One of the great American art forms, rap music has palpable power and influence in our culture. Since its conception in early 1970s New York City, when DJs would loop sections of disco, funk, and R&B records and chant rhyming phrases over them to keep the party going, rap has continued to evolve. It’s a delicious combination of poetry and popular music, a realm of self-expression with so much possibility.
If you want in on the action, we’ve got some tools ready for you. Grab a mic and feel the beat: Here’s how to rap.
JUMP TO
Perhaps this is self-evident, but it’s still worth repeating: If you’re interested in rapping, you should listen to rappers rap. Throughout history, artists have been influenced by other artists of the same medium, and rap is no different.
Plug into the key architects of the form, such as Run-DMC, Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash, and the Sugarhill Gang. Examine rap’s 1990s explosion with well-known names like Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott, and Eminem. Dig into 21st century pioneers like Lil Wayne, Lil B, Kanye West, Tierra Whack, and Kendrick Lamar.
Go down rabbit holes of subgenres: Get socially conscious with Noname. Try the absurdist crate-digging of MF Doom. Sing out your emo-tinged feelings with 2010s Drake. Vibe with the reggaeton of Bad Bunny. Enjoy the cleanly articulated trap of Pusha T. Get crunchy with the mumbly trap of Migos. Get scary with experimental horrorcore outfits like Clipping. These are just the tip of the subgenre iceberg.
Find barely listened-to artists on YouTube or SoundCloud, then listen to the top 40 offerings on Spotify or your local radio station.
Compare and contrast. Note what you love; note what you hate. And steal from everybody.
When talking about rap, there are various key terms you should come to know like the back of your hand. Here are some of the essentials:
Beat
This is the instrumental music one raps to. In hip-hop, beats are typically in a 4/4 time signature, which means there are four beats per measure made of one quarter-note each. But don’t over-intellectualize it—if you’re nodding your head to the beat, you’re feeling the beat.
Rhyme
At its core, a rhyme occurs when two or more words that have similar sounds, especially at their ending syllables, are placed in relationship to each other. “Bat” and “cat” rhyme because they both end with an “at” sound.
Rhymes typically occur at the end of a rapped line (called an end rhyme), but you can also put words that rhyme with each other within a line (called an interior rhyme). For example, take a look at these two lines from Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”:
- He’s nervous, but on the surface, he looks calm and ready
- To drop bombs, but he keeps on forgetting
“Ready” and “forgetting” are at the ends of these lines, and they rhyme—but the first line includes an interior rhyme: “nervous” and “surface.”
We can also differentiate between perfect and imperfect, or slant rhymes. Perfect rhymes, like “bat” and “cat,” literally use the same sound (“at”) to pull off the rhyme. But imperfect/slant rhymes—for example, “ready” and “forgetting”—sound close enough to our ear that they seem like they rhyme.
Line
A line is one segmented thought in a rap song. Rap verses are made by placing a series of lines next to each other in sequence. If you’ve heard someone refer to a “16” in a rap context, they’re talking about rapping 16 lines of music in a row.
Thus, the rhyme scheme is defined by how lines rhyme with each other. For example, the first four lines of the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy” are:
- It was all a dream, I used to read Word Up! magazine
- Salt-N-Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine
- Hangin’ pictures on my wall
- Every Saturday, Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl
The rhyme scheme of these four lines is AABB—the ends of the first two lines rhyme with each other (“magazine” and “limousine”), and the ends of the last two lines rhyme with each other (“wall” and “Marl”). Those rhymes are often represented in this form via letters like A and B all the way down to Z, if needed.
Bar
A bar can mean different things to different rappers. For some, a “bar” is interchangeable with a “line,” which is interchangeable with “one measure of music.” For others, a “bar” specifically refers to two lines that rhyme—that is, a rhyming couplet of two lines equals one bar.
In its plural form, “bars” can mean either the literal survey of one’s rhymes (“what are some of your bars?”) or a more colloquial survey of one’s overall rapping skills (“you got bars?”).
Wordplay
There are lots of elements to the overall definition of wordplay, which you could conceptualize as “having fun with words in appealing and intriguing ways.” Rhymes are, in fact, a form of wordplay.
Others include metaphors or similes, where you directly compare one concept to another; puns, where humor is found by taking advantage of different words that sound similar; malapropisms, where common idioms are tweaked to demonstrate a new, usually comical meaning; and many more.
Song structure
When structuring songs, no matter the genre, there are many words you should get used to.
- A verse is an exploratory section of music that dives into one, or many, central ideas.
- The chorus or hook is the statement of the song’s central idea, usually in as memorable or catchy a way as possible.
- And while it’s not as common in rap music, the bridge presents the central idea from a different perspective.
Flow
The “flow” is potentially nebulous to reckon with but integral to a rapper’s success. Broadly speaking, we can refer to a flow as the way someone raps (in contrast to lyrics, which are the things someone raps).
Post Malone’s flow is marked by catchy, sung melodies. Tech N9ne’s flow is gruff, sharp, and incredibly quick. Nicki Minaj’s flow is highly articulated, character-driven, and even silly.
One’s flow can be defined by many musical ideas, and part of the joy of rapping comes from finding your own personal flow.
In rap, “freestyle” tends to have two definitions, both of which are important. One conception of a freestyle, which you’ll see delivered by music artists on radio programs like “Sway in the Morning” or “Big Boy’s Neighborhood,” is an unplaced but pre-written chunk of rap delivered over a beat the rapper hasn’t heard before.
The other conception, which is more immediately applicable to the developing MC, is to literally improvise rhymes on the spot. This type of freestyling is so important because it teaches the rapper to be versatile, flexible, and able to rap about any dang thing they need to at a moment’s notice. It’s also useful as an inspiration for writing, as the freestyle can help bypass the conscious mind or writer’s block.
Do this a lot. Discover freestyling tactics and exercises from teachers and creators like Harry Mack. Look up royalty-free beats on YouTube and rap to them about anything and everything. Use random word generators to force yourself into a punchline or conceptual corridor. See how far you can take yourself.
Time to put the pen to paper—or fingers to phone, or keyboard to Google Doc.
When writing rap lyrics intentionally, it can be helpful to think of two buckets to fill: “the broader concept” and “the fun with language.”
Your broad concept—that is, “what are your songs about?”—will be easier to find if it feels more personal and emotion-driven to you. Any and all topics are welcome, whether shaking ass at the party or detailing your inner conflicts, but the listener will tell if you’re searching for something outside of your own experience or passion. Give us who you are.
As for having fun with language, well, that’s rap in a nutshell, isn’t it? Use the luxury of writing to experiment with rhyme schemes, wordplay, flow styles, and more. Intrigue the listener by intriguing yourself.
Whether listening, freestyling, writing, or rapping privately out loud, practicing is so important. Do all of these on the daily. If you can’t write a full song, write four bars. If you can’t freestyle out loud, listen to a hit rap song and freestyle in your head what you would add to your own verse. Practicing is better than not practicing, no matter the percentage.
But when you perform in front of an audience, you will instantly learn and level up in a way that practicing on your own is impossible to achieve. An audience will tell you everything you need to know about any song, bar, flow, or idea. If you have stage fright, use the power of your rhymes to push through. Pretend to be one of your favorite rappers. Grab some friends to perform with you; rap is one of the great collaborative art forms for a reason. Get in front of people and show them who you are, and they will show you who to be next.
Then, run it all back, again and again. Rap is hard, but if you love it, it is worth it.
