked us though.
 I don't really care, I'm here just for the money.
 Why I need it.
 I need it fast. Reasons.
 I know I'm going to get it.
 But now, all I feel is pain.

I'm not going to group them in verses, because I don't know how long each one of
them will be. So I'll just start with the first one and keep on going until the next
one. Then I'll just split them into 16′s. So, there it goes:

Every country’s great if you got money, Me Im living

slummy, coming here fleeing from my home on my

own just to make some paper, cuz I tell you the

condition of my place is kinda bummy, living laffin

now crying later, all that time all that grind

makes you a gator, when I hustled people told me

it was getting risky and the chance of prison getting greater,

Why I chose to be legit? thats the reason hater

So im lookin to be workin cuz im saving to be

rapping people clapping I can see it, yo what happen?!

Imma be it, killing every fuckin beat

while he sleep Imma creep cut and stab him deep ye,

but for real my life is crazy are you feeling me,

Am I feeling the hostility? you kiddin me?

they say I’d steal, with high probability you

killing me,everywhere I go the villian’s always me

I dont really care that they dispise me, Imma get my

paper regardless, despite thee, I can

see what your system turned you into, homie Imma

I dis em, cuz they dont know really what I’ve been through

but I need it quick, cuz im sick, of saving

every drop of a water, every fuckin bit of

electricity, while you motherfuckaz fight obesity I

sit, lick, every crumb, cuz im missin meals n shit,

Im not complainin, just explainin,

That your blaming is containing only empty statements,

Like installment payments for some fuckin sweets,

Its a shame, nowadays the only chance of

speaking truth is over beats, but im making leads,

debating breaking issues takin people from their seats

maybe one day you gon learn who I am,

maybe then, Imma be a part of them..

One thing I know, Imma get it all,

after all my soul, is pure overall I

believe, that my flow is driven by a higher force,

n my words inflicting damage like some deadly claws,

I dont pause I achieve, fighting by the

street laws when I beef blood pours and it's yours,

Im like fire, lava bubblin with desire

I aspire building an entire empire

cuz I wanna touch every single heart, theres a

revolutuon n Im takin part, right from the

start, resolution cleanin the polution of the

consciousness, introduction to erruption cuz

coruption conquered every single institution, so

destruction is the only cure for this prostitution,

N I think im told to share the knowledge I’ve acquired,

n the truth is cuz of you that Im inspired,

Chorus

Okay, the three verses are ready. Now I'll do the Chorus. I want this chorus to be
like a little summary of my whole content. My whole content is about the
progression from rags to riches basically, don't you think? So I will try and focus
on that aspect.

The Chorus is going to be a quatrain which is going to be repeated twice:

We gotta go through rain, we gotta go through Pain

To experience the joy, thats the game

Its a shame, no one knows how it goes

pain, is a long term gain.

This was my song creation process.

Lesson 18-Improving Rap Delivery

In the previous lessons I taught you everything I know about writing high quality
rap songs, but all of those techniques and methods would mean nothing if you don't
have the ability to deliver them correctly. So this course is going to be focused on
giving you tips on how to improve the sound of your recordings. Let's start.

Problem

Are you falling of the melody that you rap on? Meaning that the beat is either too
fast or too slow for you and you can't seem to sync in with it's speed? Do you think
you sound awkward when rapping and don't really like the way you sound?
Explanation

Music is sounds made from instruments, combined in a way, which is pleasing to

the ear. You have to think of rapping, as just laying another instrument, on top of
the melody. Forget the meaning of your words for now. Think of it as just sounds
you make with your mouth. In order for you to understand how to improve your
delivery, you have to be able to picture what rapping really is. Let me demonstrate.

Each instrumental has a 4 beat bar. If you don't know what I'm talkin about, check
out the lesson about counting music.

....

In-between the 4 beats, the producer might have inserted different sounds, like
claps, snares, etc. For example the snare is going to be “/”. So then, the melody will
look like this:

. / . . /.

On top of all this, he has something like a piano playing for example, making the
melody look like-

. / . . /.

—__—_–

Okay? So, when you rap, the sound from the words that you pronounce is going to
be mapped out on that diagram.

. / . . /.

—__—_–

……………(thats you rapping)

The dotted line is your flow. The flow of words, which is constructed in a way, in
which the sounds from the words are packed together within the bar.

Of course, if you try to cram in too many sounds in one bar, you are likely to spill
over into the next bar.

Of course, if your flow speed is not in sync with the speed of the instrumental, you
are likely to sound awkward. Think of yourself as just another instrument on the
melody.

Fixes
1. Always place a vowel on each beat.

When writing your lyrics, make sure that when the beat hits, you have a vowel
from a word placed on it. For example:

>1234

This is what i mean and i hope you got it.

Advantages

It gives your flow a melodic crisp sound. It makes sure you are in sync with the
tempo of the melody. After you get used to this, you're going to start doing it
automatically, but if you are a beginner, you have to keep it in mind, when writing
your lyrics.

2.Practice your flow with scatting.

Scatting was first used by jazz musicians and it's like an imaginary language. It's
basically a form of improvising sounds, making up non existent words. Like
wabadubapa, dabaduduu. You know? Im sure you’ve heard of it. You can use this
to your advantage.

Get an instrumental and start scatting over it, practicing the “vowel technique” I
just showed you. Don’t worry about the words. Invent them. Just make sure that
you have your vowels placed on the (4) beats.

Advantages

It might sound ridiculous at first, but remember that scatting over a melody, will
polish up the timing of your flow, it would make you more confident and
comfortable using the vowel technique, plus you're likely to invent new flow
patterns.

3. Practice adjusting the speed of your flow.

Pick out a few instrumentals, each having a different tempo, from slow to fast. Now
try scatting over one of them. Sinc in with it's tempo. You have to adjust the speed
of your flow correctly, so it's identical to the speed of the instrumental. Then switch
to the next instrumental and start scatting again, increasing/decreasing the speed of
your flow.

Advantages
This exercise will strenghten your skill of being able to adjust the speed of your
flow, with the tempo of the melody. It's a skill which you have to possess, because
your flow speed has to be identical to the melody speed, in order for that flow to be
pleasing to the ear.

4. Pay attention to how the pro’s flow.

Hey, bottom line is that if you still have any doubts on how to flow, you can check
out how Tupac, Jay-Z or Eminem do it. Just play one of their tracks and try to focus
on the flow. Can you notice how they place a vowel on each beat? Check it out and
start analyzing.

Lesson 19-Improving Breath Control

Breath Breaks

A breath break is actually the place where you pause your flow for just a second,
breathing in some fresh air in order to continue rapping. If you think of your
rapping as a car, the air is your fuel and the breath break is that moment you take,
to fill in the old tank.

-Indication on paper

There are many ways of indicating where you're going to take a breath break. I’ve
heard that different rappers have their own little symbols and stuff, blank spaces
and such. The simplest way to do it is to just put a comma, when you have a breath
break.

-Where to take your Breath Break

This is important. You have to place your breath break in a place, where it doesn't
damage the sound quality of your flow. Where it doesn't damage your
pronunciation, because if you do that, the effect of your words would be just lost.

I usually take my breath breaks after I made a statement. I take breath breaks in-
between or on beats.
For example, I might say something from beat 1 to beat 4. After the statement
finishing on beat 4, I will take my breath in-between beat 4 of this bar and beat 1 of
the next bar. This way your breath break is hidden, not damaging your flow in any
way.

However you can start at beat 1 and finish late on beat 4, then you can take a breath
break at beat 1 from the next bar and start your rap from beat 2.

But remember-
Breath breaks are taken after a statement, not in the middle of it.

Breath breaks are taken on the beat or in-between beats.

-How to take your Breath Break

Breath breaks should be really fast, taking less than a second. Otherwise if too long,
the breath break might damage your flow or you might fall off beat. Always
breathe in with your mouth. Using your mouth for breathing in is the fastest way to
get the bigest amount of air. I don't really breathe in from my nose when I rap,
because it's too slow for me, the amount of air I get is less, plus it damages my
sound.

Maximum Capacity

There is such a thing called the Maximum Capacity of your Breath. It's around two
bars, meaning that you can rap on two bars without taking a breath break. This is
valid for pretty much all human beings.

Of course, this limit of bars will depend on the actual tempo of the beat, but if
we’re talking about a 90-110 bpm, it’s about 2 bars.

Ways of improving the Maximum Capacity

1. Running/swimming.

I’ve heard that all of the Outkast members were writing their songs while running.
Running/swimming would open up your lungs, increasing your lung capacity, but
don't get your hopes up, because this might only increase your maximum capacity
by an extra beat or two. If you ask me, not worth the effort.

2. Standing up when recording

I read somewhere that when you rap standing up, you give your diaphragm more
space to move up and down, allowing you to inhale a bigger amount of air.
However, I can tell you from my personal experience that I did many songs sitting
down and I saw no difference in my breath control whatsoever. So I think it's all
about how you feel more comfortable.

Bottom line is that you have to acknowledge that you have a two bar limit and just
work with that. Being optimistic thinking you can rap more than 2 bars, might
damage your flow.

Lesson 20-Melodic Rhymes

In this lesson you will learn the following:

1. What is a melodic rhyme

2. How to use a melodic rhyme

3. Why to use a melodic rhyme

1. What is a melodic rhyme?

A melodic rhyme is a rhyme word, which is performed with a sound twist. Rapping
is pretty much talking on a melody and the thing which attracts attention to it, is the
wordplay and the poetry in it.

However, why don't you include another factor. A regular rhyme becomes a
melodic rhyme when you play around with it's pronunciation, saying it differently,
so it sounds even better.

2. How to use a melodic rhyme?

For some of you, it might be natural to be able to bend words, changing the
pronunciation, injecting swagger in them. However, not everybody is born with this
skill. The good news is that this skill can be learnt and mastered to perfection, by
doing the following exercise.
1.Play one of your instrumentals.

2.Write a basic couplet with end rhymes on the 4th beat.

3.Try and twist your rhyme words by prolonging a vowel or by putting more stress
on the word.

4.A good way to think of it, is that the way you say your rhyme has to correspond to
the feeling of the content in your song. For example, if your song has a funny
content, you can try and say your rhyme word with a funny pronounciation.

One thing you should always remember though:

It will always sound good if it's coming from your heart. Stay true to you.

It's funny when I see people putting fake emotion in their raps. My respect for them
goes down just because I know that they are trying to be someone else and not
themselves.

Don't try to be a hardcore gangsta if you really aren’t. Don't try to act black if
you're white. Use the melodic rhymes to empower the feeling projected by your
words and if they are coming from your heart, I guarantee you that it will work.

3. Why use melodic rhymes?

Variety

Having different sounding rhymes is entertaining. People get bored easily

nowadays and making the sound of your rhyme words more interesting is just
another trick, with which you can capture their attention for longer. It gives your
verses a breath of fresh air, making them more dynamic.

Empowers the emotion of the song

Some call it “swagger”. I call it the emotion of the song. Swagger is all about “How
you say it”. Think of acting for a second. You say that an actor is bad when he can't
express the right emotion, when he is reading the script. It's the same with rapping.
If you can't say it right, half of it's strength is lost. Change the pronunciation of
your rhyme words in order to increase their effect on people.

Sounds good

After all, it's a song and if you think about it, the bottom line is that it has to sound
good. The listener has to like how it sounds first and only if he likes it, he might
pay attention to what you want to tell him. So it's really vital that you make your
verses sound good. Melodic rhymes are beneficial in that sense.

Lesson 21-Rap Microphones

We are going to talk about microphones. I will take you through the process of
buying a microphone for recording your rap vocals and then I will give you some
pointers on how to use it correctly. In this article I will discuss the following topics:

 The purpose of recording home

 Dynamic vs Condenser
 Price Range
 Tips on Using your Microphone

1. The purpose of recording home

The only reason for buying a microphone is self improvement. You want to polish
up your rap performance skills. The way you deliver your lyrics, the way you play
with the emotion from your voice, your pronounciation and so on and so on. The
only reason should be self improvement.

So yes, if that's the case, you need a good mic, which can give you a real evaluation
on where you stand when it comes to recording. Don't think that just because you
write wicked verses you can rap. Recording a rap song correctly is a totally
different ball game with it's own rules.

Alot of practice is needed for improving the quality of your recordings and you
would need a microphone to record your practice songs and track your progress.
For the people who have fantasies of recording songs at home and then get famous
of them, I should say that they should get real. In order to record a high quality
song, you need an expensive microphone, noise isolation, pop filter, mic stand and
high skills in music editing.

