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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 about the creative and the corporate sides of the business. Thanks to Bruce Willis and Queen Latifah, there’s a movie made about my work called “The Hip Hop Project”. You can check that out or watch it on Netflix.

Today, I continue to develop artists and coach artists to be the best that they can be. I hope by watching these videos you feel empowered, that you know what you’re getting into and you know what is possible for you. If you ever need to reach out to me, you can find me on Twitter, Facebook and all the other platforms out there. I’m on everything. Don’t be a stranger. I’m here to help. Reach out whenever you can. Chris Kazi Rolle signing out. Peace.

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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 when that music is being played.

So, performing rights organizations are set up to work with record labels, recording artists, performing venues to pay artists for the use of their song. So, when you listen to the radio and you hear a song by Jay-Z, you’re listening because that song that you like is going to be played, but then there’s a commercial. That means that that radio station is making money from your song. So, you need to be paid for your song.

So, performing rights organizations go out there, and they are kind of your bodyguard that protects you from being robbed or taken advantage of by radio stations, television stations who play your music and don’t pay you for it.

So there are three performing rights organizations you can sign up with. There’s ASCAP, there’s BMI, and there’s SESAC, alright? They primarily do the same things, which is work with radio stations and all the performance venues that play music, to pay artists for the use of their songs. And that’s why you should join a performing rights organization.

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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 powerful story is the story of 50 Cent. 50 Cent was signed many years ago to Columbia. They dropped him for things that he was doing in the community and he decided to make his own way. He started doing mix tapes and he would take songs that were popular and remake them. He would be creative and battle a lot of rappers out there. And he put out so much music during his era of flooding the streets that every car that passed by in New York City, I heard 50 Cent that summer.

He was relentless; he worked so hard that everybody was talking about this guy. And then, one day, Eminem’s bodyguard always goes out to the streets and just gets whatever is popular, who ever the popular mix tape artist of the moment is. While playing in some music in a car is how he first heard of 50 Cent. But if 50 Cent didn’t have that strong work ethic and that ability to just be like, “Listen, I’m not going to wait on a record label,” he would never be where is today.

Another popular success story you can study is someone like Kanye West. Kanye West, originally, was just a producer who was making music. He was actually what they call a ghost producer, meaning there was a popular producer who purchased music from Kanye West and resold it as his own music. And so a lot of producers get started in that way so they can make a name for themselves. The big producer makes more money. You sell it to him for $1,000.00, he sells it for $100,000.00.

Puff Daddy was actually one of the first ones to start that or really build it as a business. Anyway, Kanye West, from making beats for Jay-Z, is how he was first introduced to Roc-A-Fella through a rapper and producer named Deric Angelettie. From that introduction, he got cool with Damon Dash and Jay-Z.

Jay-Z didn’t really feel him as a rapper and he told him to just stick to doing beats, but he believed in himself and he focused on the one person that supported him, which was Damon Dash. And through that support, he put out some music. And from putting that music out he also made his own music videos. He went above and beyond and he believed in himself. That’s the key thing I’m conveying to you. You have to believe in yourself so much that you could actually bend the will of other people to believe in you.

And then a third and final success story that you can look at it is the story of Jay-Z himself. Jay-Z had went to various record labels and they thought either he rapped too fast or they didn’t like the songs that he was doing and they actually were not interested. He just said, “Alright, nobody believes in what I’m doing so I’m just going to do it myself.”

He was selling his music out of his trunk. He would go to popular events, he would put on events and just sell product. His product was moving so much that other people decided to come to him. Mainly, the biggest rap label of them all, which is Def Jam.

I would say that by studying those stories, and the stories of anybody who you may be interested in, you will find something synonymous in all the stories. That is you have to be able to work hard and work harder than anybody else. Flood the streets with music. Give away music so that people can get into you and believe in what it is that your giving them. And then find value in what you’re doing. Third is to believe in yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt, because by believing in yourself so much, other people will believe in you, too.

