Paul Edwards Interview, Part 2

This is part 2 of an ongoing series of interviews with "How To Rap" author Paul Edwards. You can see part 1 here.

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1- What formal training or education do you have in anything that
might help you analyze or talk about rap in an in-depth manner? For
example, are you a rapper, do you have a degree in
music/African-American studies/literature/journalism, etc?

As far as my academic background, I have a masters degree in
Postmodernism, Literature, and Contemporary Culture and a BA in
English literature, both from Royal Holloway, University of London.
With both of those I wrote the final dissertations on hip-hop music
and I also worked hip-hop into many of the other essays as well. My
lecturers were really open to me studying hip-hop and gave me a lot of
support, I think it helped they were big music fans and were like,
“yeah, of course you can study The Chronic!”

Then musically, I play the Arabic drum, the doumbek—I grew up in the
Middle East and so I heard a lot of that kind of music, some of it is
very percussion heavy. So learning the rhythms for that really
influenced my interest in the rhythmic aspects of rapping. I also
always loved making beats, usually using step sequencer types of
programs, where the percussion notes are laid out visually in a grid,
so that fed into how I looked at rapping as well.

Also most of the best education came from interviewing so many rappers
directly, because you get to hear so much first hand information from
the actual people who developed the art form. You get to know which
rappers everyone learned from and what they listened to pick up the
techniques.

2- Kool G Rap and Gift Of Gab both wrote forewords for these 2 books.
How did those collaborations come together?

I had already interviewed them so I was already in contact with them
and their management, so when it came time to get forewords I reached
out to them again—it was really about finding a good fit. I felt like
Kool G Rap was perfect for the first book, as he's a very technically
adept MC and a true pioneer and Gift of Gab fit the second book, as he
has such an incredible range of flows and deliveries.


3- Consider a hypothetical but logical extension of the project found
in these 2 books. If there was a complete school, with classes and
curriculum and everything, where people learned “how to rap”, what do
you think it would look like? Is it even possible?

Going towards that, there are already rapping courses that the How to
Rap books are on, in different universities—I've seen the books pop up
on a number of reading lists. For example there is one at University
of California, Berkeley called "Tupac, The Evolution of Hip Hop, and
How to Rap" where they write a "two verse rap song" by the end of it
and “Words, Beats, & Life” also have MCing classes using How to Rap –


http://www.wblinc.org/classeslocations/emceeingrapping/ ...and


University of North Carolina have their “Next Level” program where
they travel around teaching rapping and DJing and dance, I'm not sure
if they use books for doing that.

As far as a complete school specifically set up to teach just rapping,
I'm not sure if that's entirely feasible, but then again there is
Scratch DJ Academy for DJs, so it's a possibility. As far as the
actual classes, I would assume it would be split up in terms of
content, flow, and delivery, with different specialists teaching those
parts and at some stage there would be drills and exercises, the same
as learning anything. Like first you learn the theory behind
everything, then you move onto the practical stuff where you write a
lot of metaphors or story raps, or on the flow side you learn how to
do triplets and practice them over and over until you get to a certain
level, and then you're taught a new area to master.

4- Based on your knowledge of where rap — strictly rap, not its beats
or anything — has come from, can you make any guesses or informed
conjectures about where it might go?

I would hope eventually we would get some kind of “prog-hop” type of
thing, like how rock went through a prog-rock phase, with lots of
different time signatures, weird structures, intricate back-and-forth
vocals, maybe really off-the-wall stylistic raps that are the
equivalent of experimental guitar solos, maybe with distortion and
wild effects on the vocals and that kind of thing. I think that would
bring us some really interesting music. It would probably come to a
natural end as well once it had exhausted itself, just like prog-rock
did, but it would be great phase to go through just to see what
hip-hop would sound like in that framework.

Those things have been done briefly in little bursts here and there by
groups like Latyrx doing two verses at the same time that interacted
in certain places and great back-and-forth sections, Blackalicious
with tracks like “Chemical Calisthenics” with rapping that followed
all the changes in the beat, the Beastie Boys had “B-Boy
Bouillabaisse” with an unusual structure and they used distortion on
their voices on other tracks, and Freestyle Fellowship had tracks with
melodic jazz scatting type of things going on. But I'd like to see
that sort of thing become a full sub-genre with lots of artists all
pushing the boundaries like crazy for a while.

Then maybe that would be followed by the equivalent of punk, where it
would all get stripped back down to just huge drums and raw distorted
sounds, a bit like early Run-DMC tracks. That would be an interesting
movement to see as well.

