(Note: The quotation in the title is a reference to a RUN-DMC song)
Do you crave notoriety? Fame? Money? Do you want to be a celebrity? An actor perhaps? Or a singer/songwriter like Jewel or Lady Gaga? Do you read People and Redbook and The Inquirer and The Globe and Time and wish you were the people of whom they're writing and whose pictures they're doctoring?
If you said yes to any of the above, know that there is a way to do it. You just haven't found your niche yet. It's possible that you aren't good-looking enough to be in movies, and you can't carry a tune in a waste basket (and if you could carry one, that's probably where you'd carry it). But have no fear. I am here to tell you that you can still make it as....
(Dun dun dun)
A rap artist.
A rap artist? you say. That's your plan? You want me to be a rap artist?
Hey, it's a great idea, whether you're a male or female. All you need is a little know-how. Put your hair in cornrows, wear fur and gold chains with your Knicks jersey, and put in some gold teeth, and you've got it made.
And that's all I have to do? you ask.
Well...no. No. It isn't. I have one more gift for you before you try to become the next big thing in music.
What is it?
I'm going to give you some pointers on how to write a rap song. Then you'll be all set to go.
(For their help with my research, I would personally like to thank Eminem, RUN-DMC, Public Enemy, Sugar Hill Gang, Tupac Shakur, Fresh Prince a.k.a. Will Smith, DJ Jazzy Jeff, House of Pain, Coolio, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, West Side Connection, Grandmaster Flash, Outkast, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Biggie Smalls, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and the Black-Eyed Peas)
The Ten Commandments of Rap-Writing
10. Keep the rhyme going (no matter what). Rhyme is one of the fundamentals of rap, so you'll want to acquaint yourself with the mechanics of masculine, feminine, and slant rhyme. Generally speaking, masculine rhyme, or one-syllable rhymes, are quite popular. In the song, "Lose Yourself", Eminem rhymes decides to rhyme the words go, blow, and yo. Exquisite use of masculine rhyme.
Of course, elsewhere in the song, he uses a great deal of slant rhyme (in fact, the song is dominated by slant rhyme), or rhyme that has a similar vowel sound but is not completely identical in its consonant sounds. The advantage with slant rhyme is greater freedom of expression because there are more words with similar vowels than there words which are exact in both vowel and consonant endings. Eminem uses this method by rhyming sweaty, spaghetti, heavy, already, ready, and forgetting (Note: Because of consonant and vowel endings, not to mention Eminem's particular brand of American dialect, spaghetti, sweaty, ready, and already are examples of exact feminine rhyme, or rhymes of two syllables or more; however, he throws heavy and forgetting into the mix, which are examples of slant rhyme).
Feminine rhyme is a lot more interesting and complex because it involves matching two or more syllables at the end of a line. Suppose for some reason you want to rhyme something with supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It's going to be difficult to do a feminine rhyme, but if you can pull it off without breaking the rhythm, you'll have a great result. You might need to insert some slant rhyme to make it work, but it can be done. I'll prove it.
"Here's a good example now of how I would approach this,
There goes Mary Poppins now, an' everybody knows this,
Fo' shizzle, yeah, my nizzle, yeah,
She comes from Nacogdoches;
It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Word."
Rhymes: check. Rhythm: check. Outstanding: nah.
9. Make up words. Making up words to put in your rhymes often obscures the meaning slightly, but it does make rhyming easier, kind of like Ogden Nash rhyming important with oughtn't by spelling it ortant (from Ogden Nash's "Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man"). Of course, thanks to Snoop Dogg, we know that there is an easier way to use this method of made-up words. Snoop Dogg sticks the ending -izzle onto everything. Problem solved. If everything ends in -izzle, then everything rhymes. You are now free to say whatever you want.
I asked my nizzle
For some bizzle,
He said, no wizzle,
So I bustizzle
A capizzle
In his shizzle buttizzle.
Fo' rizzle.
Yes, I made that up, but only to demonstrate this tip in application.