Last, don’t wait for people to hook you up or give you the opportunity. You go out there and you share your music with people. You will have people come looking for you because they will see that, “Alright. Either we jump on that moving train or we will get left.”

Those are some key stories that you can check out to find success in the music business.

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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, that you are not new to this, you do have a following, you do have a buzz. And you can show that through your ReverbNation page, through your Facebook page, your Twitter, that people are following you, that people are interested in you, and they are downloading your music.

Another way of clinching a deal with a booking agent is to invite them to your show. When they come down and they see the following and they see the response, they can say, “Alright. I could do something with this.” Now, a lot of times you are going to work for free, initially, just so that they can use their main artist.

Let’s say, for instance, that I am a booking agent, and I have Rick Ross. I want to make Rick Ross show good, not with other people that are going to compete with him, because they are well known as well. Sometimes I want to create some opening acts and give them an opportunity. I won’t have to pay them or not pay them much. But, I give them an opportunity to make a name for themselves, but I also allow my artist to be highlighted without being in competition with them.

The last thing to know about finding a booking agent is it is sometimes a process. People think that the first time you write to somebody and they do not write back to you or do not respond to your email they give up. A lot of what booking agents want to see is consistency. They want to see you have been on particular shows and that you may reach out that one time. They may see your email, they might not respond or they might respond.

They might say, “Well, we’re not looking for anybody right now.” Then you show up two weeks later, a month later, three months later, and when they see you constantly on it, and every time they got an email or message from you they see, like, “Okay. This person is going, stepping up now and they have this large a following.” And they see that evolution, then they are more than likely to buy into you. But if you had given up too early, then that was almost like the first test that you failed.

Finding a booking agent is pretty easy. There are a ton of them that are out there just by Googling the name of their organization. You can find the name of these organizations and email addresses and just start reaching out to them. One other thing, in addition to directly reaching out to booking agents, is you can also find promoters: people who promote shows. A friend of mine, recently, he opened up for Rick Ross.

What he did was that he just found a promoter and told the promoter, “Hey, I got a buzz. People know me and I would love to open up for the artist. I will do it for free, but if you have a budget, I will take that, too.”

He got paid to open up for Rick Ross and now all of Rick Ross fans got exposed to him. So what he did is he invited the booking agent that he really wanted to come to that show to see him open up for Rick Ross and that is how he clinched the deal. Those are some things you can do to find a booking agent in today’s music business

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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 the ultimate goal of selling. One way to start off is by getting just people in your circumference, or your social circle, to buy your music, and start getting people to support you financially.

Another key to success in the music business is to have a great work ethic. There’s somebody out there that’s working right now to become a star. While you’re watching TV, while you’re sleeping, they’re working hard. So if you want to be successful, you’ve got to have a strong work ethic, to work harder than anybody else. If you think of any name from 50 Cent to Jay-Z, they can tell you, and you can see, that they are people who work very, very, very hard. If you are lazy, you can forget about it.

Another key principle of being successful in the music industry is consistency. If you start to build a buzz and then you fall off, or you get on and you have a great single out there and then you don’t follow up, then people forget about you very quick because there’s someone else who’s coming up and they’re consistent, and they’ll come right behind you and take that spot. You have to be consistent. It’s not about now, it’s about ten years from now. So if you want to build a career you have to constantly be creating product, and sharing that product with people and always showing up in that way.

I think one of the last things that’s important about being successful in the music business is about being original; it’s about being creative. So if you want to be successful, you’ve got to be comfortable in being yourself because there’s only one you. There’s no other person who has the fingerprint that you have. So if you are comfortable being yourself and being original and coming up with different ways to present yourself that are still ultimately you, then you will definitely be successful.

So, being original and being creative, being consistent, having a great work ethic, and being willing to say that, “Hey, I’m in the business of music,” is how you can be successful in the music business.

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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 to a show. And by inviting them out to a show, sometimes you’ll find that other people who see that, “Wow, he has a lot of support,” then they’ll remember you more.

