How to Rap

Transcript Peace and love. My name is Chris Kazi Rolle, but everybody calls me Kazi. I’m an entertainer, an educator, and an entrepreneur. I’ve been working in the music business for over 15 years. I’ve worked with everybody from Jay-Z to Russell Simmons, teaching young people how to get into the music business, teaching them …

Transcript The reason you should join a performing rights organization is you want to get paid. You want to make money in the music business, you must join a performing rights organization. Because, when a record or music plays on television, in a club or on the radio, there’s no way to track who and …

Transcript Alright. Making it in the music industry is not always the easiest in the world to do. So, one thing you might want to do is study the stories of people that have actually done it and you will discover maybe some creative ways that you can apply in your own career. One really …

Transcript One way of finding a booking agent in the music business is a thing called Google. By searching out booking agents is one way of finding what you are looking for and writing to them. When you write to them, you have to illustrate, in the numbers or in the links in your email, …

Transcript The keys to success in the music business. First, start off by knowing that it’s a business. When you get into this thing called music business, you know it’s about making money. So, you have to be able to understand that it’s about selling, and not just about giving. You should give, but with …

Transcript The quickest way for a rapper to build a following is to connect with the people in the social circle. So that may be your cousins, your homeboys from the block or homegirls from the block, people you went to school with, people that you just know from the community. Just invite them out …

Transcript Depending on where you live in the world, there are a lot of rappers or there are a small amount of rappers. So where there are a small amount of rappers, it’s easier to build a buzz. But where there’s a lot of people, you have to come above the rest and really be …

Transcript If you want to get signed in today’s music business, the first thing you have to remember is that a record label is really a bank. And that bank is going to invest in you because they see potential. And so, to make sure that they’re going to get a return on their investment, …

Transcript So, a demo is a demonstration of what it is that you can do as an artist. In the past, a demo, or a demo tape, was given to an A&R at a record label so that that A&R, whose role was specifically to find out and recruit talent and develop talent, that A&R …

Transcript The way you make money in the music business today is, one, you have to sell music. You have to sell music. Now, so many of us don’t buy music. We borrow music. We get music sent to us or we can download from somebody’s iTunes. So, the way you make money nowadays is …

Transcript Getting in today’s music business is a little bit different than it has traditionally been for rappers. Before, the goal was to find an A&R at his record label and give them a demo tape. We don’t have tape anymore, or a demo CD. But, today, now the need to be seen by an …

Transcript Tupac is one of my favorite rappers of all time. Tupac is definitely a musician, so his style is very much about melody. He’s definitely from the world of black nationalism, black consciousness, meaning that he is the son of civil rights activists, former Black Panthers. So, he has a particular perspective. But, also, …

Transcript Jay-Z is the ultimate New York rapper. He speaks specifically for aspirational people. He speaks to American values, American goals. He has all of the components that embody the best of the best in hip hop or in rap. Those things are definitely melody, being able to make complex words and ideas simple, so …

Transcript Busta Rhymes is one of the most dynamic, charismatic rappers there is in the hip-hop industry today. He is originally from the West Indies and much of his style is derived from the dance hall music. And the heaviness of his voice is what makes him distinctive. If he was not rapping, he would …

Transcript Eminem is the rapper’s rapper. Eminem is one of the best rappers of all time for multiple reasons. He is melodic, so he focuses a lot on melody. His cadence is unlike any other. Eminem focuses also on diction and enunciation. As fast as Eminem can rap, the amount of words that he can …

Transcript You know, I met Kanye one time in the studio and we actually had a little rap battle. Right? And, you know, this is before he was the big Kanye West, but something he said to me that now I could see obvious in his style. He said, “Yo, you may be able to …

Transcript Alright. Rapping like Lil Wayne is much about authenticity. Lil Wayne is a rapper who focused on the grit and the grime in his voice, so he puts all of his energy into his words. Another thing that makes Lil Wayne rap style distinctive is that he, many years ago, stopped writing rap lyrics. …

Transcript You spend anywhere from $20 to $25 to $100, $150 for a studio session and you leave that studio session not getting a lot out of it, because you were not prepared or you didn’t have the professional attitude in the studio. So, to make good songs you have to have a great attitude …

Transcript Alright. In the music industry, or the rap industry, there are a lot of rappers nowadays. And if you want to stand out from other rappers, the key thing to remember is it’s the music business or the show business, meaning that it’s definitely about the music and the show, as well as the …

Transcript Alright. So, all across the world, battling is a sport. It is the place where people meet up to see who is the best. So, one key part of it is to free style, because many people actually write their raps and then go perform their raps. But the key part about battle is …

Transcript Rapping fast is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but it is possible. Rapping fast is, really, what they call rapping on the two because most beat happen by one, two three, four, one, two, three, four. Now, rapping on the two, meaning that you’re speeding up your cadence in the …

