Writing Rhymes
Write lots of rhymes. Keep a notebook with you at all times, or use your phone to write down rhymes, and try to write at least 10 rhymes a day. At the end of the week, go back through the rhymes you wrote and pick out the best ones to create a "Best of the Week" list, which you might use to start a song. Cut out the wack lines and corny stuff and only keep the best. At the end of the week, you might only end up with a couple of lines. That's ok. That's good. When you're first starting out, you're going to write a lot of crappy lyrics. There's no way around it. It takes work and lots of effort to create songs that anyone will want to listen to.
Keep "rhyme clusters" in your notebook. A rhyme cluster is a group of short lines and words that are all interchangeable with each other. So, any lines with words like "wack" "sack" "jack" "backpack" and "Aflac" could all be in the same cluster. Start building an encyclopedia of rhymes that you can start to memorize, and consult when you're writing songs or free styling.
Hammer your lyrics into songs. After a couple of weeks of writing lines, you should start having a good store of them built up. Add a couple together, move them around, and start thinking about how you might build a song. Write more lines to fill in the gaps and put it all together. Story songs usually have a hard-luck element to them in classic hip-hop. Stories need to address the Who, What, and When elements to paint a vivid picture of the scene or the event you're describing. Raekwon and Freddie Gibbs are great story-telling rappers. Boast raps feature lots of one-liners. Look no further than Lil Wayne for the self-crowned king of bragging in rhyme. Use lots of similes and metaphors to compare yourself to all manner of greatness. Pop rap or trap is all about the chorus. Chief Keef's rhymes may be super terrible, but he's got an ear for a killer hook. Aim for a simple line or two that slides right into the beat. "Don't Like" and "Sosa" have simple ear-worm choruses that get stuck in your head for weeks. Ditto Soulja Boy's "Crank That." For more classic examples, think of Wu-Tang's "C.R.E.A.M." and anything by Snoop Dogg.
Try to freestyle. Find a beat you like, an instrumental version of a track you're into, or just try rapping over the intros and the outros. Find the beat, feel it, and try to start spitting what you've got bouncing around in your head. Start with a good "starter line," something that pops and gets your mind going, then rely on your clusters of rhymes to start letting things unspool from there. Don't try free styling in front of anyone until you've practiced a lot. It can fall apart quickly, but try to stay on beat, keep with the flow and find your way again if you start to stumble. Don't stop, or it'll be over. Even if you have to rap nonsense syllables, make sure they rhyme and stay with it.
Take your time. You're not going to write great songs yet. Focus on the little things, getting better at freestyles, and learning to write songs. Develop your own voice and style without biting from other rappers. You don't want to be just like any of them, you want to be your own voice and your own rapper. Even Chief Keef and Soulja Boy, rappers who hit big at 16 and 17, didn't pop out of their mamas writing hit songs, it took them 6 or 7 years of rapping constantly before they found the goods. Be critical of your work, if you're going to take rapping seriously. GZA was 25 before he found success, and he had been rapping since he was a child.
Taking the Next Step
Check out a freestyle competition or a rap battle. Here, contestants have to freestyle over a beat selected by the DJ and you'll be timed, so you won't be given much time to think before you've got to start rhyming. If you want to battle, you'll also have another MC across from you who may be more experienced and eager to embarrass you with crude diss lines to get cheers from the audience. This is one of the most exciting parts of the rap game, but you'll need to develop thick skin and considerable skills before trying this in public. It's a good idea to attend a lot of competitions before attempting to compete in any of them. Get a good feel for your skills and the skills of the other competitors before jumping on stage.
Make original music. try to get in touch with some up-and-coming producers in your area or online to provide you with some original beats to work with. If you have a beat, making hip-hop music requires little more than the most basic audio editing software and a microphone. Attending shows, competitions, and battles is a great opportunity to meet other rappers and beatmakers you might collaborate with, or who might have resources to share with you.
Put your music online. If you eventually get enough material that you're proud of, start a YouTube channel for your music and start sharing your music across social media. Put a mixtape together and release it for free on the Internet. Increasingly, rappers who get signed to big contracts generate publicity and buzz by releasing free mixtapes. Burn CD-R copies of your music and give it out at concerts or gatherings with your contact information included on it.
Keep practicing. Keep beats on your phone or iPod, and freestyle inside your head while doing every day things like walking down the street, taking the bus or train, or grocery shopping. The more you practice your rhymes, the better they'll get.
Listening to Hip-Hop
Listen to as much hip-hop music as possible. You need to listen to a wide variety of hip-hop and rap before you start trying to make your own rhymes. Study the history and the culture of rap and try to understand the core and foundations of it. It's a living, breathing thing that you need to engage with. If you don't know who Big Daddy Kane is, or you only know Ice Cube as a funny guy in the movies, you've got some research to do. Over the past few years, free online mixtape culture has become an important part of hip-hop. Lil Wayne's rise to fame in the mid-2000s was on the back of mixtapes given away for free online, some composed largely of freestyles. Checking out free mixtapes is a great way to jump into the conversation happening in contemporary hip-hop.
Listen actively. Study other rappers' skills until you can form your own style. You're not biting, you're learning. Copy out their rhymes and freestyles and read them as you would poetry. Studying their music is also good to find some solid beats that you may want to try rapping over. Eminem is known for his quick flow, intricate rhyme schemes, and metrical perfection, while Lil Wayne is known for his great one-liners and similes. Find rappers that appeal to you. A$AP Rocky, Tribe Called Quest, Big L, Nas, Mos Def, Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, Kendrick Lamar, Freddie Gibbs, Jedi Mind Tricks, Army of The Pharaohs, MF Grimm, Jus Allah, Shabazz Palaces and the Wu-Tang Clan are very different and talented rappers or groups worth checking out. Listening to rap that you specifically don't like can also be helpful in trying to craft a style. Form opinions. Make arguments. Debate with your friends about different rappers. Talk about who sucks and who's great.
Memorize some verses. Pick a jaw-dropper from one of your favorite tracks and listen to it repeatedly, until you've committed it to memory. Recite it as you walk around. Get a feel for the syllables and the flow of the words, the way the words feel as you say them. Think about what stands out for you about this verse. What do you like about it? What made it memorizable? Find an instrumental version of the song with the verse you've memorized and practice reciting it to the music. This will help you get a feel for the flow and the speed at which the music occurs.
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