14-Day Rap Metaphors Challenge To Crush Wordplay

Rap Metaphors Challenge

Rap Metaphors are a key element in advancing your wordplay and lyric writing abilities. I have taken some inspiration from a 14-day challenge that requires a small time window every day for the next two weeks. I will say, if you’re not going to follow-through on this, then move on now. I am writing this for the hip hop heads who want to find their voice through practice and exercise. 

If you do this for the next 14 days your rap metaphors and writing will have much more substance. 

I will also preface this by saying that a precursor to this style of writing is understanding how to write using your senses. Sight, smell, touch, taste, sound and you can even add kinetic motion in there as well. 

Rap metaphors occur when two ideas are married together. The ideas come together to create a new partnership. Which is actually a metaphor in itself. Ideas can’t actually marry each other, unless you think of ideas in terms of relationships and how they can come together to create a new purpose. 

Two ideas can marry together when they are in different families. Like the words idea and marriage. These words are not part of the same family. For example idea and theme would be in the same family of words. When you take two unrelated ideas and put them together, a third idea comes out of it. An idea that contains them both. A metaphor. 

So, if you’re thinking of ideas in terms of marriage, you start trying to find things you do when getting married. You try to come up with potential ideas that they could have in common. 

An idea might be:

• Left at the altar.
• Never a bride, always a bridesmaid.
• Walking down the aisle.
• Paid for by your parents. 

You see metaphor sprinkled throughout life everywhere you go. It’s in conversations, stories, poems, songs, articles, advertisements, pictures, etc. Everywhere. We naturally gravitate toward it as people. Seeing one thing as if it is something else. 

When you say “You’re biting off more than you can chew”. This is a common saying in the English language. This is a metaphor. Biting more than you can chew is literally trying to take a big bite out something. So big, that you can’t chew. But what is meant, is don’t overextend yourself. Saying you can do too many things but you can’t get them done. Or trash talking someone without backing it up. 

First, let’s take a look at the different types of rap metaphors you might use in hip hop. Don’t get hung up on the terms too much, it’s actually super simple. We all use nouns, verbs, adjectives all the time.

Understanding Different Types Of Rap Metaphors

Expressed Identity 

This is when you create an identity between two NOUNS. For example: “the music is a map”, “the house is a pirate ship”. 

 There are 3 different ways these are done. 

1. X is Y – Music is a map
2. The Y of X – The map of music
3. X’s Y – Music’s Map

It’s a good idea to come up with a couple of your own before we start the challenge. So find two nouns and do that now. 

Qualifying Metaphor

Adjectives qualify nouns. Adverbs qualify verbs. Putting these together creates metaphor. For example: “retired jersey” or “to write furiously”. 

Verbal Metaphor

The friction between the verb and it’s subject and/or object. For example: “They destroyed that steak dinner”, “car’s screeching”. 

I have heard countless times that many of my readers don’t understand how to make a rap metaphors. Well, it’s really simple when you break it down. You just need to understand the theory behind it, and then practice it. You will find some of your own voice. 

Also creativity is bred from the combination of two ideas to create a new idea. It is true creativity. And they say some of the most intelligent people in the world look through the lens of seeing one thing as something else. Or explaining it as such. 

Rap metaphors are definitely linked to visualization. You might actually see in your mind some sort of music map. You will picture it. In whatever way your brain processes it. But you create an interesting picture for your listener to see. 

This challenge is something you should commit too. If you don’t want to go all in and do this. Just don’t bother. You won’t get anything out of it. 

This is not another “check out my challenge so I can sell you something after”. Even though I do promote my own products and courses on rap. Haha #shameless. 

But, I actually benefited from doing this. My writing is solid. ←—- Metaphor? 

Have fun and please let me know how much better you find your writing afterwards. 

Rap Metaphors Challenge:

Day 1 – Adjective-Noun Combinations

Take these 5 adjectives and smash them into the nouns next to them. Write a sentence or short paragraph for each. So, combine “slimy” with “conversation”. You get “the conversation is slimy”, “slimy conversation”. Write about how these could combine. Use the senses. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. Look below for reference if you need too as well. 

Sight   sound taste    touch smell Motion 

Example for Slimy Conversation: 

Lies again. Spinning around like a bounce sheet inside the subconscious mind of a grease-ball. I feel the need to wash off this slimy conversation. I can hear the dirt flying out of your disgusting face hole. The stench of trash-talk wafting into my nasal passage. 

Haha okay so that got dark. Now do this for each of these 5 combinations I set up for you below. See what happens, let it take you where it takes you. Maybe you start with Slimy Conversation and move to something completely different. Don’t worry about what you write. Let these be a portal that takes you to new thoughts, and creative juices. I guarantee you will get better at writing rap metaphor after these 14 days. 

Adjectives	Nouns
Slimy	Conversation
Lazy	Music
Eager	Sun
Daily	Philosophy
Crooked	Friendship

Day 2 – Discovering Nouns From Adjectives

Okay, the previous exercise I gave you both the adjective and the noun. This time, I will give you the adjectives, and leave it up to you to find nouns to smash up against them. 

Don’t just grab any two and put them together. Take your time, think about how you can create super interesting combinations and what could possibly transpire. It’s super interesting what starts to go through your mind. 

