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Guide

How To Be A Better Rapper

Becoming a better rapper takes time, but you can work towards this goal if you know what to do to reach it. Before you try rapping and making a career out of it, you should do what it takes to rap as best as you can. Here are some tips that are going to help you learn how to rap better.

Singer on Mic

Set your Pitch

You will want to start by thinking of how your rap voice should sound. For instance, many people have their voice at a higher pitch than normal when they are rapping. Then, some use lower voices for their raps. Think about what you’re comfortable with so you can make your rap voice unique to you. Don’t try to copy the greats; start by making sure you have a style of your own that is unique but not so different that it stands out in a bad way.

Find A Rap Name

A stage name or more popularly known as Rap Name is as important as the Rap itself. Like all big rappers of all time such as Eminem, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, Busta rhymes had their Rap name in place and this is what gave them a distinct identity than the rest, which is why you too should be working on your Rap Name or Stage Name. There are tonnes of resources available on the internet where you can find how to generate a Rap Name for yourself. If you don’t want to put hours into finding a Stage Name for yourself then you can use a rap name generator online and get amazing options to choose from.

Study your Craft

Rapping will not be something you can do better with if you just attempt to do it enough times. You have to study the craft to find out what makes good raps what they are. You’re going to need to look to the greatest raps out there to study them to find out what makes them great and popular even to this day. A lot of rappers are out there that you can get inspiration from, but be sure you don’t outright copy anyone because that won’t work in your favor in the long run.

Be Creative

When you want to rap, you’re going to need to learn how to develop creative rhymes. Don’t just use the same rhymes in every song, or your music will get boring fast. Many people make it without having creative raps, but that’s just because they got lucky and were in the right place at the right time with their music. Figure out how to rhyme better in your raps. For instance, you can rhyme more than just once in two bars, and that can add another layer to your songs. For instance, instead of just saying something like “the cat was cool, he went to school,” you could rhyme “the cat in the hat was cool / cause he stayed on top of that in school.” Don’t try to rhyme so much that it’s annoying to people, but you don’t have to just have one rhyme per every couple of bars. You can also do it the other way and have rhymes every other bar to shake things up.

Practice Rigorously

Rap along with songs that you hear on the internet or that you can find on albums that you really enjoy. When you practice rapping, make sure you pick out songs that are not super easy to follow along with. You want to find rappers that really lay down good bars that are not easy to replicate so you can start to see what makes what they do great. When following along, make sure you look up the actual lyrics so you don’t rap them wrongly due to not hearing what they are saying properly.

Work on your Vocabulary

To rap, it can help to find out what different words mean so you have more that you can use in your songs. This means that you’re going to actually want to check out a dictionary from time to time and a thesaurus so you can learn different words and their meanings. Once you know more words than before, you can add them to your raps to add an extra layer of creativity to it all. Many people think simplistic is the way to go, but that does get boring if you never learn anything new.

Do Mock Concert

Rapping is something you need to practice in a live setting regularly if you want to get better at it. At first, you probably won’t be ready to get on a stage and do your music that way, but you can do mock concerts in your home where you rap a few songs in a row over some beats just to get a feel for how to do them live. Once you’ve practiced enough, you should see if there are any places locally that do open mic nights so you can test out your material with an audience.

Showcase Your Music

Don’t think that you’re a great rapper because your family and friends like the music you’ve shared with them. They generally are going to always like what you made because it makes them happy to see you being creative. Instead, put your music on the internet and prepare for comments that may make you feel like the songs you make need some work. It’s good to get constructive criticism because that lets you know what you can change to make the song a better piece to people checking it out.

Conclusion

Now you’re aware of what it takes to learn how to rap better. Know what you need to do so you can take steps to create decent music. Never assume this is easy because it does take a lot of practice to get right.

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Guide

How To Stay On Beat While Rapping

You need to learn how to stay on the beat when rapping if you want your raps to sound decent to listeners. Also, you need to know what it takes to come up with clever raps, so they’re worth the listeners’ time. Before you start to rap regularly, or even if you’re not new to this, you can learn a lot about getting into rapping properly. These tips will make it easy for you to go from an average rapper to one that many people are likely to be interested in listening to.

Rapper-on-mic-with-cap

Rap Speed

When it comes to staying on beat, you need to think about your rap speed. If you’re faster at rapping, then you can fit more words in a bar and still have it be on beat. If you’re going to rap slower, you need to write fewer words to rap, so you don’t have to go offbeat to fit everything into the song you are working on. Some rappers are versatile and mix fast and slow styles. Either way, you need to stay on beat by altering how many words you fit into each bar.

Keeping it Simple

Don’t rap over beats that are too complicated for your style. If a beat is really fast, for instance, and you’re not good at rapping fast, then you’re going to stumble over your words as you try to stay on beat. There are tons of beats out there that you can work with, even free ones that are easy to practice as you start to get into training yourself to be a better rapper. Work your way up to where you can have more complicated bars instead of trying to do difficult raps, to begin with.

Get Support

Know that your family and friends are generally proud of you for making music and will compliment it even if it’s not that good. This is why you need to put some of your music on the internet on a website that lets people listen to what you’ve made for free. You can then market your music page and try to get people to come and listen to music on it. When strangers give you advice and let you know what they don’t like, you can then work on raps that are more likely to appeal to people when you fix your songs’ issues.

Find your Style

Figure out what your style is when it comes to rapping over beats. For instance, if you’re rapping about darker topics, then you’re going to want to have beats that are a little dark overall. Don’t rap about serious topics over a fun beat, and don’t try to write party songs over beats in minor keys that sound depressing. You have to become good at picking out beats to rap because when you have a style, you have to stick with it, so people know what they’re getting when they listen to you.

