How To Make A Rap Song

I’ve been studying how to make a rap song for 17 years. There are SO MANY ways to create lyrical art. You will understand the basic skeleton for writing raps in this post, and then move on to create your own styles.

Rap is clearly the dominant genre of popular music over the last few years. And if you want to make something dope, there are a few tips to go know.

So How Do You Make A Rap Song?

Hip hop music is typically broken down into sections. 2-3 verses which consist of 16 lines. And a hook/chorus which you can repeat throughout the song, which can be either 4 or 8 lines.

“Lines” in rap are called “bars”. They last 4 seconds of time and then repeat throughout the whole song. Each second, 1-2-3-4 is a beat. In order for your lyrics to sound good, you need to land the stressed parts of the words on those beats.

1-2-3-4 beats are repetitive. Meaning they always have the exact amount of space between them. You don’t count 1-2 really fast and then 3-4 really slow. While the instrumentals may create a different vibe, the measure of time passing (1-2-3-4 seconds) is always the same.

The faster you count 1-2-3-4, the faster the beats per minute, and the less syllables you can fit.

The slower you count 1-2-3-4, the slower the beats per minute, and the more syllables you can fit.

Rhyming is a massive part of hip-hop and rap. You can start by placing rhymes at the end of each line, which is the 4 beat.

For example:

Hey, my name is Matt and i just came to write a SONG

Read the rest of that so you can make your rappin STRONG

Every language is mixed between stressed and unstressed syllables. You can identify the stressed part of words and phrases because they are the more emphasized sounds. Everything else is an unstressed syllable.

So for example, I will bold the stressed syllables and leave the unstressed syllables so you can see the difference:

There are many ways to arrange your words, but the number one key when starting out is to land stressed syllables RIGHT ON EACH BEAT OF 4. This is the basic structure of how to write a rap song so it actually sounds like rap.

There are definitely more things to learn about when writing rap, so keep reading if you need some more tips on structure and making your raps sound good.

Everything You Need To Know:

You’ll notice that on the 4th second we hard stop on the rhyme. This leaves time before another “bar” or “line” starts. You don’t HAVE to do this. Although when starting out, it allows you to take a breath without interrupting the flow.

That being said, there are 2 more options you can use instead of the hard stop on the 4th beat with a single stressed syllable.

Here are two more examples:

OR what you can do, is end the line with a hard stop on the 4th beat, and then use the next syllables to “bring in” your next line.

For example:

How To Structure Your Rap Song

Here is a breakdown of the most common pieces to rap songs. Generally hip hop beats made by producers will be structured with these pieces in mind.

Intro

Some beats have intro’s and some don’t. They generally last 2 or 4 or 8 bars long. Many times intro’s will be playing just sounds with no drum beats.

Verse

Verses in rap are usually 16 bars in length. So 16 lines. One of the best ways to structure your ideas is in groups of 4 bars. Switching up your flow or rhyme scheme every four bars makes it a smoother transition.

Hooks/Chorus

Hooks are usually 4 to 8 bars and repeated back to back and also in between verses. Hooks and chorus convey the general feeling or idea of the track in a catchy way.

Bridge

A Bridge is a set of 2 bars that bridges the verse to the chorus. This is a way you can end each verse as a lead-in to the chorus. Sometimes producers leave space for these in their instrumentals.

Outro

Just like the intro, except concluding the song at the end.

Where To Find Your Own Rap Beats

YouTube Audio Library For Free Beats

Most rappers don’t know how to make beats and are not beat creators. But the YouTube audio library jam-packs a full list of beat creators and dope producers that you can use as your own rap beats.

The great thing is that you can throw up a quick video on YouTube of you freestyling over one of these free beats and you won’t have a copyright issue at all. In fact, you’ll be able to find mainstream success with these and use them as your own rap beats.

How To Find Flows For Your RAPS

There are a variety of ways to find patterns and flows for your song. But one of the best ways is SCATTING.

Hands-down the best way to stay true to yourself as an artist, is to hum, or mumble, or scat over the instrumental beat you want to write too. OR even if you don’t have an instrumental in mind.

The idea of scatting out your rhythms is super easy, but requires understand of stressed and unstressed syllables, again. Hm, weird they keep coming up eh? Good thing we learned that already.

The best way to do this is to say gibberish. So if you were to mumble out:

Bah-da-da-bah-da-da-bah-da-da-bah

It would be like:

When you’re scatting just try landing stressed syllables on the beats.

Pro Tip – Use pauses or moments of time without words on purpose. This will allow you some time to breathe. Great rap writers do this often so that they never run out of breath.

Techniques For Writing Rap

There are endless ways to come up with raps. Here are a couple ways to get you started.

