The Complete MC Blog

Whoever says that battles are strictly freestyle is a liar. Even if
their rhymes aren’t written before the battle, you better believe
they are looking at you and working out ways to humiliate you
before you both get up on that stage.

Here is how you limit that possibility. Whenever I’m in a battle I
will wear a loud, obnoxious shirt that draws attention (my bright
red T with Bruce Lee on the front is a personal favorite). Other
MC’s who are sizing me up will be formulating punchlines around
that shirt. They can’t help but focus on it!

Here’s the kicker… When my name is called to go up on stage, I
quickly through a jacket over the shirt. This destroys any
punchline my opponent has about it. If they use the line anyways, I
look out to the crowd and act completely bewildered, as if to say
“Why is he referencing Bruce Lee when I’m wearing a brown jacket?”

The key is to dress loud before the battle, then cover up with
something plain during the battle. The same goes for hair: if you
sport a ponytail or cornrows, throw a cap on right before.

Make your opponent beat you in the moment, while you can use any
observation you have of them before the battle.

Here is an article I picked up on Wikihow. It provides additional help on how to rap battle.

First things first; battling is the basis for all rap music. The battle is the truest essence of rap and where rap music started. The object of a rap battle is to come up with insulting rap lyrics on the spot (not pre-written or pre-meditated) and rap them towards an opponent. The rapper with the best delivery, lyrics, and crowd response usually wins. This manual will outline the basic steps of how to begin rap battling, and some tips that will make you better.

Steps

1. Do your homework, watch videos online of battles (smack DVD and jumpoff.tv are good ones), or try to go to rap battles near your hometown. There is a scene in the movie 8 mile that is a good representation of what a freestyle rap battle is really like.

2. Try and get your ears on some freestyle raps done by accomplished artists who are well known for their rap battles. You can learn a lot from rappers like Eminem, JIN, D-Graz, Big L, Ill Bill, Eyedea, Adeem, Vinnie Paz, Pacewon and any other artist known for battling. Good battles to look up include the Blaze Battles from HBO, Scribble Jam, among others. YouTube.com is an easy way to find these.

3. Pay careful attention to the techniques those artists use to battle, and try to mirror them which will help you enhance your own techniques.

4. Start writing. Write down anything that comes to mind and try to rhyme it. Write down sets of rhymes and then choose the best rhymes to go with your subject of rap.Consider getting a rhyming dictionary. The ability to write an effective battle rhyme will aid you when it comes to the battle.

5. Practice freestyling (rapping without pre-written lyrics on the spot or impromptu) — anytime, anywhere, as much as you can. Even if you run out of things to freestyle about, just keep going, the longer you force yourself to rap without giving up the stronger you’ll become mentally. It’s like a mental workout.

6. Once you get freestyling down, try freestyling battle rhymes. Take a picture of someone, look at your dog do what ever you can to picture an opponent you are about to rap against and try and come up with clever ways to insult the opponent with rap lyrics.

7. Start freestyle battling. The best way to start battling is to find opponents that are just for fun and don’t care if you insult them or mess up for that matter. Constantly battle like that with people, especially if you can find a friend who is actually good at battling so they can teach how to improve what you lack. Again, continue to practice this until other friends you know (especially those into hip-hop music) think you’re pretty good. House parties, and rap concerts are also good places to practice your battle rap techniques before actually entering a staged freestyle rap battle.

Don’t worry if you lose your first few real battles, the point is to constantly practice freestyling and writing. As with anything, the longer you do it the better you’ll become. Continue practicing until you’ve got it down. There are many techniques to battling, but these are just the basics.

Tips

* When in a rap battle, you want to make sure that your verse includes three major things.

o Metaphors - Making comparisons with your opponent to something that insults them.

o Disses - (a diss is an insult)You want to diss your opponent on broad topics like: how they dress, speak, spit, look, walk, talk, act, or their personality; or personally: the way they live, their past, their lifestyle, or any other weaknesses about them.

o Humor - Make the crowd and judges and even your opponent laugh. Sometimes that will win the battle for you.

* Battle raps are made up of two parts; a set up and a punch line. The set up is a line that is an opener or rhyme line that your punch-line (where the insult is) will follow. A Punch-Line is basically a line that incorporates a Metaphor, Dis, and/or anything else to enhance the flow directed at your opponent.

o Example: In Nas’ song called Ether (a famous rap battle song directed towards Jay-Z) he says “Put it together (the set up), I rock hoes ya’ll Roc-Fellas” (the punch line is an insult using the name of Jay-Z’s rap label and insinuating that Jay-Z and his camp prefer men over women).

* If someone beats you in a battle and it gets to you, practice more until you think you’re really ready. Then challenge them again: if you win, you will earn a lot of respect back. It’s a great feeling, and chicks or dudes will dig your system and flair.

* The more you write the better your freestyle will become.

* When you think you lost it, don’t worry - just relax. The worst thing to do is freak out. Just relax and keep going. There is always value in overcoming a mess up.