Transcript Alright. If you want to really get good at rap, here are a few things that you can do to become a better rapper. One of the first things is enunciate. So, like actors, like speakers, there are exercises, such as tongue twisters, such as, you know, putting marble in your mouth, and just …

Transcript Alright. Flowing in rap music is difficult. It is not easy, but it is doable. Flow basically means what we call being in the pocket. And the pocket usually means that you’re not interfering with any other instrument and you’re falling on the beat in a way that feels simple and as you’re one. …

Transcript When you’re rapping to a beat, it can be very difficult if you don’t have rhythm. So, sometimes you have to make sure when you’re starting to rap to a beat that you can find what musicians call the snare. The snare is usually the thing that sounds like a clap. And the snare …

Transcript Developing your rap style is one of the hardest things to do, because the way that many of us even become infatuated or begin to love rap is by listening to other people. The challenge is by listening to so many other people, they leave an imprint on you. So, now when you begin …

Transcript When you’re collaborating on a rap song, one key thing is to either find somebody who is pretty much like you, so that you guys feed off of each other, or to find somebody that is the total opposite, because then it creates you know some variation. Over the course of rap history there …

Transcript Some people might write a whole song and don’t know what to call it. And, like most books, or an essay, or a blog article, you want to pick something that is going to intrigue somebody and make them say, “Well, what is that?” But also, you don’t want to go so far in …

Transcript So, here are a series of exercises that will help to develop your ability to rap and write lyrics. One very simple exercise is to open the dictionary to any page, and then pick a word, and then try to come up with two to three words that can rhyme with that word. Alright? …

Transcript Alright. When you’re writing a rap song, the key word is process. You don’t want to pressure yourself that the minute that every word goes on a page you’re writing, you know, a multi-platinum hit The key is to first just get your thoughts out. One thing you can do is at the top …

Transcript So, when you write a hook for a rap song, the key is to make it very conversational, meaning that this is how people express themselves in your social circle. And the way that you make sure that you are in alignment with how people actually speak, is making sure that you are a …

Transcript So, when you write a rap chorus you want to start off by making it as simple as possible. So, if your song is “I’m the baddest”, just say that I’m the baddest, I’m the baddest, I’m the baddest right? by starting off simple it will give you a direction for actually writing the …

Transcript So, because a lot of people, when they are writing rap songs, they may look up, or study R&B. If you look at rappers, like Ja Rule or 50 Cent, or even Drake, you will find that a lot more rappers are structuring their songs very much like R and B songs. And most …

Transcript Alright. So verse three is the closing part of the song. So, many times, after writing a verse one or verse two, it’s very difficult to write verse three because it’s like, “Where do I go from here?” The thing about verse three, it could also be seen like what R&B artists call the …

Transcript So, in writing verse to a rap song, sometimes you might write verse one, hit a roadblock, say, ‘Where do I go from here’? So, verse two is a step up from verse one. Verse one, a lot of times, is just introductory to who you are. But verse two is now taking the …

Transcript When you write the first verse of your song, you want to slowly introduce the listener to the content. Sometimes, in the early days of rapping, you want to hit the track and you want to go rapid fire and show people how good you are. But the majority of the world are not …

Transcript More often than not, the producer already has tracks. So, if a rapper is trying to find lyrics to go with his song, it doesn’t always work that way. A lot of times people ask what comes first, the chicken or the egg, or the music or the lyrics? Usually, the music comes first …

Transcript Alright. So, for all of the up and coming rappers out there who may be wondering how to write a 16-bar verse, here is how you do it. For the most part when you write a line across the page, when you write a line across the page, more often than not, according to …

Transcript The common structures for rap songs are three verses and three choruses. So, every verse is usually 16 bars. And when you are writing your song, you may want to double check to make sure that it’s 16 bars. And so the way that you measure that is what we call counting bars. So, …

Transcript When you are beginning to structure a song, here are some basic ways to structure a rap song. Of course, being that rap is about being creative, you don’t actually have to follow this structure. But, more often than not, this structure is what you will find in rap songs. Rap songs usually start …

Transcript Okay. So, for everybody who’s just learning about how to write lyrics for hip hop, one of the first things you want to do is to actually listen to other rappers, especially old school rappers, because by practicing, it’s almost like tracing over somebody else’s picture and learning to draw. Then you kind of …

Transcript A lot of times, I’ve worked with artists and they’ve experienced writer’s block. And they always try to figure out, how do I figure out a topic to write about? So, one way to start a topic is to just write about what’s on your mind at the present time. Many people try to …

Transcript So, like anything, martial arts, dance, there are styles of rap. And these styles of rap can be categorized in many ways. One way they can be categorized is in regions. So, rappers from the east coast rap differently than rappers from the west coast. Also, rappers from the Midwest or rappers from down …

Transcript Alright. So, everybody wants to be a rapper nowadays. But one thing that a lot of people don’t know is how the rapper became the most popular part of the hip hop culture. In the early days of hip hop culture, the focus was the DJ. And, to introduce the DJ, the MC was …