Now that's where I hope it will go at some point, but being more
realistic I think it's likely to stay as it is. And that's staying
reliant on successful hit formulas, where the rapping is simpler so
that the vast majority of people can understand it, with keyboardy
club beats that you can dance to, and either R&B choruses or simple
chanted catchy choruses taking up most of the song. That's the hit
formula that brings in the money and so I think few people are willing
to divert from that formula at the moment.

5- If there was one thing about rap as a genre that you could change,
what would it be?


I would bring back sampling in a big way. Breaks and samples are where
the music came from and in the late 80s and early 90s the boundaries
were really pushed with sampling as an art form, and it resulted in
hip-hop's “golden age” with all types of different styles and sounds
and influences. Unfortunately that ended when more and more lawsuits
started popping up around sampling and it became more popular for
people to just sample really obvious hit records instead of creating
innovative sound collages.

And I think those beats with a lot of sampling brought the best out of
the MCs as well because the beats were more organic and had a more
textured, layered sound, so it inspired the MCs to make
timeless-sounding records. It also meant that people brought in
samples from jazz, blues, rock, classical, dance, country, pretty muc

everything you can think of, and that made hip-hop from the golden age
a lot more varied and colorful.


6- Rap, as an art form, is treated with less respect by the media and
society at large than other musics. For instance, no rap artist is
ranked higher than 44th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100
Greatest Artists Of All Time”:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-artists-of-all-time-19691231/public-enemy-20110420

Furthermore, rap lyrics have been admitted as evidence in criminal trials:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/opinion/rap-lyrics-on-trial.html?_r=2

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/10/nation/la-na-nn-rap-lyrics-at-heart-of-murder-trial-20120510

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/nyregion/seeking-clues-to-gangs
and-crime-detectives-monitor-internet-rap-videos.html

while violent rock lyrics are not.

Also, President Obama was criticized by some in the media:

http://nation.foxnews.com/common/2011/05/09/michelle-obama-hosting-vile-rapper-white-house

when he invited Chicago rapper Common to the White House in 2011. The
administration was attacked by critics for supporting Common, a
supposedly “controversial” and “vile” rapper, even though Common’s
real message at the small concert was specifically against violence,
as he performed such lyrics as, “Destiny’s children — survivors,
soldiers — in front of buildings, their eyes look older / It’s hard to
see blessings in a violent culture.” There was little similar protest
against past White House guests like musician James Brown in 2001,
who, unlike Common, has been convicted of multiple crimes that
involved drugs, weapons, and domestic violence.


Finally, a 2013 article by Juan William:


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324619504579028691595414868

decries the supposed differences between African-American music made
at the time of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “I Have A Dream Speech”
in Washington, D.C., and the music supposedly made by African
Americans today. As he writes, “The emotional uplift of the monumental
march is a universe of time away from today’s degrading rap music —
filled with the n-word, bitches, and ‘hoes’ [sic] — that confuses and
depresses race relations in America now.” While focusing on one 2013
song from a rapper he criticizes by name, Jay-Z, Williams ignores
other empowering songs by the same artist.

Why do you think there is this difference in how rap is treated, when
compared to other types of music?

That's an interesting question, but for me personally, I try to give
as little time and thought as possible to anything to do with how
outsiders see hip-hop. And by “outsiders” I mean anyone who doesn't
already “get” and appreciate hip-hop or isn't willing to try to
appreciate it. It's tempting for me to write loads of words trying to
rebuff every criticism every person has of hip-hop and to try to
understand why people might treat it differently to other types of
music, and I did briefly deal with some of the common criticisms of
hip-hop in “The Concise Guide to Hip-Hop Music,” because that book
called for a little of that.

But I honestly find that time is much better spent simply studying and
preserving hip-hop and not getting drawn into the agendas of
critics—critics who usually aren't willing to take the time to
understand hip-hop even if you present them with perfect arguments. I
do my work and research for people who already love hip-hop and
respect it and people who genuinely want to know more about it. I find
it's much more rewarding giving people information they appreciate,
rather than trying to change the minds of people who already made up
their minds about hip-hop a long time ago.

I think a bigger problem than outsiders criticizing hip-hop is the
problem of actual hip-hop fans not knowing that much about hip-hop.
There are millions of hip-hop fans out there and ideally they should
all know who Melle Mel is and why he is important and who Kool Moe Dee
is and the sort of rapping techniques he pioneered. They should also
know how different types of beats are made and the difference between
a SP-1200 and an MPC 60. I think this should be basic, entry-level
stuff that all hip-hop fans know, but sadly it's not at the moment.