If you have a big big budget and high skills in music editing then yes, you can
make a home studio, but if you are an up and coming rapper, the best option is to
save up and go to a proper recording studio. They have everything you need over
there at a reasonable price.

2. Dynamic vs Condenser-Which type should I choose?

If you browse around you are likely to notice that there are two types of
microphones-dynamic and condenser.

-Condenser Microphones

All the serious and professional recording studios are using the condenser
microphone. That’s because the quality of its recordings is second to none. It has a
great frequency response and transient response, which basically means that it can
turn your voice into electrical impulses really fast and accurate.

It gives depth and weight to any voice. The bottom line is that this is the
microphone which gives you the best recording quality. However there are some
things you have to know before you get all excited about that microphone.

Because of its quality, condenser microphones are expensive. You have to be

prepared to pay at least $80 for a decent one. All Condenser microphones need
their own power supply too. The power supply is called Phantom Power and costs
around $40 so don't close your wallet so fast.

They are brittle. You have to be really careful and protect it like your eyes. The
other thing is that it is very sensitive to loud noises, so you need to tell your noisy
neighbours to shut up when you’re recording.

Another drawback is that when recording, you can only use its front side and have
to rap directly in front of it. That's where you get your optimal recording quality
and if you try and speak on its side or speak down on it, the quality of the recording
is not good.
-Dynamic Microphones

Dynamic Microphones are most oftenly used for live performances due to the fact
that their durability is incredible.

They are resistant to moisture and other forms of abuse, which pretty much makes
them the choice for an on-stage performance.

They are considerably cheaper than the condenser microphones and don't need their
own power supply.

However they are cheap because of their poor sound quality. Dynamic microphones
have a limited frequency response so they can't convert sounds to electrical signals
as accurately as the Condenser Microphones.

My Choice

I chose to make my recordings with a condenser microphone. I paid around $130 in

total. That's for the condenser microphone, the headphones and the phantom power
supply.

I looked at it, like a long term investment, because I know that condenser
microphones last long if you take proper care of them, plus I was really serious
about rapping and improving my rap performance so I decided that I should get
something real.

I chose condenser microphones because I did a research and found out that all
recording studios use them and they have the best recording quality.

3. Price Range

After you decide what type of microphone should you purchase, the next step is to
start looking around for good microphones. Read some reviews, compare prices
and do a basic research which is going to tell you where and on what you should
spend your good money.

Since I spent around two days choosing my microphone, I will give you some
reasonable suggestions. At the moment, I am using Samson c01 Studio Condenser
Mic. I am pretty satisfied with it. The quality of the sound is pretty good, almost
studio quailty and with some editing I managed to make it blend with the
instrumentals nicely.

It costs around $80, but it comes with headphones, which probably cost around
$20-30, so I thought it's a bargain. That's a middle value microphone and I
recommend you start with that, because you don't know how long you'll be hyped
up about rapping and it's going to be a sad day, when your $400 microphone is
covered with dust, while you’re thinking how to sell it to somebody.

Samson is an established brand. I recommend that you put your trust in the well
established brands rather than the unknown ones that you know nothing of.

Behringer, MXL and CAD are also good and well established brands with good
reputation. Check out their models and make sure you stay within your price range.

However when I bought my condenser microphone I didn't know that I needed

Phantom Power 48V to power it and XLR cables which connect the microphone
and the power supply. This added to my cost and the week I spent waiting for them
was one of the longest weeks in my life.

Although you can skip buying the Phantom Power and the XLR cables if you
invest your money in one of the new types of condenser microphones-The USB
one.

Samson co1u was my first choice for a microphone actually, but the ebay seller
sent me the normal one and I couldn't be bothered to return it. It costs around $60,
but you don't have the extra costs like the power supply and the XLR cables.

You just plug in the USB cable in your computer and start recording. The quality is
basically the same, since there is no difference where does that microphone gets its
power from, whether it's your computer or another power supply.

4. Tips on using your Microphone

-Where to put your microphone?

The Proper way

You need a Mic stand on which you place your condenser microphone carefully
and then adjust its hight. The top of the microphone should be on the level of your
nose.

The microphone has to be pointing upwards. You need to buy a pop filter, in order
to reduce the harder sounds like “p” and “t”, since the condenser microphone is
really sensitive and those sounds reduce the quality of the recording.
The Alternative

Since I didn't have that much money to spend, I basically put my microphone in
one of my boots, slighly tilting it backwards, placing it on one of the shelves which
is around the level of my mouth.

By tilting it backwards, so the top of the microphone makes a 60 degrees angle

with the ceiling, the hard sounds are soften up by the bigger distance they have to
travel.

Another thing which costs you nothing and have the same effect like the pop filter
is to put a sock on your microphone.

-How close to the microphone should you be?

It all depends on the volume of the microphone, its type, the strength of your voice
and so on. There are too many variables. The only way you can figure out your
optimal distance is by experimenting.

Trial and Error. Try one distance, record yourself. If you think it's too low or too
high, change the volume of the mic, increase the distance. Experiment.

Why is my microphone so quite?

This is because you have to play around with the settings of your microphone on
your computer. Do it from the control panel. Also, you have to know that each
editing program has mic volumes, so you have to play around with those too.

That's it. You are ready to record your song. You bought your condenser
microphone, you have everything ready for your recording and you did it. You
killed that instrumental. However when you start listening to what you've just
recorded you start thinking that you sound wack. Don't worry. This is because you
need to edit your voice in a way, which blends in with the track.

Lesson 22-Audio Editing Software

This lesson will be revolving around the subject of Audio Editing Software used for
processing your vocals after you’ve recorded them. We will discuss the following:

 Reasons for Using Audio Editing Software

 Audio Editing Software Product Review-Audacity, Cool Edit Pro,
Cubase
 Main Tools used for Processing Vocals
1.Reasons for Using Audio Editing Software

After you have your lyrics down on paper and your microphone ready, the next
thing you got to have is an Audio Editing Software. This software is basically a
program on your computer, which allows you to record your vocals and then
process them, all done in the comfort of your chair.

A few years ago, this kind of software wasn't as common as it is now, but because
of the boom in the entertainment Industry and the high cost of recording in a proper
studio, The Audio Editing Software was created. The result from that creation was
awesome.

Many home based studios sprang up in no time and by using this software they
were able to cut down costs, stealing alot of the up and coming artists, who were
recording in the professional studios at the time.

In due time, the software complexity evolved to such a degree that it's now
competing with the studios and the facts show that it's winning. All the midi
workstations, mixing consoles an so on, became digital and while the studios had to
pay money for each of its devices and their maintanance, the Audio Editing
Software incorporated all of them digitally, becoming an “all-in-one” type of
product.

A rapper who is serious about going in the rap industry has to have a basic level of
knowledge about Audio Editing for many reasons.

-First, if you know nothing about Audio Editing, if you go to an engineer and ask
him to do something, you won't be able to tell him exactly how do you want your
voice to sound, which might reduce the quality of your song.

-Second, If you want to become a good rapper, you need practice. This practice is
likely to come from you doing a large volume of songs, recorded and processed at
home, with your microphone, on your computer, so you can eliminate your
drawbacks, polish up your benefits and track your progress. You would need an
Audio Editing Software for that.

2.Audio Editing Software Product Review-Audacity, Cool Edit Pro, Cubase

There are many kinds of Audio Editing Software. Some are expensive, some are
free. Some provide us with flexibility, others are more rigid. I decided to present
you with those three programs, because I have used them and I can talk from my
personal experience and because they are widely used within the rap community.
Audacity

Audacity is a completely free software. You have to pay nothing to use it and you
can download it straight from their web page. The program is simple and easy to
work with. The configuration of all the menus is not confusing, so they are quick to
learn.

However, this program does not allow you the freedom that the other, more
advanced programs give you. It's pretty rigid, the effects are limited in numbers and
in variety.

The whole process of recording your audio in Audacity is anything but flexible.

Audacity is good for the rappers, who are just starting off and who don't care about
editing their music, but only recording it and improving their delivery.

Because of the lack of effects, you can truly see how do you sound and if you can
improve your recordings without using effects, when the time comes, when you
will add all kinds of effects on your voice, you will sound amazing.

Advantages

1. Free

2. Easy to use
3. Low System Requirements

Disadvantages

1. Low level of complexity

2. The recording process is rigid.

3. Poor variety of effects

Cool Edit Pro

Cool Edit Pro is a bit more flexible than Audacity. It has a much bigger number of
effects and you can easily change the appeareance of your workspace. It is a
multitrack platform, which means that you can have separate recording of multiple
sound sources to create a cohesive whole. Simply said, you can have more than one
channel to create your song on.

It has alot of presets, which you can just load and use, meaning that this software
does not require you to have a high level of knowledge on Music Editing.
However, unlike Audacity, you have to read or watch a tutorial, if you want to
learn your way around the program. Also, the presets are not really enough if you
want to create that studio quality. You need to tune in your effects in a way which
suits your voice. Cool Edit Pro does not provide that fine tuning option.

If you find it hard to start, this tutorial might help.

Advantages

1. Large Variety of Effects

2. Simple Interface

3. Multitrack Platform

Disadvantages

1. No Fine Tuning Option

2. There is a mandatory Learning Period

Cubase

Cubase is the “all-in-one” type of software. It is simply a platform, with which you
can go through the whole process of making music. Starting from the creation of
the instrumental, to recording your lyrics and finishing up with editing and
exporting the audio in the format of your choice.

It's simply a studio, right on your computer screen. It has all the instruments needed
for making a sick instrumental and all the effects for making your voice blend in
with the track smoothly, but if you think that's not enough, new plugins, effects and
so on are being created and released as you’re reading this.

However it's not all roses and vaginas. This software is really complex and you
need to read alot of tutorials and watch alot of videos in order to begin to
understand and use it. Even if the interface is flexible and susceptible to changes of
your choice, it's still confusing when you see it at first.

Plus Cubase is really expensive, since it's a high end product and it's a heavy
platform, which requires alot of HDD and a decent computer.

Bottom line is that this is the software used in most home based studios, because of
it's complexity, flexibility and wide variety of features, effects and instruments.
This is my choice of Audio Editing Software and I'm using it now. I'm still learning
how to process my vocals the way I want to, but I'm slowly getting there.

You learn everyday. I suggest that you read some tutorials and learn as you go,
because you would find it impossible to work with that program if you think you
can rely only on your common sense.

Advantages

1. All-in-one platform

2. Fine Tuning

3. Wide variety of effects

4. Malleable Interface

Disadvantages

1. A mandatory learning period

2. Expensive and heavy

3.Main Tools used for Processing Vocals

There is a large volume of different effects you can use to edit your vocals in a
way, which blends them with the instrumental. However there are some effects
which are considered to be the foundation of the audio editing process and they are:

 Compression
 Equalization
 Reverb

Compression

Compression is used to “level out” or smoothen your recording. Your voice has its
frequency. When you increase it, you produce a frequency peak and when you
decrease it, you produce a slump. The compressor reduces the volume of loud
sounds and amplifies the volume of the quite sounds. You can control the process
of compressing by manipulating it's four components-threshold, ratio, attack and
release time.

-Threshold

The threshold is the limit that you can put on your voice. If the frequency of your
voice exceeds the threshold, the compressor comes into play, by reducing the
frequency with a ratio of your choice.

-Ratio

The ratio is basically the strength of the compressor. The higher the ratio, the more
controlled your voice sounds. This restricts the frequency increase in your peaks.
For example, if you have your threshold on 10db and you create a frequency peak
of 20, the ratio will determine by how much the peak should be decreased. If the
ratio is 10:1, this means that your peak, instead of 20db will become 11db,
increasing it only by 1, hence the ratio 10:1.

-Attack and Release time

The Attack time is how quickly the compressor reacts to the frequency peaks. The
higher the Attack time, the slower the compressor reacts.

The Release time is how fast the compressor returns to unity gain, or simply how
fast it lets go. The higher the release time, the slower the compressor returns to
unity gain.

Equalization

Equalization is used to sculpt your voice in a way, which makes it blend in with the
melody. Equalization is a tool which manipulates the features of your vocals.

Features like brightness, vocal presence and clarity. Equalization is a graph. On the
y axis(vertical) are the dB levels, going from -30 to +30. The straight line passing
through the graph is the condition of your natural voice, without manipulations
from the Equalization process. The x axis(horizontal) has a set of frequencies,
starting from 0, ending with 20K(20 000).