And the key thing is to get those people to follow you on social media. Because, say everybody comes to a show. And when they come to the show and they leave, if there’s no way to stay in contact with you, there’s no…a following is really a relationship. And the only way to build a relationship is to be in communication with the people that you’re building a following with.

So that’s key. You have to stay in contact with folks. The easiest way to stay in contact is everybody’s on Facebook, everybody’s on Twitter. So starting with Twitter and Facebook is a great way, but ReverbNation is also a great tool, because it has a lot of tools for artists to stay in contact with their friends. They have even an app building and you can have your own app where someone can follow you and stay abreast of the things that you’re going on.

But one very, very important part of building a following is to give value. If you only put out a song every six months or every year, you’re not going to build a following. People need to be interested in you. And for people to be interested, you have to be interesting. And how you stay interesting is by always switching up. You know, you may come with a video. You may do something like a show. You may do a show in a place that’s not traditional. You may have a press story that happened.

So you always want to share things with your following so that they can see progression, they can see the evolution. And by constantly staying in communication with your following and giving them things to do, things to check out, that’s how you build your numbers. And a following really is just a relationship with a large number of people that grow over time. So those are some keys that you can apply to build your following. Good luck.

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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 heard. And that’s why they call it a buzz, because it’s like there’s a noise being made somewhere in the world, and this person needs to be noticed. And the way you do that is by building a following. Some people build a following just by sharing music. At the end of the day, it’s the music business, so it’s about the music.

So by just creating music and putting it out there as a mix tape, as a music video on YouTube, as a downloadable song on the various platforms online, such as Sound Cloud, or going through TuneCore, going straight to iTunes. However you do it, you have to get the music out there. And by getting the music out there, then people start to hear you and like you.

And, in addition to putting the music out there, you want to build your numbers on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Reverb Nation. Let people follow you, get into you, and that is one way that you could build a buzz.

And the third way to build a buzz is trying to open up for known artists, because people are going to come to the show to see Rick Ross, to see, you know, Meek Mill. And by coming to see those artists, then they discover you. And by performing, by sharing music, by building your name on social media, that is the way that you build a buzz. And from getting that buzz, you can go on and get a record deal or go on to be a star.

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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, they want to sign a contract.

So, a lot of times when we say get signed, we sometimes only think about your end, like, “Now I’m on, now I’m gonna blow up.” But, really, it is more of a contract that someone is investing money,time, energy into you with hope of a return. And that contract means that you have to deliver on that.

So if you want to get signed, that’s one of the first things that you want to recognize and you want to be prepared to deliver on that agreement. When you go in to get signed, some of the things that a record label will look for is whether or not you have a following. Of course, talent is a given. You got to have talent, but there are a lot people who don’t have talent, some would say. Talent is a given.

So with that talent, then comes building a following. If you have a following, whether that’s people on your block, or in your neighborhood, or coworkers, or people that you went to school with, those people should follow you on Twitter on Facebook, on ReverbNation on DatPiff. Let people follow you via social media. And when you go into a record label or a company that wants to sign you, they’re going to look to see if you have a following.

Second thing is you’ve got to have an image. People need to be able to look at you and think that, “Wow, this is a star.” This is somebody that, when people look at them, they want to be like this person. So that means that you have to be comfortable in your skin or just cool.

And the third thing that you want to do, if you really want to get signed, is you’ve got to put yourself out there. You know, nobody’s gonna come on to your block or come to your door and knock. “Hey, you know, is such and such here?” Nobody’s going come looking for you. You have to be able to put yourself out there, network. Ask around, “How can I meet people at record labels?”

So, another way of getting yourself out there, or putting yourself out there, is by going to open mics. By going to open mics, you expose the world to your talent and you never know who could be at a performance. Or another performer that may like your style and you two start collaborating, and by collaborating, you get seen by a new audience.

The whole goal is to put yourself out there. And cream rises to the top, meaning that when you’re good somebody’s gonna notice. And once you get noticed, that usually leads to an opportunity to get signed.

But if you want to be signed, you’ve got to put yourself out there. You’ve got to really build a following and you have to be prepared to be a star, by having yourself look like a star and feel confident that you could be a star. And that’s how you get signed in the music business.

