I. Intro II. Musical Structure III. Syllables & Iambic Pentameter IV. Advanced Rhyming & Stressed Syllable Control V. Styled Delivery VI. Wrap-Up & Your Finished Songs
INTRO I began making rap all the way back in 2011 initially as a joke poking fun at anti-intellectual rappers like Chief Keef and Gucci Mane. In that process, I found that I actually enjoyed rapping and ended up making hundreds of songs in a wide variety of styles (one of my more serious songs: Chemical Dopamine). This guide isn't meant to make you a star, it's just meant to give the basics of flowing and moving on a beat.
MUSICAL STRUCTURE For the rest of the guide, I'd like for us to use a simple beat available online: our beat. The first thing I want you to do is count the notes from the guitar string sampled. Now, if you're doing it properly it should be, 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4. This is because most western music uses a 4 time signature. Each one of those 1,2,3,4 sets represents one bar in rap.
Now I want you to move ahead to the point with the drums. Now count again and tell me where you hear the clap. Yes, it's on three. The clap represents the snare in this track. The snare is always a sharper sound that functions like a metronome. It frequently stands in as a sign that says "put rhyme here!" (Here is an example of a song I made heavily punctuated by snare: Seed Seed is a Bitch).
Now, let us look at annotating rhyme patterns. Every time the snare hits, the represents the end of a line. We can use letters to denote rhyming words (same letters = rhyme). For simple patterns, we can leave out the other non-snare rhymes by using a 0 to denote no pattern. Let me give you a typical 8 bar section and then explain the annotation:
We coming for you Seed Seed, You best duck out, Me and Babcock in the bushes, And we staking out your house, We won't ever fucking leave, You will die for this shit, Start some fucking Facebook beef, And you'll end up getting hit,
Our first line ends with "seed" which we'll use A for. The second line ends in "out" which will be B. If you continue the pattern you end up with a rhyme scheme like this:
000A,000B, 000C,000B, 000A,000D, 000A,000D,
That is perhaps the most popular rhyme scheme in all of rap music. Some of the lines fit better together as a whole line with the halfway mark landing on a snare. In that case, the rhyme scheme of the odd bars doesn't much matter. I like to make them rhyme, but it's not necessary. Sometimes you might see:
000A, 000A, 000A, 000A, 000A, 000A, 000A, 000A,
That's not very common and it's typically used by people who don't much listen to rap. You can switch around the rhyme scheme however you want. You can also rhyme earlier in the line. This is when you moving into very well-flowing sounds. I challenge you to write your own 8 bars for the beat we're using.
SYLLABLES & IAMBIC PENTAMETER Maybe you remember in high school, studying syllables and a thing called iambic pentameter. Many classical poems used a very specific number of syllables per line and used iambic pentameter to make those syllables flow and work. This same principal applies equally to rap. Let's start with syllables.
If you have a great control on flow, you can switch these up in your songs but starting out you're going to want to stick to lines with equal syllables. Right now, I'll write 4 lines that I know will flow together simply due to their appropriate amount of syllables:
I/ had/ had/ a/ diff/ rent/ vi/ sion - 8 But/ it's/ all/ been/ lost/ to time - 7 My/ old/ patr/ i/ arch/ and/ ban/ dit - 8 Don't/ you/ ev/ er/ let/ me/ die - 7
and
I/ had/ had/ a/ diff/ rent/ vi/ sion - 8 But/ that/ vi/ sion/ is/ now/ fa/ ded - 8 You're/ a/ diff/ rent/ kind/ of/ bitch/ and - 8 I/ won't/ let/ you/ call/ me/ rac/ ist - 8
Try rapping both on top of our sample beat. What did you notice? The first had a see-sawing back-and-forth sound, no? While the second is a solid continuous flow. That's because the syllables in those tracks create different iambic pentameters. Iambic pentameter is the up-down pronunciation of words that we unconsciously do in English. It's typically a simple 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 sound. We'll use the previous examples and clearly mark the up tones.
I/ had/ HAD/ a/ DIFF/ rent/ VI/ sion BUT/ it's/ ALL/ been/ LOST/ to/ TIME MY/ old/ PA/ tri/ ARCH/ and/ BAN/ dit DON'T/ you/ EV/ er/ LET/ me/ DIE
I/ had/ HAD/ a/ DIFF/ rent/ VI/ sion, BUT/ that/ VI/ sion/ IS/ now/ FA/ ded, YOU'RE/ a/ DIFF/ rent/ KIND/ of/ BITCH/ and, I/ won't/ LET/ you/ CALL/ me/ RAC/ ist
Many words can easily be used as an up or a down, there are some words that just sound wrong when you try to force it though: Anal. Anal is always A/ nal. The beginning is always an up and the ending a down. Watch two different lines:
yeah/ SHE/ would/ GIVE/ me/ A/ nal/ with/ POOP/ all/ IN/ the/ WAVE/ pool
If you pronounce it yourself, that sounds absolutely correct to their typical pronunciations but now try pronouncing this:
I/ STILL/ think/ THAT/ it/ IS/ way/ COOL, how/ SHE/ sent/ ME/ with/ HER/ a/ NAL,
To maintain the structure and rhyme properly there, you had to pronounce "anal" in a very weird way with the emphasis on the -nal. There are many words like this, you'll just have to discover them on your own. Some words can be forced like DIFF/rent or diff/ER/rent. Now, it you're writing a song along with this guide, go back and ensure that your lines are in iambic pentameter.
