5 Genius Tips for Writing Rap Lyrics
So you have a beat, but what about your lyrics? If you’re having trouble coming up with the writing, then click here for 5 genius tips on writing rap lyrics.
What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘rap’?
Would you consider it poetry?
The answer could go either way as many strong similarities would lead some to say yes and some to say no.
To state the obvious about the two, many things can share certain traits and not be the same sort of thing, so answering whether rap is poetry or not can help you with writing rap lyrics.
A poet needs to be able to incorporate rhythm and flow into it to make it sound appealing. Rap is the same way.
Both poets and rappers will try to give their work visual elements by using figurative language (like metaphors). However, the challenge with rap is making the verse appeal to the ear while broadcasting the entire message quickly, while also keeping rhythm.
And if you’re finding it difficult to write rap lyrics, here are 5 genius tips for you to use to possibly help you become the next Kanye or Nas.
5 Tips for Writing Rap Lyrics
You might have the best beat in the world, but if your lyrics are the least bit impressive, people won’t want to listen to it. All flow and no content won’t put you anywhere near the best rappers out there.
Side note, if you’re a rapper who needs some sick rap beats to practice writing your lyrics to, you definitely need to check out these 7 greatest hip hop beats of all-time.
Take a look at these 5 tips to help you to write great lyrics:
1) Capture Every Thought
In other words, brainstorm. Choose a topic that you want to rap about and let your imagination loose. Make sure to have a pen and paper ready to write down every thought, idea, and emotion that comes to mind.
Don’t expect your next song to drop on your mind the moment you begin brainstorming. It might take a few minutes but it could also take a few days or weeks. Stick with it and make sure to write down everything.
It’s important to go back and circle words or emotions that really stand out above the rest. You should start seeing a trend in the vocabulary you use and this will give you a good place to start.
2) Find the Angle
Many successful rappers start at the chorus first. It’s good to start with this because the chorus is usually what people will only remember from the rap. In other words, you have to give importance to the hook of your song.
We refer to this as the ‘hook’ or the ‘angle’. The hook sets the tone for the entire theme of the rap. This should naturally spread the message over to the rest of the rap making it easier to write verses.
Having a strong hook has the potential to make the rest of the rap look good (even if it isn’t) so spend a little extra time on finding your angle.
3) Make it Personal
People love personal stories. It doesn’t have to be all good or encouraging either.
There’s a good chance that no matter what you write about when writing rap lyrics someone else has gone through the same thing.
Make sure you don’t lie in your raps about who you are. It’s safe to exaggerate to get your point across but people will eventually catch on if all you’re rapping about are lies.
It’s always good to keep your audience in mind when writing rap lyrics. This will help you with the direction you need to go to get the best response possible from those listening to you.
4) Putting it All Together
If you want to organize a rap the right way, always give importance to proper organization of ideas. Remember that if your song is going to tell a story, it needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
But it doesn’t have to be that plain and simple. You can mix and match different song components differently and that’s perfectly accepted. You don’t have to follow what others are doing if you don’t feel like it.
However, the most common way to organize your rap is Intro, Pre-Hook, Hook, 16 bars Verse, Bridge, and Outro. Again, this is just a tried-and-true template to use when writing rap lyrics.
5) Practice Makes Perfect
Practice, practice, and then practice some more.
The more you rehearse your lyrics, the better you’ll be able to recite your words from memory. This will allow you to keep the flow and rhythm of it without skipping a beat. It’ll decrease your chance of messing up when you’re performing in front of others too.
Read and reread your piece until you are more than confident with it. And if you’ve gone over it a 100 times and you aren’t happy with it, you can do one of two things:
- You can go back and change up a few things getting a different tempo or beat to see what sounds better with your rap style, or swap out some words.
- You can also share it with close friends and ask for honest feedback, which Sometimes you can be your hardest critic so it’s good for you to get someone else to share what they think.
One Final Word
So, there you go, 5 tips to help you with writing rap lyrics. The info mentioned above can help you a lot when it comes to getting new ideas, structuring rap lyrics, and executing the rough draft of your rap in hopes of making it a finished product.
You need to remember that a good rap has the right ingredients for proper flow, rhythm, and appeal. One of the main challenges maybe rappers/writers have when writing rap lyrics is making sure that the piece not only appeals to the ears of the listener but it’s effective in getting across its message.
Last, don’t be discouraged if you have a difficult time with all of this. A rap doesn’t come together overnight. It takes a lot of work and a lot of patience but the end result could be worth it.
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4 Comments
Tanya
These are useful tips man, I love it.
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Jared Kinney
Thank u
Paradox03
So usefull