Snoop Dogg - Rap Music Analysis

An excellent example of someone with dope rhymes, but a lack of a technical control over rhymes. A simplification of his problem is that he doesn't use longer rhymes; the correct evaluation is that he doesn't know what to do with long rhymes. Certainly, Snoop is one of the most original rappers of all time. Although he spawned a legion of imitators, in no small part because of his inseparable association with the funk rhythms of G-funk (go figure!). It's only farther testament to his skills that no imitator quite approached his apparent and complete lack of caring that his every word is being recorded. His best rhymes on Doggystyle or The Chronic, as great as the rhythms that they have are, consist largely of repetitions of him spelling his name, and him counting numbers. So that’s also the problem: that EVERY WORD HE SAYS IS BEING RECORDED. The result is verbal content that is pretty devoid of anything beyond rhythmic meaning; Snoop's insights into life will never be confused with that of Mos Def on “Mathematics” or Talib Kweli on “Black Girl Pain”. Sometimes people marvel at how Jay-Z and Lil’ Wayne never write down their rhymes; in fact, I find this extremely believable, and that’s because of the vapid content that they have recently been putting out.

Because of this innate feel for flow, almost rivaling Biggie’s, combined with some pretty vanilla poetic content, Snoop spawned a generation of imitators. It’s a testament to Snoop’s originality that no one ever quite got it down. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I most closely compare Snoop to his fellow California brethren who’s largely been forgotten: Hittman. If we compare the two, we’ll see how Snoop approaches his rhymes, and how Hittman imitates this. Let’s take Snoop’s rhymes on the famous “Gin And Juice.” These rhymes are the ones we want:

[but i / some how some way keep comin’ up with / funky ass shit like every single DAY] /
[MAY i kick a little something for the / G’S, and
make a few ends as i / BREEZE THROUGH]
[TWO in the morning and the / party’s still jumpin’
‘cause my momma ain’t HOME] /

This type of rhyming that eschews tight phrasing is typical of Snoop’s style. For instance, look at where the rhymes, capitalized here, happen in the sentences that are indicated by the brackets. Each rhyme group is flipped from the end of one sentence to the start of the next. For instance, “day” ends one sentence, and then the rhyme “may” starts the next one. Then, “through” ends the sentence after that one, and then the rhyme on the word “two” starts the next sentence. Finally, these bars, indicated by slashes, end with a word that doesn’t rhyme on any of the previous rhymes (but does start a rhyme group in the next bar.) This is what makes Snoop’s style: rhymes coming in unexpected places at unexpected times.

This is what Hittman does, and probably picked up from Snoop, being from California himself, and working with Snoop’s man Dr. Dre. Check out these rhymes from Hittman on the Chronic: 2001 song “Ackrite”:

[yo chase them girls in the black MAXIMA] [the PASSENGER almost FRACTURED her neckbone looking BACK AT US] [PLUS they on the dick ‘cause the cat is PLUSH] [they BLUSH I bumRUSH the HUSH]

Here, Hittman also ends sentences with rhymes that start the next sentence, just like Snoop did. “Maxima” ends the first sentence, and “passenger” opens the next one. Then, “us” ends the second sentence, and is rhymed on the first word of the next, “plus.” Then, the second sentence’s last word, “plush,” is rhymed on “blush,” that starts the last sentence here. So we see similarities, but what really makes them similar is their similar rhythms, which is harder to describe for non-musicians.

Qualitatively, Hittman’s and Snoop’s rhythms are more flowing, with longer syllables that are pronounced for a longer time. To really appreciate Snoop (or Hittman,) listen to those changes in how long the syllables last. Their rhymes aren’t gonna knock you out with crazy lengths and frequency, like for Eminem, such as on “Brain Damage.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8F8RkPaQNM

While this use of this rhyming style is original to Snoop, Snoop can’t then make new methods of phrasing out of old ones, which is what all my GOATs, like Jean Grae, can do. For instance, check out Snoop’s opening lines on “Gin And Juice:”

[with so much drama in the l.b.C, It’s kinda / hard being snoop d-o double-G, but Ii /
[somehow, someWAY, keep coming up with / funky ass shit like every single DAY]

Here, the phrasing is more traditional. It’s an AABB form, where the A’s represent the “-ee” rhyme sound on the letters “C” and “G,” and the B’s represents the rhyme vowel sound on “-ay,” on “way” and “day.” That’s a simple couplet form, with external, single-syllable rhymes that come at the end of sentences. Pretty boring. But to really get Snoop, listen to how the syllables “every single day” are pronounced. They’d look something like: “ev-RY SIN…gle…..day.” But snoop doesn’t know how to take this simple couplet form and move past it.