Scat Method:

Mumble/hum/gibberish over the beat and then replace that gibberish with actual words that fit the stressed and unstressed syllable pattern. Anything you mumble over the beat will only be a combination of either a stressed or unstressed syllable. So manipulate what you want to say to fit this rhythm.

Rhyme First Method

Think up a bunch of cool rhyming words that are generally relevant to your topic and then form lines around those rhymes.

For example, say I wanted to find rhymes for the phrase:

OCTAGON

I would think of rhymes for it first.

OCTAGON

SOCCER MOM

PAPA JOHN

SHAKA KHAN

AUTOBAHN

Lol these are the first things that came to my head so don’t judge how weird my brain works.

But then you do this a bunch of times and then try to create lines around those rhyme schemes. Actually Eminem will often make raps using this method.

Summary Method

Freewrite a paragraph summary without rhyming. Then take those lines and morph them into the flow you want and add rhyme schemes to them. This is a cool way for how to make rap songs.

Picture Method

Find some pictures that create the general mood for your song. Then write about those pictures. Write how they make you feel, what they make you think, or where they take your mind.

You can create so many ways to make a rap song it’s ridiculous. Hopefully these help you get started in writing some dopeness. I can’t wait to hear it.

The Rakim Method

Here’s a really cool way that one of the legends of the game uses to write out all of his raps. Rakim. He puts down 16 dots on the page. One for each line in the verse. You can fit approximately 16 syllables into each line. Give and take pauses and space to enunciate longer or shorter words. Or space for breaths but it looks like this:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16

This is a great way for beginner’s to start learning how to write a rap song, because it adds structure to your verse. There are generally 16 lines of space for a rap verse, and beatmakers recognize this and usually leave that amount of time available.

Here is a cool discussion on how Rakim talks about these 16 dot strategy for writing raps.

Use Current Events

You gotta use punchlines to get your fans hype on your bars. A great way to find hard-hitting punchlines is to use current events and trending topics around the web. Reddit is also a great place to find interesting punchline topics.

If you want use Reddit to it’s full capabilities then you can sort by ‘Top posts this week’ and you will get some great ideas.

Quality Voice Recording

Make sure you have good quality voice recording when you make a rap song. This can come down the gear you have and the space you have to record. Though with some relatively inexpensive equipment and sound design, you can get some high quality music.

Well recorded vocals will turn into professional audio mixing and mastering without having to learn TOO much about the intricacies of sound design. With good vocals, the producer will be able to utilize their full capabilities.

To do your own audio mixing, you can can use Audacity because they always have a free version available for download, and I’m just a fan of their user interface. In terms of music making software, it’s limited. You mainly want to do your audio mixing for your vocals and import your own rap beats.

Use Literary Devices

Check out this list of literary devices so you can get some mainstream success:

• Puns
• Metaphors
• Similes
• Double Entendres
• Altered Idioms
• Oronyms
• Alliteration
• Consanance
• Internal rhymes

What is the easiest rap song to learn?

The easiest rap songs to learn have simple rhyme schemes, simple patterns of flow, and lots of space for breath in between lines. 

Here is a table of the easiest rap songs to learn:

Song Name	Rapper(s)	Difficulty Level	Date Published
It’s tricky	Run DMC	1/5	1987
Children’s Story	Slick Rick	1/5	1989
Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air	Will Smith	1/5	1992
Hypnotize	Notorious B.I.G	3/5	1997

While “Hypnotize” by Biggie is not the easiest rap song to learn, it is one of the most important for you to learn. Because you will learn how to flow like the greatest rapper of all time. 

I suggest starting with the easier and working your way up to Biggie. It will help you learn a better understanding of flow and rhyme schemes and structure for rap in general. 

How can I be good at rap?

The first thing you need to do is define what “good” means to you. What are the criteria for being good at rap? There are some main characteristics that remain consistent throughout most good hip-hop, however rap is an art. And art is subjective. 

My criteria for being good at rap. 

• Consistent and original multi-syllable rhymes. 
• Interesting flow that can switch patterns easily and stay ON beat. 
• The ability to break the rules of flow and rhyme for creative purpose without losing the effect of both devices. 
• The ability to express ideas and lyrics in original ways while avoiding cliches. 
• Clear and concise enunciation even when the speed of rapping increases.
• The ability to use wordplay in an effective way to get across a point in an interesting form.   

The reason rap is the most popular genre in music right now is because of the consistent, repetitive beats, and the pattern of the vocals and flow, and the rhymes patterns as well. 

Our human brains are wired to fall in love and recognize patterns. Our ego’s figure out there is going to be a pattern and what that might be before it happens. And when it is anticipated and DOES HAPPEN, our brain is rewarded for being correct.