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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 could take that to the record label and pitch it to the rest of the team and then sign you to a record deal. Nowadays, there’s no need for that, because record labels don’t make that much money as they did in the past, so they’re not willing to invest as much in an artist just off of sheer talent.

So what they would invest in is somebody who has made a name for themselves. So now the new demo is your numbers: your numbers on social media, your numbers on sites like ReverbNation, sites that can tell the data that conveys to a record label that people like you, people are downloading your music, buying your music. A lot of people use datpif.com, which is a site that you can create a mix tape, which is basically a small demo of your work, and let that be available to people for free.

And in this day and age, by giving away free music, building a following, that is the new demo because the Internet gives you data and gives you numbers to say that this is how much people will buy my music. And if you can show that people are interested in you, then a record label will take you on. And that, in a sense, is the way that, today, you can give in a demo.

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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 various ways.

One is through shows. If your music gets out there in a heavy way through people sharing your tracks, then you can be the sought-after performer that everybody wants. One way of doing this is just finding consistent open mics, or being an opening act for a name artist and then building your buzz that way. And from building your buzz, then people will want to hire you because everybody wants to see your show.

Another way to make money in the music business is writing for somebody else. There are a lot of very known rappers or up-and-coming rappers that they don’t actually write. They have a great personality. They have a great look, but they are not the best at writing. Or, the fact that the music business moves so fast, there’s not enough time to spend time writing and developing songs. So if you sit at home writing and developing songs, you can sell those songs directly to artists, to publishing companies, and they would pay you for that time.

So, another way that you can make money as a rapper in the music business is by partnering with brands. By getting your music out there, being on shows, everybody knows who you are, so you have influence. And from that influence, you can charge people to put their brand in your song. So, for instance, if Jay-Z says something about a drink or a pair of shoes or a car, that car now will sell a lot more.

And so now, rappers are giving those kind of commercial time away to brands. So, that is another way that you can get money in the music business, is by telling brands or giving brands the opportunity to be highlighted in your song or partner with you on your tour or on your CD. There’s a variety of ways to partner with brands, but through those partnerships you can make money.

So, you can make money through partnerships, you can make money through live shows, and you can make money through selling your music to other performers. And that’s how you can make money in today’s music business.

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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 A&R is not like it used to be.

Now, because of the Internet, you can get into the music business by just putting out music and giving it directly to the consumer. You can do that via your website. You can do that via other websites, such as, you know, SoundCloud, you know, Bandcamp, and many others. Or you can go directly to iTunes via TuneCore because, unlike the past, you don’t need a record label to get out to the people.

Now, where you do need a record label is that they have a machine that can help you get out to the world at large, because they have more money and they have a larger platform for you to launch from. Now, because so many people have access to the Internet and there’s so much competition out there, what you need to do to get into the business is you need to build something called a buzz.

And what a buzz does, it lets people know that you have a following, people are interested in who you are. So, the way you build a buzz is by putting out music via social media, via shows, to people that enjoy your type of music. And if you can build a buzz, then you can go to a record label and that record label will look at your numbers and say, “Wow, this person has a buzz. I’m going to give them a chance.” And that’s how you break into the music business.

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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, growing up as a young person in the inner city, he has aspirational desires to have the best car, have the most pretty girl, and to be the man, you know, to be popular.

So, his style is kind of going back and forward, between being an advocate for black people in America, and speaking to the powers that be, and being courageous enough to say what nobody else is going to say, and say it and mean it and articulate it. Because not everybody can put together what somebody else is feeling and have them say, “Wow, he said what I want to say.” So it takes a lot of empathy to rap like Tupac, but also to speak to the aspirations of the next generation that want to just be the life of the party, to have the pretty girls, and to just enjoy one’s self because it has the finer things in life.