For instance, because I analyzed this just yesterday, take a line from Your Old Droog. You can hear this track, “Nutty Bars,” here. I'm feeling this song a bit because Droog keeps changing up the type of rhymes he uses. Just check out the first lines he's got, sorry if the words are a little wrong:

[she knew that i would smash a little debbie and i still bagged the HOSTESS] /
[don't fuck with ENTENMANN'S] [GHOST from the TENAMENTS] /

I like this line a lot because Droog does what you expect, but slightly varies it, which Snoop doesn’t really do. That first sentence quoted, as indicated by the pairs of brackets, is exactly a bar long. (Again, the rhymed words are capitalized.) The obvious thing for an emcee to do here, then, is to make another external (end of sentence) rhyme on "hostess" in the next bar, which is shown where those slashes start and stop. For instance, this is exactly what Big Daddy Kane, and a lot of other rappers, do very often. Check Kane's song "Calling Mr. Welfare," you can hear it here. These are the opening lines:

[you know the lady on the top floor of my BUILDING] /
[the heavy set one with about ten CHILDREN ] /

Kane does what so many rappers have done before: there are 2 sentences, 1 bar each, with external rhymes. This is the first half of Snoop Dogg’s couplet form, just the AA. Being so natural, is what I thought Droog would do when I first heard the song.

But Droog doesn't complete that couplet, because he introduces a different rhyme from one that could be rhymed on "hostess." Instead, he rhymes “entenmann's” with “tenaments”, which new rhyme I didn't expect him to insert. But he still rhymes on "hostess," with the syllable "ghost." But, unlike Kane's external rhymes, he makes "ghost" an internal rhyme at the start of a sentence. However, Droog still has external rhymes on entenmann's/tenaments, just not the rhyme you expect, and these 2 bars still end and start with the bar line, just like Kane did. But now there are 3 sentences. So Droog has kept these elements traditional:

1. Length of 2 bars
2. Rhyme on external rhyme
3. 1-bar long opening sentences

But changed these elements:

1. New rhyme group introduced

2. External rhyme is now on internal rhyme
3. 3 sentences, not 2
4. 3-syllable rhyme, not 2-syllable rhyme

This is what Snoop doesn’t know how to do.

As original as Snoop's flow is today, still sounding fresh today after 20 years, he never moved comfortably beyond it. Snoop die-hards may point out the harder, more aggressive approaches of his post-Doggystyle albums, but he never seemed to convincingly pull off a more aggressive flow. As innate as it seems to 2pac, that's how foreign aggression seems to Snoop Dogg. No matter whether it's good or not, I give Snoop a lot of props for Snoop Lion, even if he seems to take the persona too far at times. It's in the same way I respect Lil’ Wayne for his rock album, even if it did suck. But Snoop Lion is reggae, not rap, and so I haven’t taken it into consideration here.

It boils down to this, and what separates so many of the rappers here from my top 10: Snoop doesn't have a complete and total control over every aspect of rap in the same way that Jean Grae does. When this is combined with a lack of compelling verbal content, the result is a very original, very talented rapper who is not quite a GOAT. He may top other top 10 lists, but my list relies only on rap: not how popular a rapper is, how long they’ve stuck around, or the great beats they’ve picked, all of which Snoop excelled at. However, top 10 here? No.

Rap Analysis - How To Have Better Delivery

Many rap fans complain, “Radio sucks”. While being accurate, it also relies on a common misconception: that rappers on the radio are supposed to be good musically. Musicians on the radio are really only meant to be good financially, so that they can sell records. However, record labels like Interscope spend millions of dollars every year to discover and sell their acts. Would any intelligent music fan really believe that the musicians they choose aren’t at least good at something? So what exactly are they good at?

It might do well to consider what all rappers who are on the radio have in common. They aren’t all master rhymers – Kendrick can rattle off multisyllables on “F*ckin’ Problems”, like “Hallelujah / Holla back, I’ll do ya”, where almost all the syllables rhyme, but is Big Sean’s rhyme, “I tell a bad bitch do whatever I say / My block behind me like I’m coming out the driveway”, from “Clique” anywhere close? (All songs referenced here are on the Billboard Top 10 at the time of this writing).

Macklemore can drop solid puns, like “Ice on the fringe is so damn frosty / The people like, ‘Damn, that’s a cold ass honky’”, from “Thrift Shop”, but can he rhyme in the pocket like T.I. on “Ball”? “They like, eh, look at T.I. , ballin’ in the V.I. / bunch of bad bitches with him looking like Aaliyah” So if none of those four things, what do they all have in common?

They all have awesome delivery.

Delivery in rap is the way you say your words. Delivery, rather than being measured with numbers, is instead only able to be described. Delivery can be hard as concrete, like Mos Def in “Mathematics:"

Would the line “The system break man, child and women into figures / two columns for who is and who ain’t niggas!” line from “Mathematics” be the same without Mos Def’s cynical indignation as he says it?