* While your opponent is rapping, you should be figuring out what you are going to say in your next verse. But be careful not to tune your opponent out, because sometimes the insults they say to you can be flipped (re-directed as an insult towards the person who said it) and used to your advantage.

* Ordering of the spit is also important to some degree. While you are trying to rebut someone dissing you when you reply back, but when you spit first, you want to take that away. You can do that by self-deprecation. Anyone who can self-criticize can be very unexpected for the opponent trying to find flaws.

* Take 8 Mile’s Final Battle for example, since B-Rabbit was put to spit first, he insulted himself and basically said a big ’so what?’. “Yes, I’m white, I’m a bum, I live in a trailer, my mum’s a drug addict…”, thus basically taking every possible insult directed at him away from Papa Doc before Papa has anything to fight back. Then B-Rabbit dissed Papa Doc for being a private-schooler, then he closed out his turn by saying this battle is pointless, “Here, tell people something they don’t know about me”.

* Use humor in your rhymes, especially if your opponent is dead serious, that will make them mess up and possibly crack up. If you can get your opponent to agree with you during your battle verse, you are making great strides towards a win.

* Just stay focused and be confident in what your saying. Remember delivery is everything.

* There are two types of battles, free style and thought out, now.A battle may go longer than you thought so just remember to practice and bring out words out of the blue.Try to write the lyrics that are thought out when you’re angry or hyper, energy puts words on paper.

* Don’t say anything that is unrelated to the person, and don’t say your going to kill them or that you sell drugs if you don’t.

* Even if the opponent is using pre writtens - say he is, then there will always be that uncertainty in the crowd.

* Don’t look down, when you look down you show that you are getting beat, stay lookin into his eyes, but not like you are hard and your gonna hit him, cause chances are he will hit you.

* Stay specific, they will reduce your oponents self-confidence.

* If you lose many rap battles and your friends pick it up with you, don’t listen to them. Because you can get yourself real down and maybe do some crazy stuff. Just relax, take a break and just listen to your heart (sometimes you just have to stop looking and searching, and things will come by themselves).

Any other ideas? Drop a comment and let me know.

Of all the aspects in hip hop, nothing illustrates the thrill of victory and agony of defeat as well as a freestyle battle. I’ve personally seen MCs break down and say that they would never freestyle again after losing a battle in front of their friends and family.

Freestyle battles are the measure of a MC; it shows how well you can handle victory as well as defeat. Over my decade of rapping I have encountered hundreds of battles; most of which I’ve won some of which I’ve lost.

Here are seven tips that have helped me win battles in the past. I hope they do the same for you…

1. Be specific. No matter how good your lines are, if the crowd feels what you’re saying can apply to anybody, it will fall flat. For example, I was in a battle a few years ago against a real fat dark skinned guy. In this scenario, had I used simple jokes about his mother, the crowd would’ve seen right through it and realized it was probably a written line. While a fat joke would’ve been better being more specific), everybody knows at least five or six fat jokes. In the end, I said “ he looks like this the stay-puffed marshmallow man burnt to a crisp.” The line was so specific that the audience knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was in fact freestyling, and it won the day.

2. Use props. Crush your opponents with the use of props. A freestyle battle is a lot like a kung fu movie; the best battles are the ones that are able to incorporate everything in the room. Look around. If there is a run DMC poster in the background, you can make fun of someone by saying he’s nothing more than a sucker MC. If he’s wearing a Public Enemy shirt you can call him a wanna-be Flavor Flav, an aspiring crack addict, a no talent ass clown who can’t rap at all.

3. Jump of the Stage. The most important part of winning a battle is getting the crowd on your side. A simple and effective way to do this is to jump off the stage and get next to the crowd. After all, if you’re standing next to someone in the crowd while you’re talking shit about someone on the stage, it’s pretty hard for them to disagree with you, isn’t it?

4. Flip your opponents punchlines to your advantage. If your opponent makes fun of you for being skinny, and he’s kind of on the heavy side, use that to your advantage. If he makes fun of you for wearing cheap clothes, you can make fun of him for being a pretty boy. Any approach that they use on you can be flipped easily and used to win the battle.

5. When you can’t beat them at their own game, change the rules. If your opponent is killing you on punchlines, tried to beat them using a different flow. I’ve seen people win battles not because they had better punchlines, but because they were able to win the crowd. Simple call and responses can give you the slight edge that you need to win.

6. Anticipate your opponents rhymes. In doing so, you are showing the audience that your opponents rhymes are so simple you see them coming a mile away. The most devastating lines that you can inflict upon your opponents are the most unexpected. Just like punches, the ones you don’t see coming are the ones that hurt the most.

7. Avoid racial slurs. This is always been a touchy subject in rap battles. Unless you can deliver a completely original line about your opponent (like the stay-puffed marshmallow man example) you’re better off leaving the subject of race alone.

I have the utmost respect for anyone who has the guts to get up on stage to face off with someone whose sole intent is to humiliate them. Battle techniques are constantly evolving, and if you have any other ideas that you’d like to share, I’d appreciate it if you left a comment below. Best of luck!

Click the link for more tips on how to win a rap battle