This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Fancy yourself as the next M.I.A. or Jay Z? Earn your hip-hop stripes by rapping freestyle -- that means ditching learnt verses and coming up with your lyrics as you perform. Brooklyn-based rapper Blake Harrison, who's a cofounder of hip-hop-inspired education company Flocabulary and author
of The Rapper's Handbook, explains how to develop your flow.
Get started
Put on a beat you like from a hip-hop track that isn't too fast and start adding lines over the top. "One of the easiest ways of doing this is to rap about the things around you... This painting that I have on the wall, how I need a new TV," suggests Harrison.
Don't worry now if the lines don't rhyme or you fall back on the same words; the key is to keep going.
Learn to rhyme
As soon as you realise which word will fall at the end of your first line (which could be as soon as you say it), start thinking of rhymes. Begin with only the last syllable. Harrison starts a freestyle with the line, "Being interviewed by wired magazine..." and throws out some easy rhymes: keen, mean, scene. The next line could be, "That's the truth, do you know what I mean?" It's quite simple, but it does the job.
Prepare in advance
Don't write lines in advance, but prep lists of rhymes for common words so they come to mind quickly. Harrison takes this writer's surname -- "Turk" -- and suggests work, jerk and berserk as go-to rhymes. Don't neglect proper nouns: Captain Kirk or singer Solomon Burke could inspire a smart simile.
Brush up on idioms, puns, slang, metaphor and double entendres -- all will elevate your freestyling.
Find your flow
Flow is something that comes with practice. Rap along to songs by an artist whose style you admire to get a feel for how they carve their lines "so that you don't end up sounding like you're an 80s rap commercial for breakfast cereal," says Harrison. See if you can rap the same words over the instrumental. From there, start tweaking the song's lyrics to make them your own and ad-lib a little bit. Then try rewriting the whole song.
Build content
To keep lyrics fresh, reference the news and pop culture.
Freestyle around the headlines. If you're rapping in a cypher (with others), pick up on what the person before said. If it's more of a rap battle, diss your opponent and remind them how great you are.
Go heavy on the wordplay and get inventive with similes. "Thinking of insults was something Shakespeare was amazing at, and rappers are incredible at," says Harrison.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
