[Flocabulary] Rapper's Handbook - Part 1B

Step 6. Include Metaphors
Metaphors and similes are an advanced but important part of freestyle rapping. They are often found in a rapper’s funniest and cleverest lines, and they really differentiate beginners from skilled emcees. Take Talib Kweli’s lines:

We’re like shot clocks,
interstate cops and blood clots,
my point is... your flow gets stopped

Metaphors and similes are really the backbone of an advanced rapper. He’ll spit more comparisons than a door-to-door salesman to sink the competition like a leaky submarine. Learn how to use metaphors correctly, and your rhymes will not only be funnier and smarter, but they’ll sound better too. Take Kanye’s line:

Ooh, girl, your breath is harsh,
cover your mouth up like you’ve got SARS

Step 7. Reference current events
See what Kanye did in that line above? He snuck in the cultural reference. Other than amazing in-rhyming and dope metaphors, the most impressive thing a freestyle rapper can do is make timely references to culture and current events. Let’s say, for example, that you are at a cipher, rapping with some of your friends (dissin’ each other, just goofin’ around), and the day before you remember reading that Oprah recently lost 200 pounds. How dope is it if you throw that in your rhymes:

You big now, but you ‘bout to get cut down,
smaller than Oprah Winfrey dropping 200 pounds

I recently heard an emcee reference soaring gas prices:

Fast? son, that ain’t fast.
I’m rising faster than the price of gas

The sooner you can reference it, the better.

Step 8. Pass the mic like it’s contagious
Rap in ciphers - groups of two or more rappers playing off of reach other, trading verses. This is a great way to improve and it’s hell of fun. One of your friends can beat box, you can throw a beat on the stereo, or just freestyle over nothing. Take turns, cutting in whenever you want or when someone “passes you the mic” (you probably won’t have an actual mic). Never drop the invisible mic! Pick it up and pass it! Work off of other people’s rhymes. If they throw in something about the bible, pick up that theme and run with it. Try to stick to similar topics, or riff off of topics in creative ways. Expand / reference their lines. When my friends and I cipher, we like to kick it about random stuff that we all know about, like our personal lives.
Me:

Derek’s life is tough, his job is rough,
plus Suparna took all his dopest stuff,
for her apartment in NYC, ‘cause that’s where she be,
holding down a job at a publishing company

Derek:

Yeah, my life is tough, but not that hard,
‘cause I spend all my nights watching Sponge Bob,
Escher you the one with the job that sucks,
asking people if they want more pepper on their halibut

Or take this example from Eminem’s battle with Lotto from 8-Mile. Lotto starts off by referencing the old 50’s TV show, Leave it to Beaver. Eminem picks it up and spits it right back, referencing all the characters from the show. Lotto:

Fu** ‘Lotto,’ call me your leader
I feel bad I gotta murder that dude from “Leave It To Beaver”

Eminem:

Ward, I think you were a little hard on the Beaver So was Eddie Haskell, Wally, and Ms. Cleaver

Step 9. When you’re in a cipher, think ahead
One of the great things about rapping in ciphers is that after you spit one verse you get a break before you spit again. This break is your best friend. It’s during this break that you’ll be listening and responding to your friends’ verses. But you’ll also be planning out your next verse. Whenever I’m in a cipher, I never like to get back on the mic until I’ve written 4-6 quality lines. To be most impressive, these lines will be about things around you, or they’ll be about something your friend said in his verse. Let’s say your friend is wearing a shirt that has Daffy Duck on it. While he’s spitting, you can write a line like this:

I know you’ve had a tough year and had some crappy luck, but why you gotta wear a shirt with the face of Daffy Duck

That’s not an amazing line, but I guarantee you that in a cipher people will go nuts over that. (Make sure to point at his shirt as you say it). I always try to write 2-3 of those rhyming couplets before I spit again. Usually I’ll drop one right away and then use the other two later in the verse.

Step 10. Listen and Practice
Freestyling, like sculpting or shooting three-pointers, takes an insane amount of practice. Practice as much as you can. Freestyle with homeless people, with your friends, and with your family. Listen to pro rappers who freestyle and try to analyze their styles. Rap all the time, practice all night and day. Practice might not make perfect, but it makes damn good!