Work Hard

Practice as much as you can on your rapping skills. You need to keep at it regularly, or you’re not going to do well at all as an artist. Many people think that if they can rap along with their favorite songs, they can rap and don’t need to practice. This is not a good attitude because you have to be willing to work on your raps regularly. It’s like anything else in life; you have to work at it a lot if you want to become better at rapping than your average person.

Persistence

Don’t give up if people don’t respond well to your music at first. Keep working towards making music that does well, but doesn’t throw in the towel because you wrote one or two songs that don’t get a lot of attention quite yet. Know that there are tons of people out there that are rapping and trying to make it big, so you have a lot to compete with at a lower level. However, if you keep working at it, then eventually, you’ll rise above the beginners and enter into a place where you’re rapping for a larger audience.

Practice

When you’re trying to learn how to rap, make sure you practice out loud and not just in your head all the time. You want to stand in front of a mirror and rap to get an idea of what you look like as you are rapping. Try to have a clothing style that works with the lyrics you’re coming up with so you have a bit of character as a rapper. Know that a lot of what makes a musician successful is their image, not just that they are good at rapping.

Set Goals

Make goals for yourself, like making a song every week for a year straight for practice. You don’t have to release your practice songs, but if you write something that seems to be catchy and a good fit for your image, put it online, and see how it does. You’ll be surprised with what gets popular and how it’s always the last song you thought would do that well. People tend to like what is catchy, so don’t always go overboard trying to be too political or anything if that’s not part of your image overall.

Conclusion

Now you are aware of how to stay on the beat when rapping and more. Don’t just think that you can rap because you’re good at making songs sound like other popular music. You need to carve out your style if you want this to go well for you. Not just anyone can be a rapper; it’s just not that easy. If it were that easy, then there would be a lot more successful rappers out there. You need to be careful and build a solid foundation, so you are a musician that people respect in the long run.

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Guide

The Intriguing History Of Rap Music

Rap is one of the most popular mainstream music genres. It is often considered a new style of music; however, many are surprised by how far Rap’s history goes.

In this article, we will consider some interesting facts about Rap music and its origins. We will start with the name Rap.

Rappers

Why Is It Called Rap?

So, where exactly did the name Rap come from? The truth of the matter is that none knows. But there are many interesting theories to choose from to form your own opinion.

One interesting theory is that Rap is an acronym for “Rhythm and Poetry.” That would make perfect sense since rap music is poetry put to a rhythm. This definition is a favorite theory of true artists at heart. However, some of the more rebellious fans prefer the theory that it stands for “Rebellion against Police.” As we will see later on, however, the rebellion wasn’t really at the heart of the rap movement in its beginnings.

Others argue that instead of being an acronym, it simply borrows the word from common English. For centuries, the word “rap” has been used to refer to a light knock on a door. The sound of someone “rapping” on a door could be considered similar to the repeated rhythm so characteristic of rap music.

In more recent years, “Rap” was adapted as a slang verb that refers to an open and free, sometimes radical, discussion. This also would make sense since most topics that makeup rap songs are of this nature.

All of the above theories make sense, so it comes down to which one you like and want to accept. Let’s get into detail on how the actual music originated.

Who Was The First Rapper?

The exact origins of rap, similar to its name, are somewhat obscure. Many will point to a live event in the Bronx in the 1970s as the first rap song ever performed (more about that later). But historians point to much further back.

They point to thousands of years before the Bronx ever existed. Back on the African continent, most tribes had what is referred to as Griots. Griots were the entertainers, newscasters, and historians of a tribe. They would tell stories rhythmically while playing music with a handheld instrument, such as a drum.

Many African slaves continued this tradition in the US, which could account for the supposed origins in Blues and Jazz (more about that later).

It is also worth mentioning the “call and answer” songs sung in the fields between the enslaved workers while they worked in the fields. They would sing to the rhythm of their movements while working, often answering one another in a similar fashion to today’s rap “battles”.

Some historians argue that Blues music should be considered the start of modern rapping. It is claimed that some blues songs were rapped instead of sung as far back as the 1920s. Likewise, Jazz should also be accredited as having an influence on modern rap for similar reasons.

Another theory is that rapping has its roots mainly in the Jamaican practice of “toasting.” This theory was enhanced because the first identifiable and authentic modern rapper, DJ Kool Herc, was a Jamaican immigrant. Herc, however, publicly denied the connection.

While the theories that we have mentioned above are somewhat controversial, everyone agrees that it was in the 1970s that modern rap music took off in the mainstream. Mostly thanks to block parties in the Bronx.

Most accept that DJ Herc was the first to catch on to the crowd’s reaction when making a melodic announcement with the music still playing. At a historical block party in the Bronx, in 1973, he got his friend La Rock to pronounce what is widely accepted as the first official rap bar. After this moment, Rap’s history has been well documented.

What About The History Of Rap Subject Matter?

Despite its popularity in recent years, rap music has gotten a bad rap (no pun intended). However, examining the modern history of rap is actually quite inspiring to most musicians.

While it is true that many groups out there concentrate on crime and rebellion that is not what rap music is really all about. In the 1970s, rap music’s main theme sung at block parties was “party rhymes,” meant to keep the crowd in a festive mood.

The second most rapped theme was based on love, sex, and beauty. Another popular theme is material possessions and riches, which are a favorite since rapping and bragging combine nicely.

Conclusion

In this brief discussion on rap history, we have seen that it undoubtedly has its roots in ancient Africa. This fascinating music genre will surely be respected and cherished well into the future!