Each frequency is responsible for a certain feature of your voice and by increasing
the dB level(x) of that frequency, you increase the effect of that specific feature.
For example, 5KhZ(5 000 frequency) is responsible for your vocal presence.
Increasing the dB level of that frequency, increases your vocal presence. I will
share with you a very valuable source now.

This is a Frequency Table. It shows you which feature, corresponds to which

frequency. I recommend that you save it, or print it, because I don't know for how
long its going to stay there. It's a really good source for the ones who are just
entering this delicate matter.

Reverb

The Reverb is used to add richness to your voice. It's essentially a series of delayed
signals, making your voice seem “larger” and more spacious. It pretty much gives
you control over the echo it creates, depending on the environment.

There are different presets like hall, room, plate reverb etc. Each produces a
different reverb, because each of them is a different environment itselft, which
produces a different echo.

Lesson 23-Improving Rap Performance

We will be discussing the tips, which would improve the quality of your rap
performance. In this lesson, we will touch on the following:

 Lyrics-Commit to memory or Read from paper

 Voice Emotion
 Pointers worthy of consideration

1. Lyrics-Commit to memory or Read from paper

There has been an age old debate about which is the better way to lay your lyrics.
Should you read them from your notepad, or should you try to commit them to
memory and perform, laying your verses straight from your dome.
The debate is useless, because there isn't a “better” way. Both methods have their
own benefits and drawbacks and it all depends on the preferences and needs of the
rapper.

Each method has its famous supporters. For example, 2Pac and Eminem are using
the „Read from paper“ approach, while Biggie and Jay-Z are laying their verses
straight from the head. Let's find out why.

-Commit to memory

Method

Write your lyrics on paper and then try to memorize them by repeating them many
times, until they stick to your brain. When it comes time to perform, you would
deliver the lyrics recorded in your memory.

Another method is to skip the writing part and just compose the rhymes in your
head, but I'm not going to touch on that, because it's a very advanced technique, the
explanation for which would need a lesson of its own.

Advice

Rather than trying to remember the whole song, divide your material into a number
of digestable chunks.The most common way to divide your lyrics is to divide them
in verses. You can then try to memorize each verse at a time by continuos
repetition.

After you’ve commited to memory all the verses, try combining them into a one big
whole. Repeat the whole song a few times to make sure you have it all remembered
and perform.

A study was conducted, in which scientists found out that if you repeat something
18 times, whatever it is, you will have it memorized.

Advantages

1. It might be easier for some of you to concentrate on giving the proper emotion to
your words that way. Since it's all in your head, you eliminate the possibility of
sounding like you are reciting the lyrics.

2. If your song gets popular, you would have to memorize it anyway, so you can
perform it live or on video. Remembering the whole song before recording,
compensates the time you would have to spend memorizing it then.
Disadvantages

1. Some people just have a bad memory, making the task of remembering a whole
song quite difficult and time consuming.

2. The level of concentration when performing a song straight from your head is
much higher than if you were to read it off a paper. In the middle of your recording
you might slightly lose focus, have a random thought and mess up everything.
Having to do a song over can be a very irritating task.

3. It takes time to memorize all of your verses and if your aim is to improve your
flow and your rapping skills in general, trying to commit a song to memory before
recording might harm your productivity levels.

-Read from Paper

Method

First off, write your lyrics on your notepad in a clear and easy to read way, putting
a bar on each line and defining the boundaries of each verse. Go throught your
lyrics a few times until you can rap all three verses in one take. If you feel
confident enough, start recording.

Advice

Always make your lyrics as easy to read as possible. You might think you can read
it now, but when you start recording, you got to be in sync with the instrumental
and even the smallest hesitation causes a great fall in the quality of your recording.

If you have stuff that you’ve crossed out or words that were misspelled and
corrected while you were composing your lyrics, it would be a good idea to copy
your whole song to a fresh piece of paper.

This way, you would save yourself from having to do a song over, because you
couldn’t read your own handwriting.

Advantages

1. This method is very time efficient. All you do is right your lyrics, repeat them a
few times and you are ready to record. If your main aim is skill improvement, you
need to be productive and write a lot of practice songs. This method enhances
production because of its time efficiency.
2. You eliminate the chance of forgetting the lyrics. If you’re rapping from
memory, there is a chance that you forget your rhyme structures, quatrain order and
so on. If you’re rapping, looking at your notepad, everything is right infront of your
eyes.

Disadvantages

1. In the beginning your rap might sound like you are reciting the stuff you’re
saying. Rapping is an art where the rapper “talks” to his audience and if you don't
know how to project the right emotion with your voice, reading your lyrics might
sound dull, boring and not genuine.

2. Since you have to hold the piece of paper in one hand, look at it and read off of
it, your movement is likely to be limited. You can’t really move around or take
your eyes off the paper for too long, because you might lose track of your lyrics
and/or mispronounce words.

My Recommendation

If you’re learning how to rap, you need to write a lot of practice songs. Having to
remember each one before you record it will be a very time consuming and
strenous task. Write your lyrics, repeat them a few times, record and go to the next
one.

On the other hand, if you have a single, a very important song which would
determine your future in the rap industry, you do need to take the time and commit
that song to memory. It will help you express the emotion of your lyrics better,
plus, if you make a video of it or have to perform it live, it's mandatory that you
know it by heart.

2. Voice Emotion

Explanation

Do you remember the lesson we had about Rap Content? In it, you learnt that each
song has three components-Melody, Lyrics and Voice.

Each component is crucially important for the success of the song. If you want your
song to have a great impact on your audience, you need to tune in all three
components into one mutual emotion.

You have to make sure that your voice projects a certain emotion which fits in with
the other two components. If the emotion from your voice is different from the
emotion of the instrumental, your song won't have the desired effect on your
audience. It won't sound that good and it would be easily forgotten. Therefore, the
emotion with which you rap is incredibly important for a song.
Method

After you’ve chosen your instrumental and written your lyrics, it’s time to record
your song. Figure out what kind of emotion does your song convey. After you’ve
figured that out, do an activity which helps you generate that emotion. If you feel
that certain emotion strongly, it will affect your voice when you record your
performance.

For example

The emotion of your song is anger. Your instrumental is aggressive. The lyrics
you’ve written are full of rage and anger. Before you do your recording, do
something which gets you angry. Maybe you can remember somebody, who you
don't like and the only thought of him makes you angry.

Maybe you can think of the time when you were really angry. Perhaps you can
watch a video which gets you into that state. The main objective here is to
internalise the base emotion. At the moment you can feel the rage circulating in
your system, put your headphones, start the instrumental and murder it.

3. Pointers worthy of consideration

-Avoid Frustration

When you first start rapping, you will make mistakes. It's inevitable.

Don't get frustrated when you mispronounce words. It happens.

Don't get frustrated if you show hesitation and mess up your flow.

Don't get frustrated when you forget your rhymes, if you rap from memory.

The only thing frustration brings, is more frustration. When you’re frustrated you
lose focus and this causes you to make more mistakes, which leads to more
frustration. The only thing to do, whenever you make a mistake is to act cool,
repeat the word or phrase you said wrong a few times, get it straight and start over.
You’ll get there.

-Make sure your microphone settings are adjusted, prior to recording

Picture this. You put your headphones, start the instumental and just murder it.
Your delivery is at its best. Your pronunciation is great and your whole
performance is top notch. The instrumental finishes, you take off your headphones
with the feeling that you’ve done a great job.

You sit down behind your computer to listen to your great performance. You press
play and you find out that your mic volume was too low and you can hardly
understand your own words, so you got to do it over.

Test and adjust the settings of the mic prior to recording.

-The volume of the headpones

The volume of the headphones is important too. While with your headphones, you
have to be able to listen to the instrumental and hear your own voice at the same
time.

If the volume is too high, not hearing your own voice might result in falling off
track or mispronunciation. If it’s too quite, not hearing the instrumental properly
might result in the same thing. So you have to make sure you adjust the volume of
your headphones properly. Make sure you can hear the music and your voice at the
same time.

Lesson 24-How to Treat Your Engineer

In this article I will share with you the rules and tricks of treating your engineer in a
way, which is beneficial for you. We will discuss the following:

 The Relationship between the rapper and the engineer

 How to give demands to your engineer the right way
 Tricks to get a better quality product

1. The Relationship between the rapper and the engineer

In order to be able to work efficiently with your engineer, you have to understand
the whole dynamic between you two. The truth is that there is a level of
dependency each of you have.

The rapper needs the engineer for producing his instrumentals and for editing his
vocals, mixing and fitting everything nicely together so the song is pleasant to
listen to.
On the other hand, the engineer needs the rapper, since he gets money from
producing and selling instrumentals to him. The engineer edits the track and in
most cases charges you for the studio time, if the studio is owned by him.

Also, if the rapper is good and his song gets famous, the engineer will get an
increase in his reputation and more exposure, which would lead to more rappers
wanting to work with him, which is going to bring him more cash.

However, it's a complicated relationship. The engineer knows that without his skills
in music production, the rapper wont go too far, since the instrumental’s quality is a
very important factor in a song.

He knows that the rapper needs him for the editing part too and if the rapper doesn't
know how to treat his engineer in a way, which brings out the best of him, the
finished product would be one of low quality.

2. How to give demands to the engineer the right way

There is a process which you have to go through when you’re creating a song.

First, the engineer needs to create an instrumental.

Second, you need to figure out your song structure and write your lyrics.

Third, you have to go in the studio and record your vocals.

Fourth, the engineer has to master the track.

So step 1 and 4 is where the engineer is involved in your project. You have to give
him specific information on what you want him to do, so the finished song sounds
just like you’ve imagined it.

Giving him specific information about your demand, gives him a framework, which
decreases the chance of him going off point. If you let him lead and produce the
kind of instrumental that he likes, without your guidence, the quality of your
project will suffer.

-Step one

When asking the engineer to create an instrumental, you need to provide him with
information like:

A Song Sample
There are millions of instrumentals all over the world and at least one of them will
have a similar sound with the one you want your song to have. Do a little research
and find that instrumental. It can't be the same with the one which you’re going to
be rapping on, but the overall feeling of it has to be the same with your desire.

Give him this song sample and tell him that you want the same beat rate. Which
instrument do you want him to add or remove. How do you want the instrumental
to start and end.

Effect

This would make it much easier for him to produce your track, since he knows how
it would look like at the end. Of course there will be some variations, but those
details won't cost him that much effort of imagining what the hell do you actually
want.

Knowing the overall shape of your desired instrumental, the engineer is likely to be
able to produce the desired melody faster and with a striking similiarity with what
you’ve imagined.

Feelings

You have to ask yourself what kind of feeling do you want this instrumental to
emmit. Write down all the desired emotions that you want your instrumental to
have and give them to the engineer.

Don't just write down one word thought. Be thorough and write down all the
characteristics of your instrumental. Put the feeling inside his head. Tell him what
he should imagine when he creates the song.

For example, if you want the instrumental to be aggressive, tell him to imagine a
soundtrack for a violent scene. Imagine how you get ready to go and fight with
somebody. How do you imagine it? What soundtrack does your scene has? Write it
down.

Effect

This trick would point his imagination in the right direction. When you give him
the mental picture and the feelings that go along with it, you really decrease the
margin of error. Don't feel bad about telling him what you want. It actually makes it
easier for him, because without this knowledge he has to imagine everything on his
own.
When he does that he might get stressed, because he doesn't know is the thing he is
imagining the same with your thing. In most cases, it ain't. Remember, you are the
brain behind the project and you are responsible for the song. It's your future at
stake, not his.

Be ruthless and create the instrumental you have in your head and the chance of
that song succeding increases. Don't compromise. It will affect you negatively.

-Step four

If you are serious about rapping and making it in this industry, a basic knowledge
of Audio Editing is mandatory. You have to know on which frequency does your
voice sound good, what level of compression do you think would bring out the best
from your voice and so on. You have to show a level of knowledge, not just
because you have to know what works for your voice, but also to show the engineer
that you know what's up.

Him knowing that you have an understanding on this subject would make him
figure out that he has to do the editing to the best of his ability, otherwise you are
likely to find out that he did a poor job.

3. Tricks to get a better quality product

-A professional Environment

You need to understand that even if the engineer acts nice, cracking jokes and
being all cool, he is not your friend. When you start considering him as a friend, his
work efficiency and the quality of his work will suffer, since he doesn't see the
need to work as hard as he used to.