[Flocabulary] Rapper's Handbook - Part 1A

Freestyle rapping (or freestyling or freeing) is improvising rap lyrics in real time. It’s spitting lyrics off the top of your head. While some frontin’ pseudo-freestylers actually just rap lyrics they wrote down and memorized, true freestylers make it up as they go. Not every good freestyler drops a good album, but in general your freestyle skills are directly related to your overall rap skills. So when you start out rapping, start out freeing. Soon you’ll be running ciphers like track meets.

The Official Flocabulary 10-Pronged Technique for Learning to Freestyle

Step 1. Start Easy
No need to start off rhyming “the toasty cow’s utter” with “most o’ my flow’s butter”. No need to even rhyme. Just forget everything else and flow. The rhythm can be simple, the words might be 2nd grade level, but you’re still freestyling as long as you make it up. This was my first freestyle rap, which I spit when I was 11 months old:

I am funny,
I like bunnies,
touch my tummy,
mummy

Step 2. Keep Flowing
You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to sound stupid. Make your first freestyle rap verses your stupidest verses just to get them out of the way. Keep flowing. Can’t think of a rhyme? Keep flowing! Stutter over words? Keep flowing. It’s inevitable that at some point some of your lines won’t rhyme, won’t make sense, or that you will inadvertently diss yourself (I knew one guy who accidentally dissed himself all the time when we were freestyling), just keep flowing. If you make a mistake, do your best to incorporate your mistake into your next lines like this:

I drive you bananas, apples and oranges,
ah.... damn, nothing rhymes with oranges,
to make it rhyme, I squeeze it into orange juice,
flow’s tighter than small undies... yours are mad loose

Another technique to use when you find yourself in a bind is to whip out a quick filler. Fillers are just little phrases that you can insert occasionally to give you more time to think of a dope line. Every emcee has his own fillers. For example, Eyedea says “I grab the microphone.” Jin often says, “I’m (nasty) when I’m freeing.” I usually say, “you know what I’m sayin’?” Try to come up with a few fillers that you feel comfortable using. They’ll bail you out of some awkward pauses. As you get better, try not to rely too heavily on your fillers.

Step 3. Rhyme in your mind ahead of time
Here’s the biggest trick to freestyle rapping: as soon as you know what word you’re going to end line 1 with, your mind should start racing to find out a word you can use at the end of line 2. Let’s say your first line is, “I’m exhausted from doing summer reading.” As soon as you realize that you’re going to end the line with “reading”, you should immediately think of something that rhymes, and might possibly be related:
meaning, weeding, beading, ceiling, teething
Pick one and then try to carve the second line to lead toward that word. Let’s say you pick “weeding”, your next line might be:
I’m exhausted from doing summer reading, breaking my back digging holes, painting and weeding
If you pick “meaning,” you might say:
I’m exhausted from doing summer reading, my eyes skim the page but always miss the meaning
The real trick of freestyling is to have your mind constantly racing ahead of what you’re saying. This isn’t easy, but you’ll get quicker with practice.

Step 4. Write
Writing raps will help you freestyle. When you write, rhymes become imbedded in your head, and you’re more likely to be able to pull these rhymes off the top of your head in a freestyle.
With that said, you should never spit a long pre-written verse at a cipher, but you can certainly use rhyming words and shorter phrases that you worked out before hand. When Eminem rhymes “Ewoks, treetops, and Reeboks” in a freestyle, you better believe he’s thought of those rhymes before. He’s still freeing, but he’s using rhyme words he’d already worked out.
Sitting down and writing everyday will improve your freestyles. It will expand your memory of rhyming words, and it will give you experience working these words into clever lines. It’s also a good idea to write a few multi-purpose bars that you can spit at a freestyle in case you get really stuck. Put those lines in a “Break Out Rhymes In Case of Emergency” box, and smash the glass when you need help. This isn’t cheating; it’s canny.
When you’re writing these “in case of emergency” lines, make them strong and interesting, but not too ridiculously amazing. Don’t do this:

I’m too good for school I can’t sit in a chair, (free)
They pulling my leg, like they pulling my hair, (free)
Hit or miss, call it quits, rippin’ hits a little bit too fast to figure it, (written)
But I’m sippin’ it, too ridiculous the way I’m flippin’ it,(written)
That’s just the way that the rap goes, (free)
Appealing to your eyeballs and your nose (free)

You don’t want you’re “emergency” rhymes to be that obvious. Try to write rhymes that generally match your level of freestyle, but are clever and smart.