But, the primary thing that I think that makes Tupac really great is that authenticity of what he’s putting in his music. He’s putting his heart and soul, and he believes in everything that he’s saying. He gives you this contradiction that we all have. So, you may have a song like “Dear Mama” from Tupac, but you could also have something like “Blasphemy”. So, you have these two contrasting view points and styles, but lots of entertainment, because he’s so melodic, so charismatic. All of those things make up the style of Tupac Shakur.

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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 that all minds can get it, which is why he as such a large reach. Jay-Z also is about the finer things in life, so he raps a lot about just wanting better things. So, whether that’s clothing, or travel, or to have the most beautiful woman, he is definitely a man’s man, alpha male, who wants the best: to be the best, to have the best. And he speaks to the hopes and dreams of people who want to make their own.

Jay-Z went to try to get a record deal; that didn’t work out, so he started his own record label. Now record labels come to him to want to partner with him because he did his thing very well. So, his whole style is all about aspirational desires.

Another thing that Jay-Z embodies is definitely wit, style and a lot of word play. He is a master at using words and putting words together in a way that’s just unbelievable. All of that doesn’t just come straight from talent. A lot of that is skill that is acquired by hours and hours and hours of just beating on his craft, over and over to a point now that he, like Lil Wayne, and Lil Wayne actually was inspired by Jay-Z’s ability to not write lyrics down.

He raps straight off of memory, off of heart. And if you want to develop a style like that, you have to spend a lot of hours in the studio, just recording without needing a piece of paper, and just rapping from your heart.

You will find that your flow is much different when you don’t have to look at a piece of paper. When you’re rapping from your heart, it really tightens your ability to convey what you want to convey and simplifies the lyrics. Jay-Z is complex, but he’s also simple at the same time. That’s how you can learn to rap like Jay-Z.

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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 be doing something with his voice or you would know him, because when he steps in the room and you hear the brashness and the heaviness of his voice, you know that that is Busta Rhymes.

Busta Rhymes, when he’s rapping, he raps on the two more often than not because he can rap very fast and he enunciates unlike any other rapper. Because rapping fast, a lot of times, words get jumbled. So it’s harder to enunciate when you’re going to have to say a bunch of words in one bar. And Busta Rhymes has mastered the ability to say a lot of words but be very articulate in it.

Busta Rhymes is the most energetic rapper that is out there because he is high energy, and so when he raps, he raps with a lot of energy. And he’s also very animated. When you think of animation and you think of rap, you think of Busta Rhymes.

So, if you want to rap like him you have to be extra animated and extra exaggerated. And, also, study dance hall music. His whole style is derived from the Jamaican dance hall music, which is also about energy and about making people have a good time and dance. So you’ll have more of Busta Rhymes’ music being about dance and energy and having a good time. And, ultimately, that is what makes Busta Rhymes’ style distinctive.

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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 rap, he is very clear, which is very hard to do when you’re saying so much.

Another thing that makes Eminem’s style distinctive is he can make words that don’t traditionally rhyme, rhyme together because he focuses on the vowels. By focusing on vowels, you can turn an owl, like the bird, into an hour, and you can make those two words rhyme if you’re focusing on the vowels. Vowels are very important. This is a little technique that a lot of people don’t know, but Eminem has really studied the craft and he also studies language. And when you study language and how words mesh together, it can help you as a rapper.

I think one other key part that makes Eminem’s rap style distinctive is he has a very great handle on vocabulary. His vocabulary is vast, so he can make something that’s really complex, break it down in the most simplest way possible. But then he has a lot more, I call it sound painting. He has a lot more paint because he has so much colors because he knows so much words and he understands the meanings of those words. So he can pull so many words together that it’s just impressive.

So, he has melody, he has word play, he has vocabulary, he can make words that don’t necessarily rhyme together rhyme. And Eminem also is very much about sensationalism, so it’s about shock and awe, and saying things that nobody else has ever said.

And I would say the last and final thing that makes Eminem’s style distinctive is he is authentic to himself. Being a Caucasian rapper in a style or art form traditionally dominated by African Americans, he doesn’t try to be like them. He speaks to his culture. He speaks to something that is his background. He’s from a trailer park. He’s not from the inner city or Brooklyn, so he’s not going to try to be other than he is.

