Battle Rap 101: How To Win Your First Rap Battle
Imagine the spotlights of the stage centered on you, the deafening silence before the storm.
Hundreds of expecting faces gaze towards the stage as the bass thuds in rhythm with your pulse. The moment of truth is upon you.
As you hold the microphone, a sense of electric anticipation goes through the air, a current you can almost taste.
It’s your first rap battle, where victory isn’t just hoped for, but earned through every meticulously crafted rhyme and perfectly timed punchline.
As the beat is about to drop, ask yourself — are you sure you can guarantee victory?
Have you prepared your bars fully and confidently to win your first rap battle?
In today’s episode of How To Rap… we’re going to make sure you can feel solid that you’ll win the battle in this image, by teaching you, step-by-step:
How To Win Your First Rap Battle
And even better, we’re actually going to have you CREATING the blueprint for your own rap disses to your opponent right here, right now by guiding you through each item.
The best part? To make this process even easier, each rap diss tip will come with examples from some of the “flawless victories” in rap diss history: Nas’s “Ether”, Eminem’s “Killshot”, Pusha T’s “The Story of Adidon”, and Drake’s “Back To Back”.
So without further ado, get your notes app or notes pad out, and get ready to learn how to write a rap diss, step-by-step.
Introduction
Diving deep into research for this piece, we found something interesting in the secret “sauce” of rap history.
A pattern emerged, loud and clear — the biggest, baddest rap disses, the ones that we still can’t get out of our heads, came as a RESPONSE to an initial dig.
Just think about it:
Nas’s “Ether” was actually him hitting back at Jay-Z’s “Takeover”. Pusha T’s “Story of Adidon” was an answer to Drake’s “Duppy Freestyle”.
Eminem fired “Killshot” in response to “Rap Devil” by MGK…
And remember “Back To Back”?
That was Drake standing up to a tweet from Meek Mill saying he “doesn’t even write his own songs”.
So, as we start our step-by-step guide on how to write a killer rap diss, remember this:
Try to use your future “powers for good”, so to speak. Save your most hard-hitting lines for a response.
It’s like saving the best for last. Why? Two reasons.
One, you get to play the “I didn’t want to do this, but you forced my hand” card (we’ll dive deeper into this in tip #3), making you look like the bigger person.
Two, and this is a fact — the crowd loves a fiery comeback more than the first jab.
So, save your knockout punch for the right moment.
#1 “Let Me Explain Why You Failed At Life”
When it comes to understanding how to write fire rap disses, this first tip is pure gold.
The key to really landing a punch lies in your ability to highlight just how your opponent has messed up in life, in one way or another.
If you want to really tear them apart, or in today’s lingo, ETHER them, you’ve got to master this art.
So, the number one aim in any rap diss is to make it absolutely clear to everyone listening that the person you’re up against has messed up big time in life. It could be their career, their relationships, their looks, anything really.
In a bit, we’re going to help you shape your own rap disses using this guideline. But first, let’s illuminate this point with some examples from the rap battlefield:
Interestingly, both Pusha T’s “The Story of Adidon” dissing Drake, and Drake’s own “Back To Back”, follow this rule of underlining how the other person has failed in life.
Take “The Story of Adidon”, for instance. The core message of the song is that Drake is an overconfident, insecure liar, who even denied his own son’s existence. The lyrics go something like:
Let’s have a heart-to-heart about your pride…
Your music for the last few years been angry and full of lies…
A baby’s involved, it’s deeper than rap
We talkin’ character let’s keep with the facts
YOU ARE A HIDING A CHILD, let that boy come home”
-Pusha T, “The Story of Adidon”
The song doesn’t stop there with its “you’ve messed up in life” narrative. It also hits at the idea that Drake hasn’t taken care of his mother and father…
But let’s shift gears a bit and look at how Drake himself used a similar strategy to expose Meek Mill’s shortcomings:
“You love then, you gotta give the world to her
Is that a world tour or your girl’s tour?
I know that you gotta be a thug for her
This ain’t what she meant when she told you to open up more”
Drake, “Back To Back”
I gotta admit, both Pusha T’s line about “hiding a child” and Drake’s line needing to “open up more” still crack me up to this day.
On the other hand, Drake called out Meek for failing in his relationship, insinuating that his girl was the one “wearing the pants” as she was the main act instead of him.
Rap Diss Tip #1 Action Steps
Step #1: Grab a Notebook or Open Up Your Notes App and Pick a Target
Step #2: List Down 1–5 and Career, Relationships, Money, Skills, and Looks
Now, let’s make this about you. Here’s a three-step guide to help you lay the foundation for your own rap diss.
Take a moment to think about who you’d like to diss. It can be a real person or, for simplicity’s sake, pick a well-known rapper or influencer. Heck, you can even choose me.
These are the five most common “angles” for a rap diss. You might attack how they look, like the line “you think you getting girls now ’cause of your looks?” from Ether, or you might criticize their skills, like the “you dress better, I rap better” line in Killshot.
So write these angles down.
Step #3: Develop a “You’ve Failed” Theme for Each Angle
Once you’re done reading this article, create a “you’ve messed up in life” theme for each of the five angles.
Let’s say you chose me as your target, dissing me as a rap coach. You could jot down something like: “Career — Less Than 1 million after 9 Years”, implying that we don’t even have half a million subscribers after running our YouTube channel for 9 years!
Remember, the key takeaway from the most iconic rap disses is this — you MUST convince the audience that your opponent has FAILED in some way.