Delivery can be soft, as well.

Sure, on the page, the line “Soul food, you know how Granny do it / When I brought it why the guard have to look all through it?” looks pretty good, but would it be half as much without the heartbroken, lilting delivery Kanye gives it on “Family Business”?


So what can you do to have a better delivery?

When you write, be sure to rap out loud to yourself. No rapping in your head and then writing it down. Write to a beat so that your delivery fits with the song. Imagine how mismatched Mos’ delivery would be if it were on Kanye’s “Family Business”! Ask yourself some questions when you listen to your rap: do you sound like you absolutely, truly believe what you’re saying? Because if you don’t, why should anyone else? Listen closely to the rappers who have great delivery, including those on the radio.

Listen to how their voices fluctuate up and down in pitch, almost as if they were singing, and whether they flow along, or more often stop and start. As often as you can record audio of yourself rapping back and ask these questions. You might also try rapping some of your favorite verses by other rappers and giving them your own signature delivery, changing rhythms and words as necessary.
As a finale, just consider: there are better rappers, there are worse rappers, but any rapper you’ve ever heard of didn’t sound like he didn’t believe what he was saying to be so true that it should be completely self-evident to anyone who hears it too.

An Aspiring Rapper's/Producer's Guide To My Articles

Not very many of my articles are directly addressed to rappers or producers who are trying to get better at their craft. However, rappers or producers can still learn a lot by reading them. Below is a guide to which articles can improve you in the specific areas that are listed below:

Rapper's Skills:

Pacing In Rap:

-Mos Def, Article 1

-2pac Article

-Talib Kweli Article

How To Craft A Flow:

-Notorious B.I.G. Article

-Big Sean Article

-Kendrick Lamar Article

How To Make Your Flow Better:

-Jean Grae Interview

-Talib Kweli Interview

-The Rap Voice As An Instrument Article

-How To Have Better Delivery

New, Complex Rhythms To Use:

-Busta Rhymes Article

-Big Boi Article

-MF DOOM Article

-Talib Kweli Article

-Kendrick Lamar Article

-Nas Article

Complex Rhyming Techniques

-Jean Grae Article

-Eminem "Lose Yourself" Article

-Eminem "Business" Article

-MF DOOM Article

-Mos Def, Article 2

Wordplay & Puns

-Pharoahe Monch Article

Producer's Skills:

Balancing Different Musical Ideas In The Beat/Making Your Beat Deeper

-Dr. Dre's Proportions On His "Oh!" Beat

-Dr. Dre's Orchestration Article

Song Structure

-Kanye West Song Structure Article

How To Make Your Beats Sound More Interesting:

-Dr. Dre's Orchestration Article

How to Have Better Flow

Here is a 2 part video on how to have better flow. First, you need to know how to count beats, so if you don't, learn how to at this video here.

Part 2:

Here are the handouts:

Rap Analysis - Jean Grae Interview

Jean Grae Interview

            On December 27^th, I had the chance to live out a personal and professional dream of mine when I got to interview rapper legend Jean Grae. Besides from being an extremely genuine and nice person (sorry, does that ruin Style Wars for you?), I can also confirm her work from the “Cookies or Comas” mixtape: she’s funny as shit, and yes, does use the word “fuckery” in every day conversation. However, it was a dream not to be able to express my appreciation, but also being able to ask her the questions that I always wonder about when I approach rap music as a craft: how much of her work is inspiration, and how much comes from actively working on it? What idea comes first: words or rhythm? What do they know of music theory? Hopefully the interview below helps dispel some misconceptions around rap music being a “poor man’s music”, so to speak, because “anyone can rap”, but also it hopes give a window into something that we all, as rap fans, get too little information on: how a rap takes its final form on the record. Thus, my mission was to trace the development of the musical idea from its first conception, through to its editing in the studio, to its final manifestation on the CD. Thus, this interview touches on a little bit of everything. Rather than offer my analysis here, I want to present the interview in as raw a form as possible, and let you make of it for now what you will.

When you generate your rap, how much of what you come up with is inspiration, and how much of what you come up with initially do you have to shape and work on further?

It’s never reworking. There’s only one piece that ever took longer than an hour. I work best completely under pressure. The one song that didn’t work like that was ”you and me and everyone we know.” I try to write beforehand, but it just doesn’t work. I write usually directly before I record, and that’s it. I record a lot of stuff at home in my studio, or if we set a studio date…but yeah, I don’t have a really big process beforehand. My process beforehand is more I need to have a bunch of experiences in life. I never do first draft, second draft. I self-edit as I go along. I write really fast.

How did you, Mos Def, Pharoahe, Talib Kweli, Jean Grae, all 4 extremely technically complicated and accomplished rappers, find each other, and come to have such close personal as well as professional relationships?

