How To Write Better Rap Lyrics, Step-By-Step (For ALL Skill Levels)
In today’s article we’ll be covering how to write better rap lyrics for any skill level of rapper who is interested in improving their pen game.
Now obviously the first question before we get into any rap tips on how to write better lyrics will be:
Why should we listen to y’all some random cats on the Internet?
Totally fair.
What makes the tips that follow different than any old forum comment box advice is they are based on not only having spent the last 8 years coaching rappers from around the world on YouTube’s most subscribed channel to learning rapping — “How To Rap” -
But they are also built from having spent over 20 years rapping, including a decade as a professional rapper (that means full-time income, six-figures, etc.)…
And even being fortunate enough to travel to over 15 countries on 3 continents: purely from rapping.
With that being said, if you’re inspired to learn step-by-step how to write better rap lyrics and avoid sounding too BASIC as a rapper…
This is the article for you.
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Now, today’s article is inspired by a comment in the MakingHipHop reddit forum by user Moose Of Magic who says:
Hello, I was looking for better writing tips and tricks.
I’ve written lyrics before for a while but they are all pretty basic.
I just write what I feel and to make it rhyme but it does turn out a bit forced with no real flow or impact ya know?
Is there anything I can do to get better at writing?
This is an excellent question that SO many rappers of all skill levels — even advanced MCs who won’t admit it — ask themselves everyday.
With that in mind, we’re going to tackle the answer to this question with 3 major hacks on how to write better rap lyrics:
- “Topic At The Top” (Beginner-Level)
- “Becoming The Beat” (Intermediate-Level)
- “Rhyme To Reasons” (Advanced-Level)
“Topic At The Top”: Beginner Level
Now, from what we can guess from this commenter we assume he or she might be at roughly beginner or maybe intermediate level of experience.
A beginner is anyone from 0 months rapping to maybe around a year.
With this in mind, our advice to beginners who struggle with, as the commenter says, “just writing what they feel, making it rhyme, but it turns out forced”, is:
First and foremost you need to ALWAYS write a CLEAR topic at the top of your page or notes app when you first start writing.
That means that BEFORE you start trying to just randomly cram ideas together that rhymes, you DECIDE on a specific subject matter or topic you will write on and put that at the top of the page.
If you’re brand new, this can be something extremely simple like “Jordans” as in the shoes…
Or “Growing Up In Brooklyn” if you’re from Brooklyn, etc.
This is because until you have an ability to stick on ONE topic and explore different descriptions and witty ways of attacking that subject matter…
Your raps are going feel scattered (as they do now) but for YOU as the writer and the listener as they hear your music.
Idioms and Catch-Phrases
If you’d like to up the challenge for yourself and feel like simply writing “Jordans” or “Growing Up In Brooklyn” is too simplistic.
You can take a different approach and look up “idioms” or catch-phrases from everyday life and turn them into a rap.
An idiom is a common non-literal phrase meant to represent a behavior or an idea that literally happens in life.
A really clear example of this would be “the ball is in your court”.
If I was to say to you “look, homey, in this situation… the ball is in your court”… You’d likely know that I meant:
“Your success or failure in this situation will come down the decisions you make”.
Therefore you can instead write at the top of your page “The Ball’s In My Court” and then decide to write better rap lyrics about your decision making throughout the life situations you’re going through.
There are literally 1000s of idioms to look up and many major rap songs such as Kanye West’s “Stronger” (built off of the idiom ‘that which doesn’t kill me can only make me stronger’), Eminem’s “Cleaning Out My Closet” (built off of the idiom ‘you have some skeletons in your closet’) and many others are built off of them.
“Becoming The Beat”: Intermediate Level
A step higher than writing a topic or an idiom at the top of your page to help you stay focused to write better rap lyrics is “become the beat”…
In other words, let the beat guide the content of your rap lyrics.
We call this “becoming the beat” because it represents how YOUR job as a rapper is to seamlessly lyrically MESH with the EMOTION the beat you choose brings out of the listener.
So of course step 1 in this process is find a beat with a very clear emotional feeling to it.
If you have trouble finding a beat or beats that you like, one really good tool we’ve recently found is Beatopia, an online platform sort of like the “Netflix of Beats” where you can discover instrumentals that you can record on and even release tracks with no worries about copyrights… from producers who have worked with everyone from Gunna to Justin Bieber. If you use promo code howtorap on the first link in the video description… you get your first month of beats for $1!
In any case, once you find the beat, the quickest way to decide which kind of emotion to put in your lyrics to “become the beat” is:
As you’re listening to the instrumental…
WHAT IS THE MOST LIKELY LOCATION ON EARTH YOU WOULD HEAR THIS TYPE OF MUSIC?