Now, we are going to be giving you even more value and step-by-step trainings in this video, but if you want to supercharge your ability to win rap battles every time in a more personalized way, visit the first link in the video description to pick up our full-length “Rap Battle Bootcamp” which comes as a free bonus when you click the link below.
#2 Question Structure — “Why Do You Act This Way?”
Another standout trait shared by these legendary rap disses is their use of a questioning tone to deliver the diss.
It’s a blend of argumentative and humorously confused tones. In essence, building upon the “you’ve messed up” theme of the rap diss, you want to comically question them, “Why do you behave like this? WHY ARE YOU SO SILLY?”
Let’s look at Eminem’s “Killshot”, where he throws a barrage of questions at MGK about his “Rap Devil” diss and its accompanying video:
“You dress better I rap better
(Was) that a death threat or… or LOVE letter?”
“Are you eating cereal or oatmeal?
What the f**k’s in the bowl, milk? Wheaties or Cheerios? ’Cause I’m taking a s**t in them”
-Eminem, “Killshot”
Laugh-out-loud funny, right? Eminem is questioning why on earth MGK is munching on a bowl of cereal in his diss song video!
And, of course, why is MGK sprinkling so many compliments in a DISS track? Once again, it boils down to, “WHY DO YOU BEHAVE LIKE THIS?”
Nas uses a similar tactic in “Ether” when confronting Jay-Z, mentioning how Jay-Z has been “riding his coattails” and outright labeling Hov a “fan” who would ring up Nas’s phone.
He also bluntly questions why Jay-Z would write so many songs with a negative view towards women, likely referring to tracks like “Song Cry”, “Soon You’ll Understand”, and others, asking:
“You seem to be only concerned with dissin’ women
Were you abused as a child?
Scared to smile? They called you ugly?”
-Nas, “Ether”
So here we another example of the XYZ in your failed life?” “what would possess to do Framing, and it all comes off quite funny when pose it as a question, as if to say “I’m genuinely confused way you act like such a lame.”
Now let’s return to your notes for this quick exercise.
Step #1: Choose One of the “You’ve Failed” Angles
Take a glance at your list and pick one of the “you’ve messed up” angles.
In our mock diss about me, you might have chosen “Career — Less Than A Million”.
Step #2: Concoct a “Why Do You Behave Like This?” Question
“Nine years in, don’t you realize your name ain’t buzzing? You ain’t hit a million yet, ’cause the game ain’t subbing.”
Step #3: Incorporate At Least 3 Questions in Your Rap Diss
Now, craft a question that highlights why your opponent — the “life failure” — is indulging in this flawed behavior. Using our example, you could come up with: You see how it plays on the basketball metaphor of “subbing in”,
“buzzing”, and “scoring”? Okay, now it’s your turn to create your own interrogative line. This final step can be done later, but I highly recommend including at least THREE of these question-based lines in your rap diss.
They deliver a strong impact and, when spaced out, they don’t seem like a deliberate “strategy”. Give “Ether” and “Killshot” another listen; they both include at least three of these questioning lines, and you never feel like they’re overusing this technique.
#3 “I Didn’t Want To Have To Do This”
The final key element for your diss track builds on the idea of “I’m the bigger person” context we touched on earlier.
It’s about portraying yourself as the more successful one between the two of you in the diss, suggesting that you’ve got MORE IMPORTANT things to do than engage in this petty exchange.
This framing helps paint your opponent as an annoying, insecure underachiever who’s bothering you for some trivial reason (just consider how Eminem talks about MGK or how Nas addresses Jay-Z in their tracks).
Drake, too, nails this sentiment perfectly in his early lines from “Back To Back”:
“You gon’ make me step out of my f**kin’ frame…
You gon’ make me go out of my f**kin’ way…”
And ending the song with “We took a break from Views, now it’s back to that”
— Drake, “Back To Back”
This approach conveys an attitude like, “I didn’t want to have to put you in your place because I’ve got more important things to do. But since you’ve pestered me, I guess I have to do this…”
Drake took a similar stance in his “Duppy Freestyle” with the line, “Don’t push me when I’m in album mode / You’re not even top 5 as far as your label talent goes…”
However, this line didn’t pack as much punch in the broader context of their rap battle.
Nas also employs this technique in “Ether”, using almost the entire third verse to address Jay-Z like he’s a misbehaving child in need of a lesson.
He even goes as far as to refer to Jay as his child, expressing faux pride for his success…
“I watched you grow to be famous… I smile like a proud dad watching his only son who made it…”
Rap Diss #3 Action Steps
For this last exercise, we want you to consider some things in your life that you’d RATHER be doing than squaring off with this “life failure” you’re dissing.
It’s straightforward: jot down three activities you’d PREFER to be doing instead of engaging in this battle. And don’t worry about whether these activities sound “cool” or superior.
You can create a humorous line about how you “could be playing Madden / instead of listening to Drew trying to teach how to do the lamest rapping,” using our ongoing example.
So, take a moment now to think of three things you’d rather be doing instead of battling.
Pulling it all together, the crucial takeaway is that YOU ARE THE MORE IMPORTANT PERSON here, stepping out of your vital life to deal with a LOSER, if you will.
They might be a ‘loser’ because their girlfriend seems more ‘macho’ than they are (as in “Back To Back”)… They could be a ‘loser’ because they’re ashamed of their own child and family (like in “The Story of Adidon”)…
Or…
They could be a ‘loser’ because they’re a secret FAN bothering the GOAT (as we see in both “Ether” and “Killshot”)… But the main idea is, your task is to convince the audience WHY they’re a loser using these steps…
…And once the audience is convinced your opponent’s a loser… well, they LOSE.