I think for myself and Kweli and Mos it was just generally New York. We just kind of knew each other, and it was the same time and era, and we just never stopped being friends…outside of all of the rapping, you’re friends first. Pharoahe I met years ago and I guess we really started to be friends a couple years when I started working with some partnerships with him, and when we started hanging out, we were like, “Oh shit, I know who you are!” I call it finding the other mutants – “Oh man, I know exactly how you think!” But in a good way. But people who see me writing and creatively generally come the same way…so that’s how I look at it. We do hang a lot, but mostly we are never coming up with amazing raps. When you write, and I think as frequently as all of us write, all of that hanging out and experiences is exactly what goes into the rhymes, not happenstance, not random – it’s your experiences, what you heard, where you’ve just been. It’s absolutely all in there.

If you had to compare yourself to another rapper, who’d you pick?

I think Pharoahe and myself…we’re really different, but technically we focus on the same thing. I think we approach it in different ways, we’re really meticulous about using rhythms and patterns and words…I’m more word focused, and I think he’s more kind of rhythmically focused, just phrasing-wise, there’s shit I don’t think I could come up with.

What is your compositional process? Do you have a schedule, or do you just write as it comes along?

I absolutely set up a schedule, but whether or not I’m sitting there writing music? Hahaha…sometimes it happens, but usually not.  Something I wouldn’t have done before, I set aside time: “These are my hours when I’ll focus on this project or this project.” I can do a lot of organizing beforehand, but the writing seems like the smallest part to me. Sitting down and saying everything about the album is one thing…but it never happens until it’s the last second and I have to hand it in. My brain doesn’t get that spark until I’m under the gun.

When you start writing, do you start with words or music?

I don’t think that they’re different. I don’t separate the rhythm from the actual word. The word is exactly what is creating the timing…I guess I look at them as beats and notes in themselves. So I’m very conscious of what sort of patterns feel right…and you know it’s the best rhyme when you’re fucking the beat. You’re not competing, you’re not lying somewhere there, you’re getting in there, finding all the spaces where you’re supposed to be. It’s choosing the right words…the first idea, the one I always have and that takes the most time, is the opening line. And it all grows from there…there are people who are absolute masters at writing opening lines, that’s what you want, that’s how you know a song, that’s how it goes…Prodigy [from Mobb Deep]. Might be my favorite. There are so many fucking great ones…and when you find it, it’s absolutely an introduction for people who have never heard you before, it sets the tone for the song – it does so much, it’s a first impression. It happens really quickly – you can decide how many bars it will take – 1 bar, 4 bars, 8 bars – and once that goes, everything else finds its place.

So does the word suggest a rhythm?

Again, it doesn’t suggest, it is the rhythm. It suggests an emotion, whether you’re using triplets or whatever it is, I think certain patterns and certain syllables convey emotions, and that’s really my goal at the end of it. It’s not only using the right word, it’s selecting a word and usually one I haven’t used, words that draw emotions out of people. Words that are relatable are the most important things.

Do you have any favorite words? What kinds of words do you like?

           

I’ve always really liked words, and syllables are great. Words that feel good in your mouth! There’s a saying that, when we find one word that rhymes or a statement that rhymes, I know this is true for my friends and I, you can’t stop coming up with more words – we’ll just keep texting each other back and forth. I remember, talking to Pharoahe, finding out that we both have the same favorite word: it’s amalgamate, or amalgamation, is just an amazing word. I don’t write those kind of words down, but I’ll save them somewhere.

So you’re overarching guiding principle is the emotion you elicit in the listener?

I’d say so.

Is your approach top down or bottom up? For instance, it could be like making a hammer, where you start with a blueprint of a hammer and then put all the parts together until you have one? Or is it like legos, where you start with blocks, just start putting them together, and see where you end up?

It is more like the legos…I can’t visually see a whole puzzle, I’m not great at word searches. What I can do take the word search and make it something new. I work backwards, I work from the future. In my mind when I start with a song, I’m already at the video and accepting awards for the video. I can see the song and the video, it’s all done – what I have to do then is figure out how to go back and time and make the song. It’s like taking a giant ceramic pile. This is already a whole thing, I like this. I take the hammer, smash it, and then have to reconfigure it back into a whole picture. I need to know the innerworkings of it. I absolutely work backwards. When I start with an album, the album is already done. I know what I want it to sound like, I know what I want it to feel like, I just have to go figure out how to do it. I know what it looks like, I know how I want the videos to look – absolutely everything. It’s working from the future.

Based on that answer, and for you this question might not even have an answer, so I just want to hear whatever you have to say: Do you purposefully structure sentences to fall across the bar line to create a better flow, but I guess for you is the answer very case specific?