And that’s one key element that all rappers, especially Eminem, has, is being authentic to who you are and the life that you grew up and talk about those things. So, he’s going to talk about his mother, his baby’s mother, and he’s super creative and so he makes those stories interesting. But, ultimately, he’s being authentic to himself. So, all those things makes Eminem’s style distinctive.

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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 battle me in toe-to-toe combat, but where I’m going to beat you at is that I’m going to be remembered, because I’m melodic and I focus more on melody.”

And you can see that in Kanye’s rap style. Kanye is a producer and he’s a musician, so he focuses on melody. And the voice, or his lyrics, is another instrument, and it has to follow the melody of the track. So that’s one key part that you’ll find with Kanye. He’s always focused on melody.

Another thing about Kanye: he’s pro-black and he’s very much about black history, black awareness. His background, he’s a spoken word artist, so he’s very much about using his raps or his poetry to say something, to give it some meaning. But, in between the meaning, he’ll also put a line that’s very superficial. And, this way, he gets to kind of dumb down the complexity of what he’s talking about, but at the same time, he’s slipping in.

So, you can look at it two ways. He’s dumbing down complexity, or he’s speaking to a mind that’s not too complex to give them something of a higher thought process or speak on something that a conscious rapper might say. Kanye’s background is that he’s from the conscious circle. You know, his mom is a professor.

But, he’s also very much an artist and very bragadocious and is into superficiality, so to speak. He’s into fashion. He’s into art. So he merges these two worlds where he’s actually talking about cool, fun stuff in pop culture, but he’s also slipping in things that we should know historically, politically, and just as a culture around things that matter in the world. And that’s pretty much Kanye’s style in a nutshell.

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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. So he really just raps off the head. A lot of stuff is organic, in that he sits in the studio, plays the song over, and over again. He goes into the booth and does something called a punch.

A punch is I may rap two lines, stop it, and then we’ll go back and then they’ll punch me in, and start recording from the last place I left off. Over time, he would have created sixteen bars and, ultimately, a song.

The thing about rapping without writing it down: it comes straight from the heart, it comes straight from the head, and it’s also very simple. In the simplicity, then everybody can listen to it. A lot of east coast rappers especially are very deep, very methodical, and they’re so deep it takes a long time to dissect. Someone like Nas, for example, to dissect what he’s talking about. Lil Wayne, many of the critics talk about the fact he’s so simple, but that’s what makes him very good.

Even in the simplicity of Lil Wayne, he also he’s very complex in that he uses the first thing that come to your mind when you think of a word. If he says I’m high, cloud. It leaves a little space for you to say, “High, cloud. Oh, I got it.” You want to keep it simple, but complex at the same time. Use word association, meaning that you use a word that’s pretty simple. If you look at it in one sense, or when you look at it in another sense, then it’s like, “Oh, that is so cool that he is able to put together these two concepts in a complex, but simple way.”

Some people will call it pun, or word play. But, ultimately, that’s Wayne’s rap style in a nutshell. He puts a lot of grit and grime into his voice. I don’t know if you remember a movie called The Gremlins back in the day. He raps like an actual gremlin. No disrespect to him, but that’s what he really sounds like.

Another distinctive part of his style is that he takes street terminology and matches it with the King’s English dictionary version of a word that does not have the same meaning that it does on a street level. He makes it complex and simple at the same time so that everybody gets it, but is creative enough that it’s witty. And it’s distinctive enough that you know when you hear somebody rap like that, that’s Lil Wayne.

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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 when going in the studio and you have to come ready to get the most out of that session.

So, one thing you want to start doing, before you get to the studio, is to make sure you know what you want to leave with. Sounds simple, but you want to begin with the end in mind and go in there prepared with your song down.

You want to make sure you practice so that you go in there and you just bang it out. You know, a lot of people hear about what Jay-Z can do and they hear about what Lil Wayne can do. That’s a gift and something that they honed over many years of doing what they do. So, don’t go into the studio trying to be like them. Do what you can do.