So, for example, if the beat has epic strings, some horn stabs, and a little bit of a classical triangle in the background with hard drums…
It probably sounds like it would be played a rap battle, a boxing match, a sporting event, something like that.
So the emotions you might feel are: motivated, competitive, energized, ready to hustle, etc.
Now that you have the EMOTIONS you’re feeling…
Next think about the kinds of EVENTS that happen when you feel those emotions.
So, when you feel motivated… what events happen in your life?
Again, you probably rap battle people, or you hustle to get more money in the streets, or you watch your favorite sport.
Now you have events that you can build wordplay off of…
“I’m ‘bout my GOALS LIKE MESSI
’Cause I’m COLD LIKE GRETZY
The STREETS STALLIN’ … I’ll KEEP BALLING
Until I HOLD AN ESPY”
Etc.
So, for more intermediate cats trying to figure out how to write better rap lyrics…
It’s absolutely crucial that once you can STAY ON TOPIC as we trained you in the beginning…
That you can also seamlessly find ways to lyrically MESH with the emotions content of the beat.
Rhyme To Reasons (Advanced Level)
Now for you more advanced artists who already know how to stay on topic and already know how to mesh with the beat…
You might still struggle to know how to write better rap lyrics in a way that make people make the “stanky face” or the “Ooooooh” sound after your bars.
Ideally, after your most witty punchlines people are going exclaim some surprise at how witty something is…
But there’s a real artist to that as well.
In our experience, one excellent quick way to do this is to THINK of a bunch of rhymes for a particular name…
Then FIND some lyrical overlap with all of the rhymes…
And then backtrack and lyrically ATTACH reasons to make the line dope.
Let’s go through a couple examples to make this clearer.
Rhymes To Reason Example 1
Okay so the user’s name is Moose of Magic.
First, let’s think of a bunch of different rhymes for Moose of Magic without trying to have them make sense:
Moose of Magic
Truth is Tragic
Too Fantastic
Loosest Fabric
You Can Hack It
Shoot With Maverick
True Fanatic
Cuban Taxes
New Assassins
Okay we have a bunch here, but a lot of these don’t really have any lyrical or thematic overlap…
Like what does “too fantastic” and “truth is tragic” really have to do with each other?
HOWEVER, something like “shoot with maverick” and “Cuban taxes” have some overlap… or at least we can make overlap since CUBAN is the last name of Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas… MAVERICKS…
Also MAVERICK is the name of Tom Cruise’s character in Top Gun 1 and 2… and Top Gun 2 just came out…
And even now as I say this, “Cruise with Maverick” is another possible rhyme with “Moose With Magic” which combines the name Cruise with Maverick… Literally.
So what we end up doing is taking these RELATED rhymes we’ve found and try to create a punchline AFTER the fact… that’s the reason.
“They call me MOOSE WITH MAGIC
Buzz bigger than Mark CUBAN’S TAXES
I got top gun shooters like Lil’ Dirk
You don’t want to CRUISE WITH MAVERICK”
Or something like that, basically playing with the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban line but… also having a top gun reference mixed with a Dirk Nowitzki reference ALSO with Lil’ Dirk, etc. etc.
Rhymes To Reason Example 2
Let’s do one more quick example of using rhymes to reason on any topic to lock this in.
Let’s go with HOW TO RAP and let’s say somebody’s battling us at how to rap.
You have rhymes like:
HOW TO RAP
ALLEY CAT
‘BOUT TO SCRAP
DOUBTED THAT
POWER NAP
SHOWER CAP
HOUR BACK
Etc.
Okay so now it’s time to look for some overlap.
I might think that “power nap” and “hour back” have some connection because if you take a power nap it might be for like an HOUR or so.
Also “doubted that” might be useful because if I’m battling this channel I want an insulting phrase about doubt to use in a rhyme.
We think for a few seconds, try to connect some reasons, and then we might say something like…
“They told me you could teach me HOW TO RAP
Somehow I DOUBTED THAT
But after watching, I didn’t ask for MY HOUR BACK
’Cause thanks to y’all I got a real refreshing POWER NAP”
Etc.
Conclusion
So, overall hopefully you now see how that for each level you can use different tips and tricks to better develop and widen your ability to write better rap lyrics.
If you’re a beginner, the best place to start is just spend a couple of months getting good at FINDING and STAYING on topic over the course of a verse or song.
Next, you can start to BECOME THE BEAT through matching your lyrical emotions to the emotion of the beat…
And lastly, as you get more advanced, you practice using the BEST RHYMES from your brainstorm to combine with REASONS why those rhymes can be mixed and matched together to make witty and funny punchlines.