I will say in order to find random lists of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs you can go to each of these resources which will provide lists of each. 

• Random Word Generator

Then you can sort it at the top by Verb, or Noun. Or you can just google “noun list” as well. 

Use these 5 adjectives and find a noun to smash with it: 

• Frustrated
• Shiny
• Breakable
• Nervous
• Thoughtful

Day 3 – Discovering Adjectives From Nouns

Today is the reverse of the last process. I will give you 5 nouns and you will need to select 5 adjectives to smash against them. Again, don’t just pick anything, see if you can make it interesting. 

Then, write a sentence or short paragraph that makes sense of the combination for each. Go get it! Your rap metaphors game will be growing by the day. 

Find 5 Adjectives and smash them up against these nouns. 

• Library
• Mud
• Reality
• Beer
• Depression

Day 4 – Noun-Verb Combos

What’s the difference between average writing and good writing? Verbs. Verbs are action words. They move the other words into motion. Nouns are people, places and things. And they just sit in one spot. Adjectives – same thing. Verbs though… They have the power. They are a great way to add a ton of depth to your lyric writing in hip hop. 

Today I’m going to give you 5 verbs and 5 nouns, and I want you to write a sentence or short paragraph for each. 

Nouns	Verbs
Forehead	Exhibit
Comparison	Born
Sunlight	Convict
Shopping Cart	Shuffle
Playlist	Escape

For example: My shiny bald head reflects off the sun. People gather round to check out my forehead exhibit. The attraction gets bigger and bigger every year.  

Day 5 – Discovering Verbs From Nouns

Metaphors in rap songs can be found everywhere. It’s just something that happens automatically. “I’m sick on the beat” is a metaphor. And I’m sure you might not even notice how often we do this naturally. But these exercises will help a ton. They will also help you find your rap voice. 

From the 5 nouns below, find a verb to smash against each one and write a sentence or short paragraph and find meaning in those combinations of words. Again, take your time and try to pick something thoughtful. 

• Ghost
• Money
• Quarterback
• Passion
• Internet

Go Go Go! 

Okay Okay. We are going to be moving on to something new and exciting shortly. The reason for all this is to get your brain juices flowing. It really helps, especially if you’re struggling with what the heck to write a rap about. 

Day 6 – Discovering Nouns From Verbs. 

The same thing as Day 5 but in reverse. I won’t bore you with the rambling. Day 7 is a big change. So get this one out of the way and move on. 

• Boil
• Pretend
• Perform
• Fear
• Rest

Day 7 – Expressed Identity Rap Metaphors: Noun-Noun Smash

Okay, let’s move on to something new today. We will be smashing nouns into nouns, but we will use the 3 forms of expressed identity metaphor. This is great for hip hop. Trust. 

What are the 3 forms again? 

1. X is y — e.g (music is a map)
2. The y of x — e.g (the map of music)
3. X’s y — e.g (music’s map)

Write a sentence or short paragraph and combine these 5 nouns together below. Try different constructs of the expressed identity variations. Play around. 

Nouns	Nouns
Pollution	Giants
Lunchroom	heat
Ink	Cannon
morning	badge
machine	canvas

Day 8 – Expressed Identity Rap Metaphors: Noun-Noun Smash

Today you are going to switch them around and reverse em’ to see what you get the other way. 

Nouns	Nouns
Giants	Pollution
heat	Lunchroom
Cannon	Ink
badge	morning
canvas	machine

Day 9 – Expressed Identity Rap Metaphors: Finding Nouns From Nouns

Okay, now find some nouns from the nouns listed below and write your snippets in sentence form for each of them. This is the building block to getting more creative. Also, as a side benefit, you learn a ton about what nouns, adjectives and verbs are. 

• Traffic
• Footprint
• Phone screen
• Bedframe
• Moon

Day 10 – Word Families & Clusters

This is where we are going to take a step deeper in finding better rap metaphors and connections using word families and clusters. 

You will be working 3 prompts and you will create two responses for each one. That’s six total.

Like colours that belong to the palette, words can belong to the same palette as well. Words can be grouped together in clusters that belong to the same family. This doesn’t mean when writing bars you would necessarily need to list these out. This is just a great exercise for rappers who want to dig deeper. Or for hip hop heads who are wondering why their lyrics don’t have as much substance as they want. 

 So let’s look at an example of some words that belong to the word palette of lazy. 

Lazy, pothead, couch potato, boring, tired, lethargic. 

You can find LINKS between these words in different types of characteristics. Not everyone is going to have the same word clusters, because everyone thinks differently, and links differently. Which is why it makes it so interesting. 

Let’s try an example with the word money:

We can list some words that can be linked in our head to money. For me, the first things that popup are: Bank, Insufficient funds, power, freedom, happiness, deposit. 

Now we can try smashing these together and see what happens. They are all related in the same family. 

Freedom is the debt of our nation.

The deposit of happiness has an ATM charge

Insufficient funds drain your power gauge

Okay now let’s try another example for microphone. Stage, rap, presence, amp, audience, studio, eardrum. 

The stage of life is an amp for your voice. 

Dope rap is imprinted in your eardrum. 

The audience’s studio is recording their reaction. 

Okay now you can try. Ask yourself two questions for each word you use. 

1. What characteristics does my idea have?
2. What else shares those characteristics?