Step 5. Rap about things around you
This is definitely the best way to prove to the crowd that you’re really freestyling and not just spitting something you wrote in your room the night before. It’s also a huge crowd-pleaser, ‘cause its impressive and it makes everyone real glad that they’re hanging out with you. Rap about things you see. Incorporate objects, actions, people, clothing, situations, and sounds into your rap. When I’m in the shower, I’ll rap about what kind of soap I’m using:

Trying hard to get clean, maybe just a smidgen,
I use ghetto Dove soap, also known as pigeon

Or at a battle competition, this is crucial. You’ve got to spit things specific about your opponent. These are the hardest-hitting punches. Take Eminem’s freestyle (not really a freestyle - because it was pre-written to sound like a freestyle) on 8-mile. He’s battling a guy named Lotto who’s wearing a tight, white tank top:

Lookin’ like a cyclone hit you,
Tank top screamin’,
‘Lotto, I don’t fit you!

If you’re rapping while driving around in your car, rap about how you feel or things you see.

I’m hungry driving in this old Volvo,
I think I’ll stop by Olive Garden and drink some olive oil

[Flocabulary] The Rapper's Handbook - Preface

A rapper is a poet with a beat. To rap is to spit, and a rapper spits syncopated words that tell stories, show off, and teach. A rapper is also an emcee, and an emcee moves the crowd. Whether he’s rocking a basement party in the Bronx or controlling the mic for thousands of screaming fans at the Superdome, he uses his infectious rhymes to connect with his audience. A rapper is also a lyricist, and a lyricist plays with words. A lyricist crafts complex rhymes full of metaphor, alliteration, in-rhyme, assonance and enough wordplay to make a crossword puzzle dizzy.
He flows with stylish ease, dropping knowledge on the beat, behind the beat, or in the pocket, right where he wants to. A rapper is all of these things. Hip-hop music has come a long way in the past 30 years. From back rooms and block parties in South Bronx in the late seventies to the Golden Age in the late eighties through gangsta rap in the nineties to today, where you can hear emcees rapping all over the world in dozens of languages. In Poland and Italy, in China and Korea, in India and Ghana, in Peru and Columbia, a whole generation has adopted hip-hop as their own. They’re not just listening; they’re writing rhymes too. It makes sense. Rap music is the most democratic music in the world, open to anyone with vocal chords.
You don’t need a piano or a drum set, or money for guitar lessons. All you need is your voice and a desire to spit. A pad and pen, maybe, but those are optional. There is no cookie-cutter for rappers, and this book is for everyone out there with a desire to freestyle, write rhymes, or battle. Freestyling and writing rhymes are not only truly thrilling and fun, but they’ll also open your mind up in ways you probably never have before. Freestyling and battling involve a quickness of thought that rivals any thinking exercise. Writing involves analytic thinking and creativity. Whether you ever release an album or not, those are skills that you’ll use for the rest of your life.
This book is the first comprehensive handbook for rappers. It covers all of the major aspects of rapping, divided into sections. You don’t need to read this book straight through. Feel free to skip around, though some of the sections may reference earlier chapters.
There is a lot of information here. Don’t try to swallow it all at once. Elevating your rhymes takes time and effort. It may be worth it to tackle one section at a time, before moving on. Of course, it’s up to you.
This book quotes from various artists including Eminem, Jay-Z, Rakim, Bun B, Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, Chamillionaire, Papoose, Tupac, Mos Def, Tonedeff, Kanye West, Immortal Technique, Dizzee Rascal, Lauryn Hill, Substantial, Session, Wordsworth, Punchline, Canibus, Sage Francis, Cormega, Consequence, Outkast, Black Thought, Ludacris, Raekwon, the Coup, Masta Ace, and from various netcees from the Flocab Rhyme Boards and EmceeBattleForum. com. We apologize if you’re favorite rapper didn’t make this list. Obviously, there is no possible way to include every skilled emcee out there.
One of the best ways to improve as an emcee is by listening to great hip-hop and analyzing what the rappers are doing. All of the lyrics mentioned in this book are from songs that are worth buying. You can find a full list of albums and links to buy them on Flocabulary.com/artists.
Use this book to learn more about the various techniques that rappers use to craft amazing lines. But as with everything, don’t just copy what’s inside. When you spit, be sure to tap into your inner creativity and bring something real and personal. Those are the best rhymes: the ones that are not only technically interesting but also come from a deeper, realer place. Whether you know it or not, we’re all capable of writing rhymes like that.
Enjoy the book and always spit fire.
- Emcee Escher and Alex Rappaport