However if you act professional and talk straight business with him, without no
bullshit, he will know that you are a stand up guy. He will then try to concentrate
and work harder, so he can please you.

-Another engineer

This is a trick which can be used to instill competition, which boosts efficiency and
project quality. The method is this. After you give the specific information about
the desired characteristics of the instrumental, you tell the engineer that you gave
the same information to another engineer.
You want both of them to do an instrumental and you are going to choose the one,
which has the best quality and which depicts the feelings of your lyrics the best.

Even if there is no other engineer that you’re working with, your engineer will
work much harder and much more efficient, just so you can choose his
instrumental, instead of the “other one”.

This really pushes your engineer to his limit, because if you’re a good rapper, he
knows that he is going to get some props if your song gets famous and he doesn't
want to miss that chance. It increases his work efficiency, boosts quality and makes
him feel good about “winning”.

-Contract

If you have a project where you have to produce a number of songs, make a
contract.

Go to a notary public and ask for his advice, explaining your situation, ask him of
the clauses you have to include in the contract, so you get something to use against
the engineer if he doesn't do what he said he will.

For example, if you do a schedule of producing a song each week, you need your
engineer to have an instrumental ready, every monday(for example). The critical
point is that if he delays and produces the instrumental on tuesday, your whole
project delays. You lose money, when you have a delay.

However, if the engineer knows that he signed a contract and you can sue him for
malpractice or something else, you can be sure that there will be an instrumental
waiting for you every monday.

-His Name on Your Song

By telling him that you are going to include the name of his organization in the
description of your song, he would know that he has to represent. He knows that he
is going to get more exposure and it's in his interest to produce an instrumental,
produced to the best of his abilities.

He knows that if more people like the beat, more people would want to work with
him, which brings in more cash. Play this card and you are likely to get a better
quality product.
Lesson 25-How to Stay Motivated
In this lesson I will share with you the knowledge I have on the topic of motivation
in relation to rapping. It’s a key and very important aspect in this art form, because
the level of motivation corresponds directly to the productivity of a rapper and the
quality of his songs. We will discuss the following:

 Motivational Slumps
 Motivational Methods
 Obstacles worthy of Consideration

1. Motivational Slumps

Learning how to rap is a long process, which if done correctly, requires large
amounts of dedication, patience and will. It’s very demanding and contrary to
popular belief, not everyone can do it.

If your main motive of becoming a rapper is to become popular, successful and be

able to make money off of it, you need to know that you’d have to buy a
microphone, install a recording program on your computer and record many
“practice songs” at home, before you even think of going public.

A practice song is when you get a random instrumental, write lyrics and record it at
home, for the sole purpose of self improvement. A practice song gives you the
ability to track your progress, eliminate your drawbacks, polish up your writing and
performance skills and establish the range of your rap content.

Talent won't get you far. You need to take a course of continuous improvement.
Making many practice songs, evaluating each one, thinking of how you can
improve every day. The only way you can turn your talent into skill is by beating
on your craft daily. Only then, you will develop the skills which would lead you to
the top.

When I was developing my style, flow and rap content, I used to write and record
one practice song per day. The thing nobody tells you when he hypes you up to
learn how to rap, is how long the process of learning might take. It all depends on
many variables, but I don't think that it's possible for anybody to get a good
foundation and a reasonably high skill level in less than three months, considering
he is aiming to record a song per day.
As inspired and motivated as you might be, in due time you will start feeling a drop
in your motivation levels. This is because it's a long term process, which requires
you to use up high amounts of brain power on a regular basis. You have to
understand that motivational slumps are inevitable and need to be taken into
consideration.

You will recognize that you’re in a slump, when you start to procrassinate your
projects, lose concentration quickly, putting less efforts in the creation of your
practice songs. You might start having days, when you don't feel like writing or
recording at all.

Motivational slumps are inevitable and their occurance causes great damage to the
efficiency, quality and productivity of a rapper. The only thing we can do to restrict
the disruptive effects they have on us, is to learn how to recognize and treat them as
fast as possible.

The best treatment of a motivational slump is changing your motivational method.

2. Motivational Methods

If you do something many times, you get bored. That's a law. A motivational
method is a way of tricking your brain into thinking that you still find the task
interesting and entertaining.

I mean, don't get me wrong. We all love rapping and when we write we feel great.
The difficult part in most cases is the moment you have to decide that you’re going
to sit on your ass and actually do it. There is a number of motivational methods
which assist you in maintaining your productivity, but I will discuss only the most
effective ones.

-After all, it's just entertainment

If you think about it, you’re ready to go and play computer games any time. You
don't have to motivate yourself to play games, just because the perception of games
in your brain is that they are fun and entertaining. Many researches proved that the
brain activity is increased when the person plays a computer game, due to the fact
that he uses and improves various mental skills.

Using our brains for playing games does not seem to cost us any efforts though,
because playing games in our perception is fun and entertaining. Why can't you use
this perception trick as a motivational method when learning how to rap.

If we convince our brain that writing and recording lyrics is just a fun and
entertaining game, you will notice that the efforts needed to motivate yourself to
start the task are considerably lower.
The only reason we don't feel like writing lyrics sometimes is because we convince
ourselves that it's too hard and would cost us too much effort.

Use this perception trick and convince yourself that writing lyrics is fun and
entertaining. Recognize the other sources of entertainment like TV or hanging out
in facebook. Since they are not that beneficial for you, try to limit their use. Watch
less TV. Check your facebook only twice a day.

The philosophy behind this method is to trick your brain into believing that writing
lyrics is the height of your day. You can't wait to start writing, because that's pretty
much how you get amused.

-Competition

Competition is one of the best and most effective ways of motivating yourself. The
truth is that each and everyone of us wants to be the best MC out there. Knowing
that your opponent for the throne is working while you’re chilling, gives you a
sense of urgency.

You get the feeling that he is passing you by and since he is working harder, he is
getting better than you. This makes you think that you just have to work harder
than him and get better than him. This is what you’re looking for. The sense of
urgency increases your productivity levels and heightens the concentration you put
into your projects.

When you decide that you want to learn how to rap, it's always wise to try and hype
up some of your friends to do it too. This way, you would have opponents to
compete against. Match your skills and progress against theirs and so on. If you
don't have friends who are interested in rapping, you can look around for your local
rapper.

I'm sure that there is one in any city. You just have to look around and start
comparing your skills to his. If you don't know anybody who raps, just know that at
this very moment, while you’re reading this, someone on the other side of the
world is writing lyrics.

He is getting better. Maybe better than you. Are you going to let him win? Are you
satisfied with the second place?

-Success has a high price

There is a simple truth that you need to know. If you want to be rich and live
comfortably, you just have to be really good at what you do. Doesn't matter
whether it's basketball, sales or rapping, you just have to know your craft like the
back of your hand.
There are many ways in which you can differentiate yourself from the other
rappers, but being separated from the others due to your skill level is the most
effective differentiation method.

So, knowing that there is no other way of becoming famous other than improving
your skills is a motivational method itself. You’re motivated to write lyrics and
improve, just because you want to achieve your dream. It's important to never
forget that. The only way you can achieve your dreams is when your skill level is
higher than the rest.

3. Obstacles worthy of Consideration

-Hecklers/Haters

People are creatures of habit and when they see something unusual, they feel
obligated to oppose it. It's logical that when you set on the course of learning how
to rap, people would try to discourage you and make you give up.

When I was in University last year, that's when I started to rap. I was

living in an accomodation with rooms, really closely packed. If you sneeze, your
neighbour was telling you “bless you”.

So imagine me, learning how to rap in this situation. At first my rapping was
terrible. I had average lyrics, but my delivery was not good. So at times I could
hear people laughing secretly at me, but that didn't matter. It was whatever for me,
because I knew that this is just a phase and I will get better eventually.

Believe me, it's not easy to ignore such a thing, but I managed to do it by not
caring, knowing that I will eventually get better and these people will one day buy
my records and brag that they knew me. Just exclude the haters from your mental
frame.

-Rap Content

If you’re doing many practice songs, at one point you would feel like you don't
have anything left to rap about. I experienced this myself. I made like 40 songs and
I started wondering what should I rap about next.
I decided that I don't want to restrict myself to one style and it would be beneficial
for me to be able to write lyrics on any subject I want. Therefore I conducted a
research and made a list of all the rap content types.

For example, there is a funny and entertaining style(My name is-Eminem), there is
a hard core gangsta sound(Mobb Deep), there is the inspirational style(2pac) and so
on.

I devided them into categories and decided that each day, I will change the style of
the song I’m making. This kept me motivated and inspired to keep on making my
practice songs.

For three months I managed to make around 60 songs. I had my lazy days, I admit.

Motivation is an essential factor when you have a desire to achieve your dreams.
Therefore, it has to be taken into serious consideration.

Lesson 26- What is a Record Deal

In this lesson I will inform you of all the details you need to know about the so
desired record deal. If you’re not that informed about the subject it might seem to
you that this is the start of your dream, but believe me, the rabbit hole is even
deeper than you thought it would be. We will be discussing the following issues:

 Why do you need a record deal

 What is the policy of a record label
 How to get an offer
 Things you dont know about record deals
 Alternatives to a record deal

1. Why do you need a record deal

Like in any contract, there is a relationship between the two participants. A sort of
dynamic between you and the label. The contract lays out what you’re supposed to
do and what the label is supposed to do.
It's usually 15 pages long, so if you get one, make sure you read it cover to cover,
because in most cases, the most important details are written in fine print

-What do they give you

In most contracts, the label ensures that it provides you with:

1. Studio Time-The time you would need to record your album

2. Promotion-They are likely to create and manage a Marketing Campaign for you

3. Advance- This is a sort of a signing bonus you get, after you’ve signed the
contract

4. Royalty- Royalty is the percentage you get from the sale of your album(usually
around 10%)

-What do you give them

In most contracts, the artist ensures that he/she provides the label with:

1. A music album/song-The album/song has to be in a ready-to-sell

condition(finished good)

2. Availability-If the record label asks you to attend a place, because it's in their
Marketing Campaing-You have to be there

*The money you get from any concert or live performance, in most cases, you get
to keep.

2. What is the policy of a Record Label

Due to the high supply of rap artists nowadays, the record labels got really picky in
choosing their clients. However, if you look at the past, you will recognize that all
the record labels have something in common-

They are greedy.

They are insecure.

Therefore they are looking for an artist, who is likely to be popular in the long run,
being able to produce albums, with a high demand for a long time.

Remember: Record Labels don't care whether you rap about killing babies or
praising god. All they care about is money. They see you as a cash cow and by
using your ability to make music which is in demand, they get money. So, usually
they look for an underground MC, with a wide fan base which is increasing in
numbers.

This means that if you want to get an offer from a Record Label, you got to have
alot of people listening to you already. This is because an existing fan base gives
the Label a sense of security in investing their money in you.

It's similar to a bank loan really. If you go to the bank, asking for a loan, you have a
much bigger chance of getting that credit if you already have a running and
profitable business, rather than just going to the bank only with a business plan and
high hopes.

This is because seeing that you have a profitable business, the bank staff feels that
you have the expertise to run a successful business and his sense of securty
heightens.

It's the same with Record Labels. Unless they feel that you’re a safe and secure
investment, the chances of them investing in you are none. That's the sad truth and
if you think that a record label will sign you just because you got mad skills and
you have the potential to become the best rapper alive, think again.

You can see the evidence of this when looking at the early stages in the careers of
many great rappers like Jay-Z, 50 cent, T.I, Eminem and many others.

3. How to get an offer

If you want to increase the chances of getting an offer from a Record Label, you
have to make sure that there is enough buzz around you and your music. Creating
buzz can be done in many ways, but I will discuss the two most effective ones-
Making Good Music and Having a Marketing Campaign.

-Good Music

That's mandatory. Being able to make good music is essential in order to get your
fan base started. Even if you’re not that good in advertising, a good quality song
will speak for itself.

If only a few people accidentally stumbled upon your song, if they like it, they are
likely to share it with their friends. If some of their friends like it too, they are
going to share it with their friends and so on. This would create a sort of a buzz
around your song, attracting more listeners.
-Marketing Campaign

Having good music is essential, but it's not enough. The Industry became very
competitive and you have to make sure that you let the people know you’re out
there.

Before you start promoting yourself, it's always good to have a marketing plan. In
this plan, you would state the marketing strategies you are going to use and their
costs. If you’re still an up and coming artist, it's likely that your budget is low, so
the strategies have to be cheap and effective. I will share with you some tactics you
can use, in order to promote yourself:

Internet Marketing

*Upload one of your songs on youtube, then post it on the facebook walls of all
your friends.

