Welcome to How To Write A Rap Song by Dave Noodlez ( Rapper/DJ)
Questions To Ask Yourself
The first is to figure out what your trying to do. Ask yourself....
Do I want to make a club record?
Do I want to address a subject?
Do I want to start controversy?
Is this song for the ladies/fellas? both?
Is it positive or negative vibe?
Quick Ideas THAT WORK.
I usually get inspirations from lyrics of other songs and just recreate that vibe.
Our Example : Swizz Beats took "Bring Em Out Bring Em Out, It's Hard to Yell when that barell's in your
mouth" from the Jay-z song Dirt Off Your Shoulders. Right There he made a catchy chorus without doing too much thinking.
Also think of a good title for your song and simply live, feel and breathe every bit of that
title. For example if you were doing a song Raise The Roof. You would automatically make it a clubby record. If you did a
song Time To Remember. You would probably talk about people that past or things that have happened that you must remember.
A good song usually follows a
Make your song a mini movie without pictures. Bring to life the title of the song and give people a hint
of how the song might sound by the title. If I heard a title " Kill Everyone" I would probably not listen to it because it
was too violent or want to see who was killing who. You feel me?
When writing rap songs, 16 bars are key because most beats change after the sixteen bars so if you are writing
a song to one of your favorite producers beats you got to learn how to write your 16 bars.
Once you learn, it will be something you always use and will help the layout of your track so much easier
Lets check out lyrics from a Eminem song
Look at these eyes, baby blue, baby just like yourself (1 bar)
If they were brown Shady lose, Shady sits on the shelf
But Shady's cute, Shady knew Shady's dimples would help (3rd bar)
Make ladies swoon baby (ooh baby!) Look
at my sales (4th)
Let's do the math - if I was black, I woulda sold half (5)
I ain't have to graduate from Lincoln High
School to know that (6)
But I could rap, so f*** school, I'm too cool to go back (7)
Gimme the mic, show me where the fuckin studio's at (8)
I was underground, no one gave a fuck I was white (9)
No labels wanted to sign me, almost gave up I was like (10)
it - until I met Dre, the only one to look past (11)
Gave me a chance aand I lit a FIRE up under his a$$ (12)
him get back to the top, every fan black that I got (13)
was probably his in exchange for every white fan that he's got
Like damn; we just swapped - sittin back lookin at shit, wow (15)
I'm like my skin is it startin to work to my
benefit now? It's.. (16)
A bar is sentence with the ending rhyme of your lines
Okayyyyyyy!!! You want to know how Lil Jon is making millions. We know it isn't off lyrical content. It's off beats and
chorus's!! He has some of the catchiest chorus's for every song.
KEY TO A SUCCESSFUL SONG
- make it an anthem or a song to live by.
- make it a song if you were a DJ at a club, you would want to play it
- make it as if you were dropping it off to Dre or the Neptunes to make a beat for it the next day
- if it's corny it might be good, but be careful when approaching the corny zone
- dont get too wordy or lyrical (save that for your lyrics), people should be able to remember your chorus before anything
- create a chant or a cult response by creating new words and themes
- keep it on tempo, no way the chorus should switch up unless your going into a..........
this is a mini chorus that shouldn't be used as much as the chorus. make this super catchy and don't
over use it. it should be used for a few bars doing a song
this is from Big Pun Still Not A Player
Boricua, morena, boricua, morena (3X)
No more rollin with an entourage
Unless it's Pun and the Terror Squad
you should remember that part, but you also remember the chorus!! aghhh-haaaa your starting to see all the elements to
laying a proper song!!
I had to break this part down for everyone. A lot of people have the potential to write songs, there's a lot of people
that write songs and then there's people who actually write good songs. Most R & B, Pop songs out the artist who performs
them, didn't even write them!!! Sorry to break it to you but Usher didn't write Yeahhh!
This is good and bad because the people who think they can write good songs end up gettin turned down and the people who
can't sing or perform but can write good songs can actually get paid by selling their rights to the song.
To copyright your work go to this site www.copyright.gov/
"Treat my first like my last, and my last like my first
And my thirst is the same as - when I came" - Jay-z