Listen to the music of different regions: listen to New York-style “boom-bap” hip-hop, West Coast gangsta rap, Dirty South chopped-and-screwed rap, and also the hip-hop of the underground. Listen to the music in your region. Contemporary rap music is linked to mixtape culture. [1] X Research source An online version of the old-school mixtapes is available at record stores, most rappers album-quality material is available for free download as a promotional tactic. Check out your favorite rapper’s mixtapes and branch out. It’s free, so you can listen to stuff you might not even like and form an opinion about it.
When you listen to some rap that you like, try to ignore the words. Just listen to the instrumental, and how the flow of the words seems to fit into the beat. Consider beatboxing as a tool to learning rhythm—not only will this help you understand rhythm, but it will be a useful technique once you start rapping yourself.
See if you can find the instrumental track of the rap song that you’ve got memorized. If not, find one that’s similar. You can download from many websites online. Practice the verses you’ve memorized over the instrumental beat. Again, do your best to stay on-beat. This will help you learn how to keep a rhythm and tempo. [3] X Research source Once you’re able to perform the rap song that you’ve memorized fairly consistently over the instrumental beat, try to adapt it to another beat. Pick one with a different sound and possibly a different tempo. Again, you can find rap beats online in many places. The point here is that you are working on becoming adaptive to the music that you are rapping on.
Practice by just reading the lyrics. Then, read the lyrics like you’re trying to get a raise from your boss. Try to get it on the beat. Imagine when you are rapping that you are doing it in front of someone you know well and respect. Don’t try to make your voice sound like someone you’re not. Relax.
Write at least ten rhymes a day. Even if you don’t like what you’ve written, later on you could come back and re-word those rhymes into something you do like. When you finally like what you’re hearing, test them in front of your friends and hear what they think. Get a rhyming dictionary to help improve your rhymes, and try to develop your vocabulary by reading as much as you can. Depending on who you’re influenced by, the content of rap songs can differ greatly. Every Lil Wayne song is basically one-liners about the greatness that is Weezy F Baby, while a rapper like Raekwon will tell complicated stories with peppered with flights of sonic wordplay. Try different things and see what feels natural.
Make a rap journal. Keep track of your raps, and practice them out of the journal. Carry it everywhere so that when inspiration strikes, you have a place to write your thoughts down. A regret can last a lifetime, don’t simply not write down an excellent idea because you think you’ll remember it, because the chances are, that you’ll probably forget. Jay Z doesn’t write his rhymes down and as a result of this, has said he’s forgotten entire albums’ worth of rhymes.
Stress the consonants. If you try to rap the way you talk, it won’t be comprehensible. Keep your words clear. Pay attention to keeping your words sharp. Rhythm is more important than rhyme. Don’t stumble or stop if your freestyle doesn’t rhyme—just stay on-beat and everything will be fine. Be loud! While being too loud is never a good thing, it’s important to both literally and metaphorically be heard. Think ahead of what you’re rapping so you don’t get stuck stuttering or searching for the words. Nothing’s worse than having to stop in the middle of a rap flow. Be able to think about your next line while still giving 100% to the line you’re currently rapping.
Figure out what’s unique about you, and what you bring to the table of rap. You don’t need to have an ingenious or cookie-cutter answer to this question, but don’t try to be just like another rapper, even if they’re one of the best. In order to do well, you will need to introduce something fresh to the industry.
Supposedly Lil Wayne never writes rhymes and just raps this way, by listening to the beat and diving right in.
Alternatively, you can hook up with a producer who’s eager to share beats. It could lead to a fruitful relationship.
Freestyle battles are a unique opportunity in hip-hop and can be a good way of making connections, but only if you’ve really honed your freestyle skills and are familiar with the conventions of a freestyle battle. It can seem confrontational and mean, since it involves lots of crude disses, so go check some out before you decide to sign up.
Try recording yourself. Increasingly, the recording technology on home computers and smartphones is high quality. It’s always better to use real equipment, but in the beginning do it yourself.