This is a very effective guerilla tactic. Since it's on their wall, the chance of them
checking it out is very big. Plus, you will get more views and exposure from the
friends of your friend, whenever they’re checking out his/her profile. I often post it
on the wall of a hot chick, because I know that there are always alot of guys
checking out her profile and looking at her pictures and stuff.

*When uploading the song, make sure that in your tags, you include the names
of all the famous rappers in your area/country.

The purpose of doing that is because when people want to listen to one of their
favorite rappers, if your song has a tag with his name on, your song is likely to be
listed as a suggested song, on the side of youtube.Therefore you would get more
exposure from people who haven't heard about you,

but when they saw your song as a suggestion to the song they are listening to, they
might find it curious as to who you are and they might click on your name, just to
check it out and see your worth.

*Create a number of accounts on youtube, like your own song, write positive
comments on it and do some indirect advertisment on other songs with the
fake accounts and then like the comments.

When you like your song with fake accounts, it moves up the ladder and its
visibility increases. When you write positive comments on your song with fake
accounts, its visibility increases. When you write comments on other songs from
the fake accounts and then like them, the comment moves up on top of all the other
comments.
If you’ve written it in a way, which indirectly reveals the quality of your song,
more people will be curious and will check out your song=More Views and
Potential Fans.

Now I know some of you might think that this tactic is sneaky and below their
pride, but you have to get your priorities straight. I want to be famous and I'll do
everything I can to get there. Plus, you might do that at the start and if your song is
truly good and people like it, there is no need to do it again. People are going to be
doing it for you.

Once, I wrote a comment which is saying that I'm a good rapper(indirect) from a
fake account and liked it 16 times. After two weeks, my views jumped
tremendously and when I went back to check out how my comment was doing, I
saw that it was now liked 44 times.

Face-to-Face Marketing

*Record a few songs and burn them on CD’s. Go on your main street and give
them away for free.

It doesn't have to be fancy or anything. Choose the people to whom you’re giving
your CD to. There is no point of giving your rap CD to some old lady, who might
later use it as a frisbee.

If you’re a cool person and you approach them the right way, they're going to feel
curous as to what kind of music you’re making. If they like it, they are going to
look you up on the internet, share your songs with friends and so on.

*Research the Record Label and the staff which is in your area

Learn who is the one recruiting new artists and where is he often seen. Once you
have that information, you can make sure you “accidentally” bump into him and
give him your music or showcase your talents.

That is just a few of the tactics you can use. Only imagination and desire restricts
you from devising better and more effective methods of creating a buzz.

4. Things you don't know about Record Deals

-Royalty Rates

Royalty Rate is the percentage you get from the standard retail price of your album.

For example, if your Royalty Rate is 10% and someone buys your CD for $10, you
get to keep $1. The thing nobody tells you is that this Royalty Rate is valid only for
sales through “Normal Channels”. Normal Channels is when you sell your album
through record stores.

If however you’re selling your album through “other channels”, the Label will only
pay you a percentage of your Royalty Rate. Other Channels are for example
internet sales, selling your album through clubs, sales outside the US. If you’re
selling your album through other channels, the Label might only pay you 60% of
your Royalty Rate.

-Recoupment

The Record Label spends money on you for the studio time, promotion and your
advance. In reality, a Record Label operates like a bank and a Record Deal is
similar to a Bank Loan. The money they spent on you is actually a loan, which you
have to pay back. You pay back the loan to the Record Label out of your royalties.

For example, if they spend $10 000 on you, you have to make over $10 000 in
royalties until you get your first royalty check. This is a common practice in most
contracts.

-Recording Fund

The Recording Fund is the money for the studio time and your advance in one.

For example, they think that you will spend $1000 for your studio time and decided
to give you $1000 as the advance. Therefore your Recording Fund is $2000. This
way, if you overspend on your studio time, you’re just going to get less money for
the advance. This way, they don't lose money if you overspend.

For example, if you spend $1200 for the studio time, your advance will be $800.
The Recording Fund will still add up to $2000 and their losses will be zero.

5. Alternatives to a Record Deal

-TuneCore

TuneCore gives you the ability to put your music in the online stores of most of the
online digital music retailers(like iTunes, Napster, Lala, Rhapsody, etc). You pay a
front fee, which is for processing and uploading your music to these online stores.
You keep all the revenue past what the stores keep.

-Make your own Independent Label

You have to register the company, get licenses to sell, inform the taxing authorities,
buy equipment and so on. However you get the right to sell your albums and keep
your god damn money. The vastness of the topic of making your own Independent
label would require an article of its own.
Lesson 27-How to Find Your Rapping Style
I will discuss the topic of rap styling and the process of choosing your target group.
We will touch on the following:

 Rapping Style
 How to Establish your Rapping Style
 Target Group

1. Rapping Style

Most of the people who are reading this are in the middle of the process of learning
how to rap. They can rap, but they know that they still have alot to learn and have
the potential to improve tremendously.

I know that many of you are listening to some of your favorite rappers and often
say: I want to sound like that.. I want to have the same intensity, the same delivery
and the same rhyme schemes. In other words, you want to emulate the rapping style
of your favorite rapper.

Nothing wrong with that. I was like that in the beginning. It’s normal. Rapping
style is the combination of the flow and the delivery of a rap song. It's pretty much
how do you sound when you rap, disregarding your lyrics.

You have to understand that even if you’re saying the dopest shit ever, if your
rapping style is not pleasant to the ear, people won't have the desire to listen to you.
So, since now you know what's a rapping style, you have to make sure that you
have established your own style, which is going to be just another differentiation
weapon in your arsenal.

It has to be different. It has to suit your own personality. It has to suit the mood of
the song. Don't try to copy one artist all the time, just because he is famous or
whatever.

Just because he sounds good when he raps, doesn't mean that you're going to sound
good when you rap with his style. Plus, people will know that you’ve copied
someone else’s style and your rep drops down immediately.

2. How to Establish your Rapping Style

If you’re in the process of Establishing a Rapping Style, I advise you to devise a

plan similar to this.
First, make a list of the 5 rappers you want to base your style on.

Second, sketch up a schedule and analyze one rapper for a week. By analyzing I
mean listen to his songs, write the lyrics of the songs and then see how are his
verses structured and how is he delivering them.

This way, you could just break his whole style down in little pieces. When you’re
breaking down a style, make sure that you determine:

 Rhyme Schemes
 Delivery(how does he pronounce that specific couplet and which word
does he stress or prolong)
 The emotion of his voice(How does he show emotion with his voice. For
example, when you feel like he is angry, how did his voice change)

After a week of analyzing one rapper, you are most likely to know the
characteristics of his style pretty much by heart. Pick the features you desire the
most and move to the next one.

After you finish with all 5 rappers, you will have a bag full of tricks. Since you
know all these tricks, you can tailor them, just so they can suit your personality.
Practice your newly learnt features and in due time, you will start to tweak them a
bit, just so they can suit the song, your emotion and so on.

After all, you have to know that whatever you’re saying, it has to sound good and
by good I mean melodic. Nice and pleasant to listen to. If you have to remember
one thing from this lesson it would be this-Whatever you’re saying, it has to sound
good.

3. Target Group

-What is a Target Group

A target group is the group of people, to whom you target your music.

-Why do you need a Target Group

Having a target group allows you to focus all your attention on the people you most
wish to be your followers. Each song should have a purpose.

Maybe you want your song to be played in the nightclubs all the time. Then you
would target all the party animals, going inside their heads and rapping about their
desires.
Perhaps you want your song to have the function of helping your listener, with his
daily struggle. Then you might target the working people, the huslers etc, going
inside their heads and rapping about their feelings and the ways they can remedy
their pain.

Doesn't matter what it is, a song should have some kind of meaning and it should
be directed towards somebody. Otherwise, if it's not meant for anybody, it's only
obvious that nobody would feel like listening to it.

-How to choose your Target Group

Choosing a Target Group is a very important decision for a rapper.

You are the person that you are now, because of the experiences you went through,
the environment that you grew up in and/or are living now and your parents.

You have to know that other people would have similar character traits to you,
because their environment and experiences shaped them similarly to you.

Your Target Group should be the people with identical Mind Sets.

Think about it. If you want to rap about guns, drugs and murder, but you’ve never
been in this life and the knowledge you have on the subject is limited, you won't get
anywhere. Your song won't strike a chord and will go in the abyss quicker than a
rabbit gets pregnant, because it would be shallow.

Real Recognize Real, so don't get your hopes up. If you haven't been an outlaw,
don't rap about it. It's very easy to locate a fake rapper.

If however you’re a kid from some working class neighbourhood, who works a 9-5,
when you talk about the hard ships of your job and the daily struggle you have to
endure, the other people working that 9-5 will understand you. They will relate to
you, because they go through the stuff you rap about daily and know the meaning
behind your words. You will become their spokesman. That's the whole meaning
behind the famous phrase be yourself.

Think of the experiences you had and think of the people who are likely to share
the same experiences. This would be your one and only Target Group.
Lesson 28-Tricks and Tips of Live Performance
This lesson will be about stage performance tips and tricks. One of our members
asked us, if we could write a lesson around that topic, so we decided to actually do
it and try to help the guy the best we could. Let’s start.

1. How to Remember your Lyrics

We all know that once you get on that stage, you better know your songs or you’re
toast. You have to make sure you know your song material by heart. The method I
use is this:

First, I listen to the song on my computer at least five times. I’m not thinking about
it, my mind is blank. The reason I’m doing this, is to record the song in my
subconscious.

Second, I try to rap from memory as the song goes. The moment I mess up, I check
out my written lyrics, see what I’ve missed and start again.

After I’m able to rap alongside the recorded song with no problem, I start
playing only the instrumental and rap on it. If I mess up, I look over and correct,
until I'm able to perform it three times without making any mistakes. Then I move
on to the next one.

2. Song List

When deciding which songs should you put on the list and their order, you pretty
much have to think of the place you’re at, the people’s initial emotions and your
actual surroundings.

The optimal objective, when picking songs is “How to affect the audience
emotionally”. Not like, „Let me rap that club joint first and then I'll hit them with
my hard material“. Don’t do that, as it doesn’t take into consideration your
surroundings.

It’s much better to play with their emotions. For example, having three aggressive
songs one after the other is always causing havoc and a close to riot situation. This
is something you should carefully plan.
3. Sound Check

Never agree to perform somewhere, without having your sound check. You have to
know how you’re going to sound.

The thing is that some rappers think that since the microphone is good, there is no
need for mic checks and that’s absolutely ludicrous.

Every person got a different voice, which means that the microphone levels have to
be configured exactly for the likes of this voice. You might prefer having your
voice a bit higher than the instrumental, just so you can put more weight and power
on your lyrics or you might have other preferences as well.

Test it prior to the show!

4. Leave Choruses Recorded

It’s a wise thing to leave your choruses recorded and I will give you a number of
reasons for this.

For one, you will have more power on the chorus. Second, depending on the
song’s flow, you might not be able to catch your breath fast enough, in order to
sing the chorus.

This means that you will miss the first part of the chorus, which will mess up your
whole song effect. If you don’t want to leave your chorus on the instrumental, at
least consider the possibility of having another rapper on stage, someone who could
finish up your lyrics if you mess up somewhere.

5. Don’t Smoke

I’m telling you this from personal experience. If you have a stage performance, try
not to smoke for a day or two before it. Otherwise, you risk the chance of your
voice snapping at one point and this is fatal. Once you can’t use it, the show is
over.

Clean up your throat. I’ve heard that many rappers/singers use honey and lemons to
clean up their throats. Don’t leave it all to chance man. I prefer not smoking for a
day, instead of being embarrassed on stage.

6. Always try to move

This is something which I’ve learnt by researching and examining the greatest
performers in the world. They all move when they’re on stage-from comedians to
rappers.
In an interview that Chris Rock gave, he said that always moving on stage attracts
the attention of the audience. They’re always watching where are you going and
what are you doing.

If you stay at one place, they will look at you for some time and when you’re not
doing anything, they will look away. Always try to enslave all the senses of your
audience. They must hear you. They must watch you.

7. Performance Quality

Your main goal should be to perhaps deliver your songs as if the audience is
listening to the recorded song. Try to rap as precisely and correctly as you did in
the studio. Don’t change your flow or anything. The people gave their money to
hear the songs they’ve heard on your official record, that’s what you should be
giving them.

