Copywriting Lessons from Rapper J-Cole
2 important practices that will make you better at writing great copy
The new wave now is copywriting, every business needs it and every freelancer wants to be the best copywriter because of the outrageous sums of money it can bring not just for you but for your clients.
Copywriting is the bread and butter of the most successful online businesses, as it taps into buyer psychology and can determine how much sale or action an audience can take after reading your work.
One thing all new copywriters(or would-be copywriters) have in common is that they read one or two books, and immediately start searching for clients, even though their skill level is not yet up to par.
If you are in this group, you know how it feels, you do not even feel confident in yourself and when you pitch your work, you know deep down that you have a higher chance of getting rejected.
This does not just happen with writing copy but with any new high-income skill that you want to learn and master. There are no two ways about it, if you do not put in the practice, you’d never get as good as you know you can be.
Last year, I heard of copywriting for the first time and was intrigued by the prospects of what I could do with that form of writing. I did not know how powerful the skill was nor did I know the time and dedication it would take to get better at that it.
I got a book — Cashvertising by Drew erics and began to read slowly in my free time and while the book was great, I did nothing with the knowledge. I just knew more about a few tips I could use to improve my writings. I felt a book was just enough and once I implemented it, I’d be great. I was wrong. Nothing happened, I just knew primary desires and a little about human psychology.
In August this year, I decided to start learning copywriting again, I had this burning desire that I was going to get great at it. I loved to write so I figured if I can just get the basics down I could do something great with it
This led to my first copywriting course and this was an awesome course from someone who is one of the best copywriters to come out of Nigeria.
The course had none of the Fluff or BS and some of the suggestions felt like a punishment.
One of the main exercises that I was given as part of this course was writing out good copy by hand. If you have ever studied a sales letter, you’d understand how much work that can be when you are just getting started.
I grudgingly did the exercise for a few days and quit. That was before I found this article by J-cole
J-cole to the rescue
On July 21, 2020, Rapper J-cole published a personal essay in the players tribune titled the Audacity. He talked about his life and the decisions and actions that led to him being one of New Yorks's best rappers and how he would use those same hunger to one day play professional basketballer.
Jcole has always been one of my favorite MCs and I have followed everybody of work he has ever released. Seeing an article that shows a peek into his creative process was not something I would pass up on and I read every word of that article and realized that genius really is in all of us. The only difference is practice — lots of it.
If you read through the article, the part that pulled me in was the “writing drills” This is something he has always done even without a dollar to his name and how he had always been better at his craft. At 31 after the successes of his previous works, he had lost the hunger and he knew he only way to get it back was through practice.
He moved back to the apartment he used to live in before fame and fortune came. He writes
I decided to move back in for a while. I carried my bag up several flights of stairs and got a rush of nostalgia. The smell, the carpet, the dust. Everything was exactly as it used to be. For me, this house was a physical representation of the hunger that I craved — in a rap sense and in a literal sense. In the nearly two years between my college graduation and my first recording advance, many days were spent under this roof with no money to feed myself. At times, I had just enough change to purchase a dollar-slice of pizza from Hillside Avenue, which I would buy at exactly 7pm, a time that I had deemed optimal for managing the pain of an empty stomach during my waking hours. For the next three months I would wake up in that old, familiar room, putting myself through morning writing drills before heading off to Electric Lady Studios with a short term plan to finish the 4 Your Eyez Only album before the arrival of my first child, and a long term plan of becoming the best rapper I could possibly be before hanging up my jersey, leaving nothing on the table when all was said and done — J cole
Wow, I thought to myself, So writing drills is how you got better?
It is similar to how you could only become a better writer by writing and posting.
I also hear lil wayne and Eminem in an interview this year talk about doing daily writing drills. I always felt it came easy to these guys and the genius was in-born.
This was lesson 1.
Lesson 2 from J-cole…
Jcole had always left gems of his creative process in most of his songs and one I can recall that would be of great benefit to new copywriters who want to get good is from his 2019 hit track “Middle child” he raps
To the OG’s
I’m thanking you now
Was watching you when you was paving the ground
I copied your cadence
I mirrored your style
I studied the greats
I’m the greatest right now — J cole (Middle Child)
This was his confirmation of being good only because he looked at the top MCs that influenced his growth and built on what was already working.
As an aspiring copywriter, you should be looking to write out great sales copy by hand. Study the format of what has been done and has worked before. If you keep feeding your mind with great copy that has worked in the past, you would know the structure and get a deeper understanding of what a good copy looks like and what makes it work.
You can also find interviews and song lyrics of him putting up the favorite rap lyrics of his idols on the wall of his room. In one of his songs (let Nas Down) he raps
I used to print out Nas’ raps and tape ’em up on my wall
My niggas thought they was words, but it was pictures I saw
And since I wanted to draw, I used to read them in awe — J cole ( let Nas Down)
Everything he does in his process was all about a clear road path to becoming great at anything by following the footsteps of the greats that went before him.
You should not try to reinvent the wheel. You should build on what is already working. This is true in any craft or high income skill you want to master. But most especially important if you want to sell your services as a copywriter.
You should
- Visualize
- You put in hours of practice — countless hours to get better
- and build on the works of great copywriters like Gary Halbert, Joe Sugarman and study every great copy you can lay your hands on.
There is nothing more or less than doing those things. You should be building on the shoulders of the greats till you find your voice.
But what happens really is that new and aspiring copywriters(including me of a year ago) always tried to reinvent the wheel and bypass the basics.
The basics are your foundation. It is what makes you get from good to better and by copying by hand or doing writing drills(what I call my exercise now), you are feeding your brain and your mind with the best way it works.
How to apply this to any skill
- First, have a burning desire
- Know it would take hours of practice to get better every day
- Follow through on what has worked before and execute
Most people see the end results to their dream and bypass the most important things that would bring their dream to fruition which is the process
The process is what leads you from visualization to results… if you cannot imagine yourself doing the process, you’ll never be great. You’ll always have an excuse to quit.
After J cole interview, I looked at some of the best MCs in the game and my other favorite rappers - Eminem, Jay Z and Lil Wayne and they all admit to writing every day.
These are MCs that could do a 3-hour freestyle on the spot but still, they have made consistent practice a part of their daily routine as you should too.
An hour for 3 months writing out great copy by hand would bring more reward than every book on copywriting you can read.
