The Complete MC Blog

So many aspiring MC’s focus all their time on trying to freestyle that they miss out on the most important aspect of being an MC: songwriting.

After all, if you were to name your 10 best emcees, I’m sure all of them would have several songs that you know and love. There’s a timeless aspect to songwriting; everything you’ve ever written and recorded is really a shot at immortality. You may know that Supernatural is the best freestyle MC in the world, but can you name a single song that he’s ever written? One of the greatest freestyle emcees of all time, Juice, went so far as to say that recording is your only real shot at becoming a legend.

Increase your songwriting ability with the following five steps:

1. Focus on effective brainstorming. The rhyming dictionary and thesaurus are your friend. Pick a topic, then use a thesaurus to generate similar words to use in your songs. Once you generated those words, look them up in a rhyming dictionary to find other words that rhyme with them. Very quickly you’ll be able to develop an entire page full of songwriting material.

2. Change your rhyming patterns frequently. Rakim is probably the best example of this; when your flow pattern changes, it forces the listener to pay more attention to what you’re saying. The more attention they’re paying you, the more likely they are to hear some of your best lines; and that’s what it’s all about, right?

3. Use as many different song formats as possible. No matter how dope you may be at one particular style, you have to keep the listeners attention by writing different styles of songs. Try to balance your battle tracks with more socially conscious jams. Mix dance songs with storytelling. If all your songs follow a simple 16 bar\3 verse space format, space you’ll lose the crowd.

4. Build each verse on top of each other. For some reason people seem to forget verse development when it comes to writing a hip-hop song. The masters of all done it: Common and Eminem are just two examples. When you complete the first verse of the song, you should always ask yourself “Where is this song headed? How do I get there from here?” One trick I’ve learned that has helped me is to write a verse that starts and ends with the same line. A great example of this is “Backstage Pacin’” by Brother Ali. Each version begins and ends with the phrase “_______ backstage pacing…” Each verse then explores the thoughts and feelings of a particular character as they (you guessed it) pace back stage at a live show.

5. Showcase your best lines. If you’ve written a song, and you found three or four lines that your absolute favorites give them a strong position in the song. You can either put them at the end of the verse, the beginning of the verse, or any lined it ends on a downbeat. For example if you have four measures the most powerful places are the second scratch that the most powerful lines should be second in the fourth. Think of it like volleyball; the first line sets for the second line. The best battle songs all follow a very simple one two punch delivery.

Flocabulary will help you improve your rap songwriting as well.

I’m always looking for new ideas for postings. If you have a question you’d like answered, or a topic you’d like to discuss, send me a comment.

Peace!