8. Skits

Skits are the acts you do in-between your songs. Some people talk garbage, some
people just drink water. Another tactic is trying to build up the emotional response
of your audience, preparing them for your next song.

Hyping them up. For example, if your next song is aggressive, you might start
talking about something which makes you angry. You’re building an argument,
which has anger as its main emotion. After you finish the argument, the people
have been affected by your emotion. Then you play the aggressive song and just
kill it. Think of skits as something, which builds up to your next song.

9. Cool Intro/Cool Ending

You should try making your show something to remember. Try to build suspense,
mystery. People should be asking themselves “What is happening, what’s next,
where did he go?” The ending is the cherry on the top. Don’t forget it.

Lesson 29-How to Get Ideas to Write Lyrics

Creative slumps, or in other words, periods of time when you can’t think of what to
write about, are the rappers nightmare. A nightmare which we all have to go
through. Want it or not.

So, once you understand that you don't have a choice, you might as well get
prepared for it.
This lesson will do just that job. It will tackle the issue by presenting to you the
causes and fixes of creative slumps.

Cause

-No Inspiration

This is the most common cause, simply because people don’t really know how
ideas are formed. An idea is formed, by exposing yourself to a certain
informational source. The actual idea is the means with which you will get what
you want. So essentially you use the information you’re given for your own
purposes. Complicated? Let me give you an example.

Fix

Let’s say you want to write about drugs. Simply staying at home and thinking about
drugs won't get you anywhere. Expose yourself to the right Informational sources.
In this case, you should expose yourself to information relating drugs.

Start watching documentaries about drug use, try smoking weed and see how it
feels from your own perspective, go and mingle with people selling drugs.

Expose yourself to everything relating the thing you want to rap about. Once you
do that, you will start getting experiences and ideas. Content matter will start
flowing simply because of your surroundings.

Once you’ve tried it, you can write how it feels, how it looks, what’s up in the
circles and so on. Once you’ve sold it, you can write how you feel you’re going in
jail, how do you treat the fiends, how do you deal with enemies. You get my point?

Bottom Line: No Inspiration? Expose yourself to the right informational sources.

Cause-Made too many songs

The MC who basically likes rapping and raps for pleasure, eventually get to a
point, where he has written so many songs, about so many different things, that he
doesn’t know what should he write about next.

I’ve been there. It’s a pretty dark place, because once you realize your content bag
is empty, you begin to doubt yourself and your abilities.. Will I ever make it? Do I
have what it takes?

Don't worry, you’re not the only one going through this and I will tell you how I
tackled this problem.
Fix-Revise your lyrics

I don’t really understand why nobody does this. Once you’ve written your text and
recorded it, you don't look back on it. You go straight to the next one. This is the
wrong approach if your goal is to grow in the long term.

Clear off the dust from your old notepad and start digging up old lyrics. Ask
yourself, what was your motivation then? What inspired you? Check out your
rhyme schemes. Can you fix them? Can you make them sound better? Check out
your argument. Can you improve it? Can you make it more persuasive?

If so, revise and edit your old lyrics and make an improved version of the song. If
you’ve written too many songs and can’t think of anything, improving what you
have so far is not a bad idea.

Cause and The Fix-No Motivation

This is the worst one I admit. There is a time, when you just don't feel like writing
lyrics. You don't feel like thinking about content matter, flows, rhyme schemes
anything. Is your hope of becoming a rapper dead? Hell no!

Listen, those moments are unavoidable. Maybe it’s something which has happened
to you, maybe is the stress caused by parents/friends co-workers or maybe it’s just
the stars man. Sometimes you just should leave the pen and paper on the side and
concentrate on some other aspect of your rap career, which require your attention at
the moment.

You have to recognize when life is telling you something. This is cool for the
average rappers, but the ones who really want to make it, don't really care about
life. They want to rhyme and they want to rhyme good. There is only one fix for
this and it’s self motivation. Don’t expect somebody to do it for you. As 2pac said:
You have to do for self, by yourself and after that, you can do stuff for others and
that’s real.

Check out some motivational movies. I personally enjoy watching biographical

documentaries about rappers. Not only I get to see their story, but I learn stuff,
which I can use for my career.

As I'm watching all of those famous rappers I’m recognizing that they were going
through extremely hard situations in life. Situations similar to mine. With no hope
and no real answer. I watch that and once I see how they picked themselves from
the dirt and are now millionaires, man that stuff motivates me.
That motivates me to really dig deep and ask myself Why am I rapping? Why am I
doing this? What is the reason behind all of this.

I can go through all the bad things in the world, I don't care. I will however, reach
my goal and become one of the best.

Now you’re talking. Now that’s motivation.

Lesson 30-How To Keep Your Lyrical Content

Concentrated
So, this lesson will be all about keeping the cohesion of your content. We all had
that negative experience when we start a song with one content in mind and we end
up with something totally different. In this article, we will share some tricks, which
will keep you on course. You will learn:

 Causes of going off point

 Tricks to keep content concentrated

1. Causes of going off point

There are many reasons why you might end up with songs in which you rap about
nothing. One reason might be that you don’t even know what you want to rap
about.

Look at the bunch of rappers nowadays-All they do is play with words and forget
about the actual meaning of their songs. That’s why they get dumped when the fan
hears some other song with more naked women in its video.

The main cause however is that rappers can’t control the rhymes and let the rhymes
control them. Let me elaborate.

After you’ve written your first bar, you instantly begin to think of a word, which
rhymes with your first bar rhyme. After you find one, you form a sentence and if
the sentence is even remotely connected with the first bar, you insert it.

Another bad habit. You’re in the middle of your verse and you’re now deep in the
wordplay. You’re brainstorming new rhyme patterns. Once you start doing that,
you forget about the actual content you have to insert. Once you formulate the
complex rhyme scheme, you don't even care what you say in it, as long as it sounds
sick.

Well, that’s wrong and I will tell you why. Having good flow is important, very
important. But you have to be able to have good flow and good lyrical content at
the same time. If you think of your flow only, this is not rapping, but wordplay and
the two are different.

2. Tricks to keep content concentrated

-Write your content before you start writing your lyrics

This is a very good method of writing, which enables you to have your content
cohesion in place, plus the mental space of thinking about rhyme schemes. What
you do is this:

1.Before hand, let the instrumental bump and decide on what you want to write
about(the theme).

2. Summarize your main points. You do this for each verse. For example, in the
first verse, I will talk about school, teachers and parents. The second verse, I will
write about schoolmates and so on.

3.Once you have the categories written, you can either start writing, having those
categories as guidance mechanisms-looking at them after each quatrain, making it
impossible to lose track or you can write the actual content for each category and
then just turn the whole argument into rhyme form.

-Think content first, rhyme second

When you write always think, what I want to say next, not what rhymes with this
word. Think what I want to say next, remember it, then check out the rhyme word
you can use and formulate the sentence in a way, in which you say what you want
to say and it rhymes. This is the essence of writing clever lyrics.

Lesson 31-How to Rap-Summary

This lesson will give you a basic set of guidelines on rapping.

Reading this lesson will give you the knowledge with which you could create a
standard rap song. We will go through the three steps leading to the creation of a
rap song:
  Preparation
 Writing
 Recording

Preparation

1. Know what you’re going to write about

The first thing you have to figure out is the content of your song. There are two
ways to choose what are you going to write about:

-Choose the instrumental first and write your content based on that

What you do is you browse through a set of instrumentals and you pick the one you
like. After that, try to feel the emotion of the beat. Does it express anger, does it
express confidence, does it express sadness.

Once you know that, base the content of your lyrics on the actual emotion of the
song. This way, you match the emotion of the lyrics to the emotion of the beat,
which makes the song more complete and impactful.

-Choose what you want to say and then find the beat

This is done if you want to say something specific. Maybe it’s an event which you
want to express through a song, or your feelings towards a girl.

Once you know what you want to say, play the emotion game again, this time in
reverse. Think in advance, what are your lyrics going to be about, how are you
going to say them? Are you going to be angry while saying them?

Then you need an aggressive beat. Never neglect the compatibility between lyrics
and beat. This can damage the overall quality and impact of your song, if you don’t
pay attention.

2.Structure

After you choose the content and the instrumental for your song, you need to figure
out the structure you’re going to be using. There are two structures, which play a
big part in the rap song:
-Verse Structure

Here is the place, where you decide how many verses your song will have, how
long they are going to be, where are you going to start your lyrics, where are you
going to finish them, how big is your chorus going to be?

These are questions which all of you have to ask for yourselves, since their answers
depend on the song type you want to create. A standard suggestion however, would
be a song, made up of three verses-long 16 bars each and one chorus-8 bars long.

-Argument Structure

After you’ve figured out your verse structure, you should start thinking about the
main points you wish to express in your song. How many points are you going to
make? Think about their order. It’s very important that your argument follows a
logical pattern. This way it’s easier to follow and people are willing to listen to you.

Writing

3. Learn How to Count Music

Now you have everything prepared to start writing. The question is however, do
you know how to write? Do you know where to place your lyrics? Well, if you’re a
first timer, it’s only normal that you have no clue. That’s okay.

The first thing you have to learn is how to count music. Without this knowledge,
you won't be able to rap, so I would suggest checking out the “music counting”
lesson in the beginning. You can view the subject more deeply over there.

However, if I have to summarize it, counting music is recognizing the repeating

patterns of the instrumental. In other words, music is sounds which are constantly
being repeated in a similar order. One bar is 4 beats. One couplet is 2 bars. One
quatrain is 4 bars.

You have to learn that and the only way you do this is by training your ear in
recognizing the repeating part of the song-this is the bar. Once you know what a
bar is, then you’re almost victorious.

4. Constructing Bars

When you start the beat, you will have a thousand ideas on how to start, forget that.
Just make up a sentence in you head and make it fit in with the bar. Once you have
that, think of what you want to say next. Once you know your second sentence,
connect it with the first, by making it rhyme with it.
If you do this for the first time, I suggest you to only use the most straight forward
rhyme scheme-only one rhyme word at the end of each bar. Let me give you and
example of how that process works:

Sentence I want to say-

“I’m trynna teach people how to rap.”

I get a beat and formulate it so it sounds nice. Like-
I’m trynna teach the people how to rap

Second Sentence I want to say-

“I hope they appreciate me trying.”

I can connect it with the first by saying-
I hope they recognize my help and give some love back

So that’s the first couplet. I know it’s not anything fancy, but you just wrote your
first couplet. After you get more training you can do something more advanced.

5. Write your Chorus

After you’ve written your verses, you have to wrap up the song with the creation of
your chorus. The chorus is normally 8 bars long. It could be a quatrain, which is
being repeated twice or it could be two different quatrains. It’s your choice.

My rule of thumb, when creating the chorus, is to try and capture the whole
meaning of the song in these two quatrains. What is the song about? What am I
trying to convey? If the listener will remember one thing from my song, what
would it be?

After I figure this out, I formulate it in a way, a bit different from the rest of the
song. This way, it could stand out on its own and draw more attention to it.
Choruses are very important. Never neglect them.

Recording

6. Practice your Lyrics

You have all the lyrics down on paper. The next thing you have to do is practice
them. Make sure you can deliver them as smoothly as possible, with good
intonation and good pronunciation.
Practice makes perfect, there is no fast and easy way around it. Sometimes, I’m
rehearsing my lyrics all day, before I go in the booth, just so I know that I won't
make any mistakes while rapping them.

7. Commit to memory or read from the paper

You have to decide whether you’re going to rap from your memory or you’re going
to rap, while reading from a piece of paper. If you choose the first method, make
sure that you know your lyrics in your sleep.

Jay-Z once said that he usually repeats his lyrics 18 times. This is the number of
times, which the brain requires to commit something to it’s long term memory.
Make sure you look into that.

If you’re going to read from paper, make sure you’ve written your lyrics clearly
and with no mistakes. Make sure you can read everything. The light has to be good.
Use something hard to put your paper on. Otherwise, it might be twisting, not the
thing you want happening while you’re in the middle of your song.

8. Deliver your lyrics

Once you start rapping, there is no thinking going on. You’re completely one with
the beat, completely one with the flow. Think of your voice as one of the
instruments on the track. Your words don’t mean anything while you record. They
are just sounds.

Make sure that your delivery matches the emotion of the beat. Don’t rap on an
aggressive beat with a voice, which suggests that you just woke up. It ruins the
whole song and the effect of it will be greatly diminished.