ADVANCED RHYMING & STRESSED SYLLABLE CONTROL Now that we understand all of the basics we can move into advanced rhyming. If you'll think back to the beginning, our rhyme schemes used a 000X pattern because we were only rhyming on the snares. Now, we're going to denote every single syllable. We will mark all non-stressed syllables as lower case as their rhymes are unimportant to the scheme. Let's look at an example:
I/ en/ VI/ sion/ MY/ de/ CI/ sion, LIKE/ i'm/ LI/ ving/ IN/ a/ MIS/ sion, FROM/ a/ VID/ e/ O/ game/ CHRIST/ ian, I'M/ not/ SIT/ ting/ AND/ not/ SPIN/ in',
Annotated:
AbCcAdCc, AaCcCdCc, DdCeFgCc, AhCcIhCc,
Now what might immediately stand out to you there is that every single 2 or 4 has a Cc apart from 6 which has a Ce. Even though the unstressed syllables are unimportant, that Cc pattern makes it flow much better. As mentioned before, the simplest will have a single syllable rhyme like:
Bitch, I was feeling sad, But now I'm just so glad,
aBcDeF, gHbIjF,
On the opposite end of the spectrum you have the lyrical wordsmith rappers who sacrifice meaning for flow:
Little shit will miss you, if you, Pick through this crew with due issues,
AbAbAbAb, AbAbAbAb,
The options can open up even more when explore ways to control the stressed and unstressed syllables. Two super common ways to do this are to stretch syllables or to insert small pauses. For a stretched syllable, it looks like this:
I/ was/ MIS/ ta/ A/ ken, THE/ time/ YOU/ are/ WAST/ ing,
The other common way is the pause. Here is an example of that:
THIS/ shit/ WILL/ stick/ .../ ri/ DI/ cu/ LOUS, SHIFT/ in'/ PRI/ son/ SIT/ ting/ PIDG/ eon/ COWS,
AaAa.aAbB, AaAaAaAaB,
STYLED DELIVERY If you've not heard of the rapper Eyedea, you're about in for being impressed. To better understand styled delivery, I want you to listen to small section of the Eyedea song "[url=t=97]Junk[/url]". While a long string of rhyming words may sound impressive, most would struggle to say that Eyedea bit wasn't impressive. What's important to understand is that while it did feature some inner bar rhyming, it's mostly just his delivery that makes it sound so interesting.
EV/ ry/ ONE's/ tug/ GING/ and/ PUL/ ling/ IN/ DIFF/ rent/ DI/ rect/ TIONS/ LIKE/ i/ DON'T/ see/ AN/ y/ THING/ AN/ y/ MORE/ bur/ RY/ ME/ some/ WHERE/ with/ LESS/ per/ FECT/ light/ ING/ PLEASE
AbCcDeFdDDgDhD, IiKbHbDHbLmBBcNdHdDB,
While the section is full of different rhymes, counting all the way up to N, his delivery is so flawless that is sounds perfectly put together. This comes from the occasional double-stressed that he uses DD, BB, DB as well the ability to stress irregularly separated rhymes to make them sound fitted to each other. The final thing I want to look at before the wrap-up is stylized separation. This is just controlling your release to create an impression or change the pace of a song. You will frequently see this at the start of songs like this:
0000000A, 00000000000000A, 00000000000000A, 0000000A,
Those blank bars while pausing can make the track sound so much better.
WRAP-UP & YOUR FINISHED SONGS So, now that you have a full understanding of the primary components, let's move into writing. On this track that we're using, the tradition 8/7 syllable bars work well. If you want to start super simple, use the 000A, 000A, 000A, 000A rhyme scheme. It will look like this on this track:
Let's go back when I was backwards, Thought my life, it didn't matter, In the present, not the after, Such a worthless lost disaster
If you want to go (what I believe to be easier) you can use the 000X, 000A, 000X, 000A rhyme scheme which looks like this:
Back when I was ancient and I thought I was different, I was so confused about the lives people were living
Now let's try a more advanced rhyme scheme. For this, because the odds of being perfectly identical are tough, I want you to try to rhyme ALL the odd bars together. In this annotation, all of the capital letters are the odd bars: A0A0A0A0, A0A0A0A0, A0A0A0A0, A0A0A0A0. Here's my example of that:
Hateful angry maids and maidens, Make us break the place we're made in, Maybe late to face the playing, Stay insane and change the station,
My annotation is like this: AbAcAdAe, AfAfAgAe, AhAiAfAe, AeAgAfAe
I really think that sums up about everything. I hope this guide helps and I look forward to hearing or reading some of the songs you make.
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