The rap has to make you feel a certain way. Whether it’s something like “Style Wars”, where it’s supposed to feel a little threatening, and unhinged, and energetic– and even if it’s something that’s the same tempo, you can’t go into “Love Thirst” threatening and unhinged because that would be fucking weird! Yeah, there are secrets that the general consumer doesn’t understand, that rhythms and chords all make you feel a certain way, words too. Even pop songs – hits are hits. These songs make you feel a certain way. I absolutely have finally come to understand that in music – I can play around as much as I want. There are songs I can go back to and listen to as an adult. Like, I heard Katy Perry’s “Fireworks” for the first time the other day, and this is kind of how I know people who appreciate music, like oh, you get it, and that song is fucking brilliant! Like fucking fireworks, are you kidding me? There’s a really deep technicality to making those kinds of songs so I think it’s going into that world understanding it, and when people are like, “This is underground, that is underground,” I’m like, well, a lot of people don’t actually know what they’re writing. If there’s a song I want to be an underground song, I know exactly how to write that. I’m not trying to sell it or license it. But if I want it to be in a specific kind of movie or TV show, then I’m going to include those words, those emotions, those feelings.

You went to La Guardia, a school for the performing arts. There, you learned music theory, both harmonic and rhythmic. Can you read music?

Yes, I can. I learned music when I was much younger, from my parents and I took a gang of piano lessons. I have my dad’s piano now since my parents moved, which is great, I was like, “I really need to go back in and play,” I play somewhat and play it by ear, and I just started going back into reading sheet music again. But it’s been a long time. I stopped doing formal training when I was younger, and really used to like going to places, like Carl Fisher, and picking up sheet music and learning how to play stuff. I love musicals, “Annie” for instance, I would get those books and really, really learn how to play those songs. I think there’s a certain amount of technicality that’s great, but I think mine also just came a lot of genes. It was just kind of innate feeling of knowing things, and then going into music theory class and being like, “oh, that’s what that’s called! I totally know how to do that!” They just gave it a name. That’s kind of how I’ve approached most of myself when I go to learn, I’m like I have ADHD, and this is a lot of money, thank you for telling me these 3 things I needed to know, now I’m going to go do that.

In 1989, you would have been 13 years old, around your time at La Guardia. At that time the big rappers were Kane, Rakim, and KRS-One, all technically accomplished rappers that moved things forward and influenced a lot of the trends today, such as Rakim’s internal rhyming. Did you hear them?

Yes. I especially loved Kane. I loved his “aggressiveness” – not necessarily that he would rap fast, but that his delivery was so forceful. Some others would be people like Cool Keith – he wasn’t even trying to rhyme!

What’s your notation scheme?

I don’t write as much by hand anymore, but when I do, it’s usually in slashes, for instance for a double beat it gets a double slash, but I also tend to space them on the page. I have to be super neat about it. Computers have been great for me because I write so much more and it looks like so much less and when you go back in, you’re like oh shit, that is not 16 bars, that’s 64 bars! So I need to relax. And because 64 ars on a note pad looks very very different.

So you know all that theory, counting bars and so on?

Yes, it’s really important for me.

In most public discussion of rap, that all usually gets glossed over. If you’ve never tried to rap, it is really difficult!

There are nuances and subtleties, and it is fucking difficult…you do have to learn how to count bars, and for some people, it’s just a term, saying “bars”… you know, like a hot 16. It’s absolutely necessary, and some people won’t even recognize it that much.

There’s this conception that “anyone can rap” because all you need is a voice, and a brain, and a microphone, and there’s this conception that rappers, since they don’t go to a formal educational musical setting to learn to rap, that rap is somewhat of “a poor man’s music”.

There is that conception out there, and again, I’d like to thank you. Not enough people recognize it.

Would you ever teach people to rap?

I think you can teach people to write, but I don’t think you can teach people to rap.

So you don’t notate your rhymes in “traditional” music notation?

No, I think I probably do that more so in my head. You know there’s times when I go back. Say when you’re going back and doing the ad libs, and you’ve already got the verse down, it would be easier to go in if you wrote it down and if you’re doubling something with pro tools, a lot of people go in and do one ad lib, and they’re like let me throw in another one on top of it. So it’s to go back in and say in bold, “These are things I’m going to emphasize.” These words are the words that need emphasis, or syllables…I probably focus more on nailing the ad libs. To me, it’s accents…the words that you should be getting right. Usually it’s the first time I’m hearing it, and if I did this right, then here is where I go in and figure out what needs to be accented.

What kind of experience have you had with “classical” poetry, such as reading Shakespeare?