9. Mastering your Vocals

If you’re going to do this in a proper studio, you can disregard this. The engineers
will do the mastering of the track for you. It’s a good thing however, to always
have some basic general knowledge about the subject, just so you can put your own
input in.

Also, when one of them asks you how do you want to sound, you can tell him
something other than: Make me sound like Kanye West!

If you’re recording in a home studio, the knowledge of mastering vocals is

essential. Without the proper mastering, your song will sound amateur and won’t
hit the VH1 chart the way you expected.
Do some research, check out some youtube videos, experiment. You have to know
about the frequency, equalisation, reverb, delay and all the other great wonders of
Audio Editing Software.

Bonus

THE RAPPER
BUILDER
Savvy methods of gaining traction as a rapper
 Table of Contents:
Hack 1: Include the tribe

Hack 2: Start from where you are

Hack 3: Get a team

Hack 4: Break the mold

Hack 5: Tell them your story

Hack 6: Show them all

Hack 7: Pick the fan and set traps

Hack 8: Structure, structure, structure

Hack 9: Fish for mentions

Hack 10: Individualized fan experiences

Hack 11: Competitions

Hack 12: Involve people in the creative process

Hack 13: Paid advertising

Hack 14: Teasers

Hack 15: Blast it out

Hack 16: Be the community

Hack 17: Grit

Hack 18: Objectives and rewards

Hack 19: $300 Burger

Hack 20: Give back

 Hack 1: Include the Tribe

This hack is something you can use right off the bat, when you don’t have anybody
listening to your music, zero views, nothing. What you do is you rap about your
friends and your close circle of associates, maybe your classmates, or your basketball
buddies. You don’t have to dedicate a whole song to them, but just including their
names in your lyrics does wonders.

This adds new appeal to your song. Before, they wouldn’t care that much about what
you have to say, but once someone tells them (or you), that you wrote something about
them in your song, they’ll be at least more inclined to give it a listen.

They’ll be curious as to what did you say, how would that affect their social standing
with the rest, does it make them cool, should you get killed etc. It just adds interest
towards what you have to say, because it involves them.

What’s also important is how do you involve them? Does the reference make them
seem cool, or do you make fun of them? Well, I think that you can play around with
the content, but it would totally depend on your relationship with the people you’re
writing about. If you’re super cool and what you do is hang out and joke with each
other 90% of the time, just do that in a song.

Make it interesting. Think of wild stories, with your friends as the characters. Start
silly rumors, like your friend Joshua secretly loves pink elephants and the wallpaper in
his room is that. It has to be interesting, but even if it isn’t, you’d still get a few more
views and leave that dreaded 0 views behind.

Hack 2: Start from where you are

The next thing that will get you some more views is of course collaborations. What a
lot of people try to do is hook up with some hotshot right off the bat, but that’s so hard
and takes too much time and most often, it just doesn’t happen.

What might be a better approach is the hook up with rappers in your own area. You
have some on your street? Go outside, knock on their door/message them and let them
know what you’re into, vibe for a bit and offer that you make a song. You probably
know each other, so why would he say no? Also, he’s no Post Malone, wielding 140
mil songs, so there’s everything to gain on his side too.

That song you’ll make, will be featured on his small channel too, you know.. He might
not have thousands of subs (maybe he does), but he has a tribe. He has a group of
people that take notice of what happens in his life and your collaboration song is an
event. They might not know you, but they’ll check you out. If they like what you have
to offer, you get some more people added to the family.
Don’t stop there though. You made one song with him, well ask him do some of his
friends rap? Oh Chris raps? Can you introduce me to him, we can hang out, talk about
rap and stuff, I want to see how good he is. You hang out with Chris and if your vibes
click, you make a song with him man.

Rinse and repeat. Ask him too, he might tell you two dudes, follow through. I didn’t
say that it would be fast, but that’s how you build the base of listeners, that are
inclined to hit that play button on your new song.

This hack is effective, because it’s realistic and simple. You can try it right now.

Hack 3: Get a Team

I know what you might be thinking- “I’m too unknown for a team, I can do it all by
myself, plus I don’t have the money to pay others.” I understand all of this, but the
benefits of organizing a support unit around you are so much.

For starters, you won’t have any opportunities to slack off-you have to produce and
grind, because there are people depending on your work now. Having a team, also
means that tasks can be delegated and better managed. So, one person can be
managing the social networks, while someone else is working on your PR.

How would you pay them? Just give percentages man, percentages of future earnings.
This means, that for every product you sell, every show you’re booked for, your team
get a cut, just like co-owners get equity in a business. Don’t be cheap and selfish, this
will not only help you grow faster, but you’ll get to focus on doing what you’re good
at and leave all the crap, that’s coming with being a rapper, for your team to handle.

Giving a cut hurts, but you bake a bigger pie faster with a team, remember that.
There’ll be more for everybody, so find your team. Friends, associates interested in
music. Let them know about your plans, give them your catalogue, offer the deal to the
right people and wait to hear what they have to say. Even if they don’t want to do it,
you can ask why and get honest feedback, why someone doesn’t want to bet his/her
future on you. Maybe you’re just not good enough, maybe you’re not serious, or
maybe they say yes.

You don’t need a lot of people-a beat maker, a video maker, and a guy who does
public relations and social media. That’s it.

In the beginning, nobody will be making money, the whole operation would be
running on your team’s savings, but that’s okay. That’s motivation to break even and
turn it all green as fast as you can. Get a team man, get a team.

Hack 4: Break the Mold

Do you know why Kim K is so popular? It’s because she has the skill, which might be
regarded as the most valuable in this day and age-she attracts and keeps attention.

We live in an attention-deficient economy. There’s a new product released every day,

a new song will be out tomorrow, your favorite rapper has a deadline shorter than ever.
Just because of the huge supply, people realize that it’s simply impossible for them to
pay attention to everything that’s coming out. So, whoever gets their full attention,
even for a few minutes, will be someone who can cash in.

Creating great songs is not the only criterion, determining your success my friend, it’s
how weird you are, how interesting you are, what you represent and can you hold
someone’s attention on you or your product for a period of time. That’s what we’re all
fighting for. Going back to Kim K, she’s a master of getting and keeping attention,
with her shows, her sex tapes, her interviews, it’s all about attention. How do you get
their attention?

Say what you’re scared to say. Do what you’re insecure to do. Be who you can’t
be. Be awkward. We’re all kids that are grown up, but kids nonetheless. Before
growing up, we had no idea what was accepted and what was not in a society-we were
beasts. If we found someone’s T-shirt on the subway awesome, we let him know “Hey
Mr., that’s an awesome T-Shirt”. When was the last time you did that man? Why
haven’t you done it? It’s not accepted, is it? It’s not what others are doing, so in order
to fit in, you learnt the ways of the society around you.

Now in order to be popular and hold attention, you have to unlearn the ways of your
society. The best way to do it is to attack the insecurities engraved in you through the
years, attack the fears and do it all through music and video. You’re insecure about
your looks? Shoot a video, walking around half naked and rapping. You care what
people think about you too much? Be obnoxious and mean it.

When you capture yourself doing that, something weird happens. People that battle
those insecurities, those fears, look at you and they wish they could be as brave as you.
They wish they had the strength to pull it off and through you, they live viscerally and
who knows, they might confront a fear or two in time, because of you.

However, the attention keeping moment comes from the process, from the suspense
coming at them through your actions. They thought about doing that, but got scared of
the consequences, now they can see them.

Hack 5: Tell them your story

Have you ever had a fish? Did you name it? Imagine if you were to name it, give it a
birth certificate, decide what it likes, what it dislikes, find out it’s past and imagine its
desires-a bigger aquarium, a pond?

What if you don’t do any of that? It’s a damn fish, just like any other fish. It swims
with a dumb look on its face and poops from time to time.

The process I just mentioned above is called “carving a personality” and it’s what
makes something unique. There are all sorts of birds out there, flying around.
However, if you can pick one and give it a personality, then intuitively-you are
differentiating it from all the other birds.

Just like people. Why do you look at your friends as unique human beings with their
own quirks, dreams and fears and the other passengers on the subway as empty
soulless bags of blood, that are just taking space? It’s because you don’t take into an
account their personality.

It’s the same thing with music. There are thousands of rappers and singers, all
sounding good. What separates one from another, is a unique story, a unique set of
beliefs, dreams, fears, insecurities etc. That’s who you are and in order to get ahead,
you have to let people know about your story, so they have something to remember
you by.

50 Cent was so big, not only because of the good records, but because he shared his
story and it was an incredible story. Why Elon Musk is such a superstar founder? It’s
because multiple documentaries have shown us his story and we regard him as a
person now, not a robot CEO.

It’s very important for you to share your story with the world. There are many reasons
for that.

First, you give them something more that they can remember you by.

Second, you shed light on the qualities, events and experiences that make you a person
and by watching, others are bound to relate to what you’ve been through.

Give them your story man, you’ll see the type of difference that makes. The audience
would then know the source of your art, they’d know the substance behind your music,
the person behind the rap name. It adds a silhouette under your image, a silhouette that
keeps people following your moves.

The bottom line is: Open up!

Hack 6: Show them all

In order to get a faster growth in views for your song, have you ever thought about
carving out a video concept, in which you feature as many people as you can? For
example, find people down the street; record them saying a bar from your lyrics. Then
ask for their email or social media, so when the video gets released, you can send it to
them? It’s very likely that they’ll share it out with their friends, because the fact that
they were in it, makes them cool/proud.

That’s the simplest concept. You can think of something else, like getting people to do
something on video, have a segment just before the instrumental start, where you ask
those people questions?

Another thing is to blast the music video shooting on social media and have a group
shot, just like any other rapper-just one grand shot where it’s 50 people and you. These
people will share your song out, you know that right?

You can even push this further, by getting 3x50 people. Three scenes, three different
sets of 50 people, you get 150 people that are very likely to share your song out right
from the release.

Combine all of those hacks in a video and I guarantee that you’ll see some more
views.

Hack 7: Pick the Fan and Set Traps

Another way you could get discovered more by fans is through Google search. You
first have to look at your music with a neutral eye and try to determine what types of
people would be most inclined to enjoy it.

The way to do it, is by digging deep-what sort of an emotional void does your music
fill? Music is a sonically represented emotional state, so think of the type of people,
that are most likely to feel this emotional state, or would like to feel it.

The reason why someone is listening to your music, is either because he feels that
way, or he would like to feel that way. Once you get a grip on who is the perfect fan,
think about the places he hangs out and does he search. Think about his search habits.
Once you know his search habits, you can go ahead and create content that she would
search. That’s the trap. They come in, your song is there to see. The song corresponds
to their values and feeling tone, they become interested in your other stuff.

You don’t have to be the one producing everything. You have a social media guy
right? Well, he can chip in and write an article on what they’re searching for. You can
pay 5 bucks on “Fiverr” and get an article.

Another great way is to give your opinion on current events in video format, almost
like a self-made interview. This way, not only will you give your point of view, so
people who think like you will like you, but you’ll piggy back ride on the search trends
for the time being. So, if a lot of people are searching for “Mike Tyson”, if you have
something to say about what he represents, you do it and then title your video
accordingly. With Mike, you could talk about “The benefits and drawbacks of
aggression”, “Is fame fucking you up”, “How not to splurge everything like Mike” etc.
The point is to get some more search hits and let more people find you.

Maybe a meme, maybe a funny video-whatever they’re looking for, set doors for them
to come in. Once they’re in, they’ll see you naked on the couch, with your song
playing in the background. That’s what’s up!

Hack 8: Structure, Structure, and Structure

Go on YouTube and search for the songs that have the biggest number of views. What
do they all have in common? It’s an almost identical song structure.

1.Intro
2.Pre Chorus
3.Chorus
4.After Chorus
5.8 Bar Verse
6.Pre Chorus-Chorus
7.After Chorus
8.8 Bar Verse
9.Chorus
10.After-Chorus
11.Bridge
12.Pre-Chorus
13.Chorus
14.After-Chorus

That’s the structure of 90% of the pop songs out there, you just can’t deny it. Go
ahead, don’t take my word for it, browse through and hear for yourselves. Of course,
some might have slight variations, but all-in-all, it’s all about that structure.

Why is structure important? First of all, because people like to sing along and knowing
what comes next, gives them a chance to catch up. The repetition of elements allows
them to remember the song faster and not only that, but the sole repeating of the
choruses turns them into brain worms and you know how annoying those are.

