The lyrics you write are a fundamental part of a quality rap song. Getting the lyrics out on paper can be one of the hardest parts and holds a lot of people back. The fortunate thing is that there is an easy way around this that we will go through.
Two Methods For Writing Rap Lyrics
First things first, don’t start with just a notepad and a pencil in your hand. If this is how you’ve done it in the past I’m going to teach you a new method to come up with great rap lyrics. The first thing that I want you to do is actually find a beat that you really like. Find something that really sets the tone for a good rap track and gets you energized to write. Unless you’re inspired it is going to be hard to write lyrics.
This can be an instrumental that you like or even an existing song that’s out there. Just find something that really gets you in the mood or inspired. Here’s where the fun part starts.
Humming Lyric Writing Method
There are two different ways to do it. The first way I am going to recommend is the humming method. What you’re going to do is play the beat and hum along to it. Hum as if you are rapping. The great thing about this is you can come up with a rhythm or a flow without having actual lyrics. Do this over and over until you come up with a steady rhythm or flow to the beat. This will let you get a feel of how the track should sound.
The next thing that you should do is recorded your humming part over the beat. Now this part isn’t absolutely necessary but I prefer to record it so when I write lyrics I can listen back to that flow and just fill in the words. However, if you are comfortable with what you you came up with you don’t have to record it.
Next I will put the beat on loop mode with in my DAW on the section I am writing lyrics to. This will allow me to listen to the beat or part I am working on over and over as I start to write lyrics. Having your recorded humming flow track in the background can make it easy to start filling in lyrics to the rhythm that you came up with.
Freestyle Lyric Writing Method
The second method is going to work exactly like the above-mentioned method. So all the steps in the first method apply to this method with a small tweak. This is called the Freestyle method.
With this method you will freestyle over the beat. However, you may want to record your freestyles as you go. A lot of what you come up with will be garbage that you will trash. But some of it may be used and you may get some lyrics out of it. But the key here is to come up with the flow of the track not so much the lyrics but the flow just like you did with the humming method.
The Beat Sets The Tone For Writing Lyrics
The beat will often set the tone for our lyrics. This is because certain types of chords and chord progressions have a certain sound.
For example: major chords usually sound happy and minor chords often sound sad or evil.
Your chord progressions take this a step farther.
For example, going from major to minor can have a powerful or heroic feel.
While you don’t need to fully understand the theory behind the chords in a beat it is important to know why certain tracks inspire different emotions. When you write lyrics to a track it is important to take in the emotion that the beat is giving you. This can feed your lyrics , rhythm, and tone of your rap lyrics.
Write about things that spark an emotion with the listener. Chances are if you write something that sparks emotion from you it will connect with the listener as well. People listen to music to enhance an experience, whatever mood they are in will usually dictate the type of track they listen to. That’s why capturing that in your lyrics is so important.
Writing Lyrics That Represent You
The last thing I want to say is that everyone is different. Everyone has different inspirations and life experiences. Your lyrics should represent you. I am not going to tell you what to write about or to copy your favorite rapper. Take the tone the beat is giving you and write about something that you are inspired to write about. This is how you write great rap lyrics.
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