If you know you need to write and practice, make sure that you put that time in, because when you get in the studio there’s pressure on you. And so unless you put in the time, you could be performing the song over and over again, and you can also frustrate yourself because you’re not getting it, because you didn’t practice.

Another way to make the most of studio time is not to bring extra people to the studio. Go in there. Bring people that’s going to keep you focused, that’s going to keep you on point so that you get the song done. Because, many times, people who are not rappers or don’t understand what the studio’s about can distract you from getting things done in the studio.

And the third, most important, thing to get the most out of studio time is to enjoy yourself. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself that you’re so nitpicking on every detail. Ultimately, it’s about a good vibe, and you want to get that good vibe and that good energy on the track. And if you use those three tips, I promise you, you’ll get the most out of a studio session.

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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 business. But it’s definitely about the show.

So, how can you make your show better than everybody else is? By practicing. A lot of people, because it’s rap, they don’t take it as serious as, you know, Beyonce may take it, or Lady Gaga, because people see those pop artists as more of theatrics. But, there’s so many rappers; you will fall behind if you’re not exciting, if you don’t put on a show. How many times you’ve been to a rap show where all you saw the person do was just stand in one place and just rap? So, here are some things that you could do to improve your show.

One is use the full stage. You know, by someone watching you, you can actually put them to sleep by just looking at you standing in one place. So, you want to be able to use your stage.

Second, you want to give a lot of eye contact. You want everybody in that audience to feel like you’re talking directly to them.

Third, and this particular one is about what you do off stage, which is take care of yourself. If you don’t have a lot of energy because you don’t work out or you’re not eating right, then you can’t perform at a high level because you just don’t have the ability.

Fourth is to take care of your voice and to work on your voice, because after performing city to city, day to day, you’re going to hurt your voice unless you do exercises to strengthen your ability to perform, night in and night out, over and over again.

And then fifth, if you want to put on a really great show, be creative. Don’t just perform your song. You know, study people like The Fugees, who have an excellent show. Wyclef and Lauren Hill are some of the best performers out there. And Busta Rhymes is another one. They never do the whole song. They may do the first verse and the chorus and then change the beat and then switch to another song.

If you’re going to go out there and do the performance of the song exactly as it is on the record then, you know, that’s not that creative. And the performers that get the highest money are the ones that put on the best show. And one way of putting on a good show is giving people a little bit of what they know, but then giving them something they didn’t expect. And so those are five things that I think that you can use to make yourself a much better performer.

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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 to use what’s in the moment. It’s hard to use what’s in the moment when you have not practiced it.

So, one easy way to better your freestyle is to freestyle in your mirror, around friends that you’re comfortable with, about exactly what’s going on. That way, when you’re in the heat of battle, you can be calm, be cool, and be able to see what’s going on and pull things out of the air to rap about. But, you can’t do that if you have not practiced it over and over and over again, because free-styling is about improvisation and moving your mind at a faster pace than it would if you could have the time to sit down and write out your song. You cannot do that unless you practice.

Second thing you want to be able to do is think about things that are super popular, pop culture. And the more you’re aware of pop culture, the things you see in commercials, things you see in the main magazines, front page news, those are things that if you can be more aware of, when you say a line or a metaphor or a diss to your opponent, then everyone knows what that is.

But if you’re saying something that’s underground culture that nobody really knows what you’re saying than the punchline, or the attack line, doesn’t have as much weight because nobody knows what you’re talking about.

But when you use things such as McDonald’s, or like Jay-Z, or Jordan, when you’re saying things that are super popular, your punchline has more of an oomph, because everybody knows what you’re saying.

The last thing is wit. You can’t always teach wit but it is something that you can learn. Wit is just being clever in whatever your line is, whatever your attack line is for your opponent. When you’re witty, that’s the key to really diss, disrespecting, knocking out, finishing your opponent. Your wit and your ability to be clever is how you’re going to make the most impact. Those are a few ways that you can perfect your freestyle and battle skills.

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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 song and rapping faster than usual.