Face it, if you really want to reach a lot a lot a lot of people, you have to bow your
head and follow this structure. Nobody said that you can’t innovate and play around
with it, but use it as a starting point. Long verses are fine for stories, but Stan and
Dancing with the Devil are our landmarks and if you look at their numbers, you just
can’t compare them with the numbers that structured songs get.

Hack 9: Fish for Mentions

This is a hack that works for rappers, just as it would work for any type of business out
there. The gist is that you leverage someone’s gained popularity in a way that benefits
your brand.

The magic is to get an influencer (that’s what these people are called) to share out your
link, product, video etc. There is another way to do this and it’s called “Celebrity
Endorsements”. I think that you can go and pay some other rappers/hip hop influencers
to share you out, but entry level rappers. Look out for rappers that have around 20-
30% more viewers than you. The fee won’t be expensive, because they probably
haven’t been offered to endorse anything before, but at the same time, you’ll have the
increased exposure. You’ll take their endorsement virginity away, how romantic.

As far as the big stars, then you go free. You don’t have the bucks to get them to
endorse you, so all its left is for you to get them to notice you, give you a chance and
share you out.

That’s very hard, but the chance is worth it. Go on “Fiverr” and order someone to
animate their picture, tweet it out to them (they might re-blog it). Get a fake tattoo of
their name on someone, shoot it, tweet them out with “look what I found”.

The philosophy here is “give, give, give”. They’ll have a tour? Go ahead and research
all the cool places to eat, drink and fuck in each town, then message them that shit. It’s
never about your product, your songs etc. If you spam this out, you’ll be like the other
99% of rappers writing to them.

Let them know you’re cool. Help them, make them cool, or make them laugh. Then,
they might check your profile out, while they’re on the toilet, like a song of yours and
tweet it out.

Hack 10: Individualized Fan Experiences

This is all about making the people that listen to you feel special. It’s about letting
them know that not only do you appreciate all your viewers, but each and every one-
the distinction is important.

How can you achieve that? Have a chat with one of your fans over Facebook or other
messenger. Just chat with one of your viewers once a week/day whatever, make it a
routine. That way, they’ll start considering you not just as a rapper, but a cool guy,
who they’re “friends” with. This gives you a brand evangelist, who will share out
everything you release and be there to defend you in the comments section against
haters.

Another way is to have AMA sessions (ask-me-anything), where you just answer their
comments over video or text. They have to feel heard and cared for. The big tip here is
that your daily routine should include time block, where you talk with your fans one
way or another. That builds brand loyalty and is pretty much priceless. Sending
unexpected gifts to viewers is also awesome, sharing out a thank you note, directed at
the most active member, for everyone to see. All of those things, make people feel
special, unique and most importantly-noticed.

Hack 11: Competitions

The trick is to reward participation, reward the time they spend on you. There is a
myriad of ways you could use this in your own situation.

 The first person to guess from which song these lyrics are wins 1 point.
 I’m from *town* and I love eating burgers! Where do I love eating burgers?
 Tell me the coolest thing you can right now. I’ll pick it and I’ll feature it in my
next song.
 Share my song and if someone shares it from your profile, I’ll record myself
singing outside half naked.
 Music Quizzes

The possibilities are endless. Just be creative with it and remember the main objective-
drive interaction. Interaction means more energy and time invested in you, which
generally leads to higher views, more comments and shares. Competition leads to
feeling proud, competitive, special, better, it’s amusing and interesting. I think you
can’t go wrong if you add competitions to your package as a rapper.

Hack 12: Involve people in the creative process

There is a great marketing law and it states that people support what they help create.
Use this to your advantage, involve them when you’re writing the lyrics. Ask someone
to go ahead and record an ad-lib and just put it somewhere. It won’t fuck up the song
and you’ll make their day. Or you can ask the fans to write the next bar, they’ll go nuts
if you feature their rhyme in your song.

Involve them, when brainstorming ideas-any kind of ideas. Concepts for the new
video, or what to have for lunch, just include them in the decisions you have to make
and you’ll see how their level of involvement increases.
Not only does that method work as a marketing tool, letting people know that there is a
new project being made, but it shows you as a confident and cool person, that doesn’t
take him/herself too seriously-people love that.

Hack 13: Paid Advertising

Nowadays, using Google Ads, YouTube ads, Tumblr, Instagram anything paid, it’s
never been easier and cheaper to let the right people know you exist. If you’re not
familiar with how advertising on these platforms work, just do a Google search and
you’ll have all the info available. Basically, it’s kind of like employing a person, who
goes around town, looking for the type of people you told him to look for. You pay
that person money, only when he succeeds in getting a client to come through the
door.

Back in the day, you pay 100 bucks and you couldn’t tell exactly how much value
would you be getting for that amount. Now, you can. If nobody clicks on your ad, no
money is spent. Plus, you can start with funny amounts, like $5, $10 or $50. It’s a no
brainer if you want to do this music thing for real.

There is a science behind it though-advertising. If you’re not confident in your

advertising ability, get one of your friends to do it, or educate yourself via all the free
content there is on internet advertising out there.

You tell Google/Instagram/Tumblr/Twitter/YouTube what sort of people you’re

looking for and it shows them your ad-if they click, you get the right exposure for a
cheap price.

Hack 14: Teasers

Take notice of the film industry. Before releasing a movie, they go through a big,
carefully structured launch process. A song is not a movie, but we can benefit from
some tools that the movie promoters use, such as teasers.

A teaser is there to let people know a song is coming, building their anticipation. It can
show just the chorus, or an interesting part of the video-something intriguing. A good
way to follow a teaser, is to ask people. “What do you think the song is about?”;
“What is happening in the video for it?” and so on.

Another way to tease them is to record yourself talking about the song. Talk about
what it represents to you, how you got inspired to create it, how did it come about,
how was the process and so on. This too, gets people excited.

You don’t have to do anything too fancy here. Of course, quality always wins, but
even if you’re on a tight budget, just cut the chorus out from the main song and post it
as a teaser, announcing the release date of the full song. When it comes to recording
yourself explaining the concept, you can do that with any smart phone camera
nowadays.

Don’t neglect the power of anticipation and instead just drop songs. You’re no
Beyonce and the chance of people being surprised at you is much lower than the
chance of you being ignored, like a skinny girl with no butt, trying to twerk!

Hack 15: Blast it Out

There is a difference between letting people know you have a song and going on
YouTube like

”Hey guys, I’m a rapper from Golf Town, Massachusetts. I’m 13 and I’ve wanted to
be a rapper my whole life. I have a new song, called “Ride my dick or I shoot ya”,
please like, share and subscribe. Thank you and God bless.”

What?! No! Browse the web and find blogs and bigger platforms that allow you to
submit your song for them to display. If you’re good, every site loves “discovering”
new talent, so there’s no harm there. Let your friends know, post it on Facebook,
maybe on someone’s message board and so on.

A cool way to not be a dick about it, is to join a discussion about something and use
your song as an example for a point you’re making. For example, you’re discussing
rhyme scheme efficiency in a rap forum and you just give that song as an example of
you using more/less dense rhyme schemes.

Be smart about it, weave it in there.

Hack 16: Be the Community

Another smart way to guarantee you some views is to be an active member of an

established social community, based on any platform really-Facebook, Twitter,
Snapchat, Tumblr, Instagram etc.

What you do is you take the long route. Every day, have a quota of participation, so for
example you could make yourself:

-Like 5 posts
-Comment on 10 posts
-Share 3 posts
-Follow/Friend 5 people

The trick is to do that every day. What happens next is people realize that you’re
genuine and cool. You’re being an active participant in the crowd. All that activity will
invariably reflect interest towards what you do and what you have to say, just because
of the law of reciprocity. So, don’t be a selfish asshole-invest some time and energy
every day and do that, it doesn’t cost that much time. At the same time, you’d know
that anytime you press publish on that platform, there will be people who see you as a
person, not a spammer and that would make them want to give you some of their
attention.

Hack 17: Grit

This is basically perseverance. Success is like deciding to go to someplace by train.

You go on the train and it’s empty. At the next stop, an old lady comes in and she sits
right next to you (in an empty train) and starts complaining to you about the place
you’re about to go and why you shouldn’t go there. She asks you to get off the next
stop with her. YOU KEEP RIDING THE TRAIN.

At the next stop, a group of obnoxious assholes come in, surround you and start telling
you why you’re not worth to go to that place. They’re all up in your business, talking
all the nasty things you could ever think of. They grab you and try to forcefully get
you out at the next stop. YOU KEEP RIDING THE TRAIN.

After the assholes, the person doing the announcements on the train says that there’s a
change and the train will not go to your destination, but instead would travel 20 miles
south. You get off at the next stop, look around for some other way to get to your place
and you hop in. If you don’t have money, you find money. If you don’t have a phone
with which to call-you find a phone.

It’s a bus. While you knew the people riding the train, since you’re from that area, you
find the people riding the bus crazy, weird and you feel out of place. You’re starting to
wonder whether you should go to the place you’re after.

Then you arrive and it’s not what you expected, it’s different, but you’re enjoying it
even more.

That’s success guys! That’s the main, fundamental quality trait that separates success
from failure-perseverance! If you stay long enough, you’ll get there. If you dig long
enough, you’ll find water. It’s almost as if you’re building and tweaking, building and
tweaking, until you find what works. Train this trait and you’ll be unstoppable!

Hack 18: Objectives and Rewards

This one is all about putting community benchmarks and giving out rewards when
those benchmarks have been reached. One example could be releasing a song for every
200 likes/subs your page/channel gets.

This incentivizes your current fans to share your songs, talk about you and help you
get more fans, simply because they’d get a new song in return.
This is just one option, you can change the song with a video of you doing something,
or an AMA session, or a photo. Whatever it is, the philosophy is to give something in
return for their efforts in helping you grow. You can even make a benchmark graph-
10 new fans (you post a picture); 50 new fans (you post a video); 100 new fans (you
have an AMA); 200 new fans (you release a new song).

Be creative with it. If your songs are good, people would be hungry for them. This
philosophy is there, to leverage that hunger into more growth.

Hack 19: $300 Burger

If I told you that a place somewhere sells $300 burgers, would your attention get
drawn? The chance of you buying it is not that big, but won’t you tell everybody you
know if you did? Forget buying it, just talking about that burger, makes you sound
interesting, because it’s so ridiculous. Seth Godin had a talk, in which he was
discussing the question of how ideas spread.

The conclusion was that only purple cows are remarkable enough, for us to choose to
pay attention. In this day and age, everyone is creating something all the time, so
you’d have to be different, in order to shine through the mud.

One way to do this is to create a ridiculously priced product and offer it in a very
limited quantity. When I say ridiculous, I mean crazy ridiculous. Think of $100
mixtapes, pushed by Nipsey Hussle. He had a limited amount of copies made and he
sold them all. That wasn’t the benefit though, the benefit was all the publicity he
received for selling that mixtape.

People all over the place were talking about his $100 mixtape and even though they
thought it wasn’t worth it, a lot of them went in to listen to his music. Even though
they didn’t buy his $100 mixtape, they might’ve bought something else, or went to a
show, or clicked on an ad.

Remember: attention=money

Pushing something incredibly pricy gets you attention, which in turn gives you
opportunities to monetize on that.

Make $500 T-Shirts; $150 songs; $90 used napkins etc. Go weird and crazy with it, let
people make fun of that product, you’re the one who’s laughing last.

Hack 20: Give Back

A great way to get new fans is to contact people not as a rapper, but as a human. The
best way to do that is by giving back. A cool way to go about this is to put a donate
button under one of your songs and let people know that the money they donate, will
go to place X. You can either donate all of the inflows, or a portion of it, like 70%.

Be as transparent as possible. Then get all that money and just do something nice for a
community man. Buy some new speakers for a school’s computer room; buy food for
donate it all; help re-decorate a house etc. It doesn’t matter, just give.

The benefits in this is that you’d feel good doing it, the people that donated would feel
good, the people that received the help would feel good, your likability will increase,
more people would talk about what you’ve done and with that, the loyalty and number
of your following will get a boost.

THE END,

That’s it. Twenty hacks that will most definitely boost your views – no questions
asked. Just dedicate some time and build a routine around them for maximum
effect. Hope I helped.

If you have questions on what you just read, you can find me on the website – just use
the contact form and I’ll get back to you.

Final Words
Thank you for reading the Rapping Manual.

I hope you found it helpful. If so, it would be a super cool move if you
decide to leave us your thoughts on it on our sales page. Those help us
quite a bit!

I wish you success! Don’t give up, make it happen!