8. Involve the audience and pander to them. The audience wants to feel like part of the performance so make sure you tell them to clap their hands or sing with you or just put their hands in the air. You can go the Sugar Hill Gang route with this ("Everybody say, Oooh!" "Oooh!" "Everybody say, Aaah!" "Aaah!"), or you can try the Jay-Z method, which not only includes thanking the audience for being there to see "the eighth wonder of the world" (that's Jay-Z, if you didn't know) but also telling them, "This is the anthem so gitcha d--- hands up" (from Jay-Z song "H to the Izzo"; I don't if he took that line from watching Cops too often, but there it is). Make the crowd participate.
7. Use filler words. These words include, but are not limited to, the following: yeah (pronounced YEE-uh), unh, yo, word, life, like, 'sup, fool, the name of your rap group, and a few profanities which I will not list here. Sucker used to be high on the list of filler words, but it's been out of style since Run-DMC ran it into the ground (see RUN-DMC's "Sucker MCs). West Side!
6. Use the same words over and over. If you run out of stuff to say, don't panic. Just use key words in the song again and again and again. For example, if you look at Public Enemy's song "He Got Game," you will notice that 12 of the 18 lines in the chorus end with word game. "What is game? Who got game? / Where's the game / in life? / Behind the game / Behind the game / I got game / She got game / We got game / They got game / He got game."
If they can do it, you can do it.
5. Talk about the things you got (or talk about things you don't got, but act like you got 'em). "I'm an educated fool with money on my mind / Got my ten in my hand and a gleam in my eye" (Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise"). You need to discuss these things openly with your audience. Let them know the truth: you got mo' money than you know what do with. However, remember the audience isn't stupid. They know you don't bathe in gold dust or have platinum rims on your Escalade. However, that should not stop you from pretending like you do. Just don't be delusional.
The pope uses soap,
But that's not for me, nope;
I don't like Dove, if the truth be told,
I can't use nothin' if it ain't made of gold.
Fool!
I bathe in the stuff,
I can't get enough;
The old school's out,
Cuz' I'm bringin' in the new;
An' my gold dust is cool
Cuz' it's in my shampoo.
Unh, unh. Yeah, yeah.
Putchya hands up.
Unh, unh. Yeah, yeah.
Wow. That was sweet (Yes, I just made that up right now, and, no, Digital Underground did not help me with the lyrics).
4. Don't be afraid to be ridiculous. See example above in number 5. See also Fresh Prince's "Nightmare on My Street" for further examples.
3. Be philosophical. This will give your song 1% of depth to your 99% of vapid rhymes and vague social references. For example, Jay-Z said, "He who does not feel me is not real to me / Therefore he doesn't exist, / So poof...you son of a...." (from "H to the Izzo"). Never mind what comes next, because that sentence alone is so profound I am shaking right now thinking about the philosophical implications. That Jay-Z is one smart man. YEE-uh.
2. Talk about what's wrong with the world. To illustrate this, I could cite any number of rap songs. However, I believe, once again, Public Enemy does this as well or better than anyone else: "Human beings scream vocal javelins /...my wandering / got [me] wondering / where Christ is / in all this crisis / Hatin' Satan / never knew what nice is / Check the papers / while I bet on Isis / more than your eye can see/ and ears can hear / year by year / all the sense disappears / nonsense perseveres / prayers laced wit fear / beware" (from "He Got Game"). This need to talk about what's going on the world doesn't show up in rap as much as it used to; however, the Black-Eyes Peas' song "Where Is the Love?" is a great example of this.
1. Use someone else's beat/song and blend it with your own. Jay-Z took from the musical Annie ("Hard-Knock Life"), Chuck D used Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" ("He Got Game"), and of course--my personal favorite--Vanilla Ice stole the beat from Queen's "Under Pressure" for "Ice, Ice, Baby." All of these songs have been quite successful, so feel free to follow their example. Ask for permission first, though.
Bonus Features
A: Profanity is optional, yet trendy
B: Wear cool accessories, like necklaces with giant clock pendants (Thanks, Flava Flav, for being such a trend-setter)
C: Present-day rap priority list: beat first, message second (but it only if you have time for it)
"Consider this a invitation to ma' gangsta nation" (West Side Connection)
Word.
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