And the way that you practice this is by copying somebody who is actually a master of it. I can give you two examples. One person you want to study is someone by the name of Twister. Twista is a rapper from the Midwest, and he is very, very fast.

Another person you can study is a rapper by the name of Busta Rhymes. These two rappers have really mastered the fast rap. Oh, also Ludacris. Ludacris is another rapper you can study. Ludacris goes between fast and slow, but the challenge about rapping fast is enunciation. By slowing down, actually, and mastering how to rap slow, it’s easier to rap fast.

Focusing on rapping on the two instead of the four is how you will master the ability to rap fast. Alright. Study the greats. By studying the greats and learning how they did it, and mastering one of their rap songs, it will show you how to rap fast.

It’s hard for me to tell you in this video without having the beats to show you exactly how to do it, so the easiest way is to study someone who is really masterful at it. That’s Twista, that’s Busta Rhymes, and that’s Ludacris. You study those guys and you’ll be good to go. That’s how you learn to rap fast.

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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 enunciating your words.

One key thing that you can do in the studio is smile. Smile as you’re rapping your song, because it forces you to use your full jaw to enunciate your words.

Another thing is to close your eyes and don’t think about anything else than what you’re saying. Because, in addition to the words, it’s the emotion, it’s the feeling that you’re putting in it. And if you’re distracted by the audience, if you’re distracted by things around you or other thoughts in your mind, you’re not necessarily putting your all into what it is that you’re saying.

Another way to get good at rapping is, really, I know it sounds simple, just by practicing. You know, don’t wait to the last minute to try to get it down or figuring out you’re just going to make it up on stage or when you get to the studio. It’s really about the basics. Anything that you work on over and over and over again you get better at. And if you don’t put the time in, then you won’t get out what you really want to get out.

So, practice is key. Enunciating is very, very, very important, especially if you’re rapping on a record where people can’t see you. If I’m seeing you then I could kind of make out what your lips are saying, because I’m seeing your expression. But, if a person can’t see you, your ability to enunciate is very, very important.

So when you’re practicing, one way of really strengthening your enunciation is turning the beat off and slowing down and then saying each word, one at a time. By slowing down and putting the emphasis on each word, when you speed up and you sing the song over a beat, it’s crystal clear. Those are a few ways that you can strengthen your ability to become a better rapper in this rap game.

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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. Almost as if the beat is like a horse, and you’re just riding the horse. You’re just in the wave.

One key way to know that you’re in the beat is, is if you can bob your head to the beat, and there’s no kind of interference where you’re going off the beat. So, knowing that you’re on the beat that when you’re rapping you just fall in right on the beat. You’ll notice that when you go to a good rap show, or you’re listening to a good rap song, your head will just kind of just flow to the same way that the rapper is rapping, because that person is on the beat and riding the beat.

To acquire this skill to ride the beat really takes just a lot of practice, and taking certain words out. A lot of times, we put too many words in the rap lyric, and that’s why it’s not flowing in the way it should.

One way to ride the beat is to say less. Sometimes, rappers fall off the beat because they put too many words in. Unlike writing correct English, you don’t have to put every detail into the rap song. What you want to do is take out simple words like, “I”, “and”, “but”. You don’t have to say all those things. In a sense people kind of fill in the blanks, and it also leaves you space to take a breath and flow on the beat in a better way, because you’re not trying to say as much and you can glide on the beat.

More often than not, flow really just takes practice. Doing it over, and over, and over again. Whenever you feel like, “Alright. Well, maybe I’m really not on the beat,” you take out a word or two and it will flow like butter. That’s how you learn the flow on a beat.

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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 usually lands on the two or the four, meaning one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. So, when you’re writing your song or you’re rapping to the beat, you want to land on the four. One, two, three, four.

“My name is Chris / and I’m from Brooklyn / I own the top / It can never be tooken”

You notice that I landed on the four, right? So, any time you’re rapping to a beat, the key is to focus on the second snare. If you focus on the second snare, you’ll always be rapping to the beat. And that’s how you do it.