Before I started rapping a loud for people, I was definitely doing poetry readings of my own written poetry for audiences, back when I was 12 or 13. We probably should not have been allowed in those clubs, but it was New York at that time and nobody cared. And I thought that it works for me, and again, it was immediately pulling emotions out of people. What words am I using to get to the emotions of people?

Have you had any kind of formal schooling in poetry? For instance, the metrics and accents of iambic pentameter, or anything like that?

I think I had great teachers at school, great English teachers, who actually focused on some of these things and I was really, really lucky to have that and be able to translate it to music, and be like, oh okay, this is the same thing. Good teachers who understood that those things were important.

So when you bring accent to a rap, it matters where they fall?

Absolutely, and it comes from having in my early career been super monotone about things, that I was reliant a lot on rhythms and accents but not necessarily doing it with my voice. Not on purpose, I think I was generally young and literally had not found my voice. So yeah, I think all of that forced me into it. It’s learning how to do stuff with a blindfold on, and then when you’re good enough you take the blindfold off, you’re like, “Oh shit! Well now I can fucking play around.” This would have been around “Attack of the Attacking Things” [from 2002], and going back and listening to it, it doesn’t sound young material-wise, but voice-wise, I can hear it. I didn’t really know what to do. I was definitely playing around more in the poetry world than the rap world. Really, really breaking rules and rhythms in a real conversational tone, and definitely not as technical, even just starting with the next album, “This Week” [from 2004].

Would you see “This Week” as a transitional album then, in terms of delivery and technical side of things? I’m thinking of songs like “Style Wars” – monotone, technical, as compared to the song “Going Crazy”, where you’re delivery is sing-songy almost.

This Week was a transitional album, just learning how to play around more. It was just having things in my head that I was kind of afraid to do. Sort of letting go of that fear, and being like, “Oh no you can totally play around, it doesn’t have to be one thing, not one sound.” It established that I knew what I was doing. You have to take it out of the level that came before. I was really happy about learning how to evolve.

On “Attack”, you had songs like “Live For You”, with a focus on poetry, almost like a book: there were characters, plot development, and resolution. But then a song like “Style Wars” from “This Week” has no linear narrative. There are people and places that are alluded to, but these things may or may not be real. What went on between those two albums? What led to that shift? Was it just opening the toolbox you have open to you?

General life just happened…when I change in life and go through more experiences, my writing has to evolve. It has to! If you haven’t done anything in those 2 or 3 years, and learned new lessons, met new people, formed new relationships, and you’re writing the same shit, the same way? I can’t do that.

How much of your rhythms at the microphone are improvised, or is it the same take every time?

Interesting for me, because it’s so new for me when I get in there, it just happened, so it depends. A lot of times where I go in and I absolutely nail it first take, and sometimes when you do that first take you go back and listen to it and you’re like, “Nope, don’t change a fucking thing.” Even though there are some imperfections, there’s magic in there. Usually, it’s a couple times, like 4 or 5. Just to kind of play around with it and get the energy right. I think that’s what it is, trying to figure out what I already have. I know the words are there, I know what it’s supposed to sound like, I can hear it in my head. But I try to justify the words, give them the life they deserve. You don’t want to let them down now because they look so good on the page. Not much editing or revising is going on though, generally really small stuff…figuring out vocally what I need to do. You put Frankenstein together, and bring him to life!

So when you start to write, you always have the beat first?

Yes, I definitely need the beat first.

How does that play out over the whole recording process? For instance, once you have the beat, do you just add the rap to it? Or will you go back and forth between the two – start with the beat, add rap, change beat to fit, then change the rap, and so on? How much do you coordinate with the production side of things?

I am really involved on that side. It’s a continual back and forth, not changing the beat, but definitely adding things…again, probably things that the general public doesn’t notice a lot. When we’re picking drops, even if you’re just dropping off the snare, or the hi-hat, or the kick, or everything for a second, it’s a huge part of constructing a song. It’s the backdrop, it’s the reason you’re going to feel the way about something, it’s the reason you’re going to take a breath and then come back in when you’re listening. And adding instruments, live instruments, or whatever sounds right…there are times when my manager comes back in the studio, and they’re like, “Yeah, Jean put a glockenspiel on it”, laughs, and he’s like “Really?” and then he’ll listen to it and he’s like, “This is why I hate you, because you’re right! Now it feels better.” It’s just wanting to have the right ear. If I’m going to add something, what is it going to be, where is it going to go, and how do I arrange it so that I’m pulling the same emotion that these words are driving at? So I’m really, really involved as far as that goes.

So you won’t ever mix and match raps to a beat?

Sometimes there’s a great moment when that happens. You might have something that goes with a certain beat…I don’t really write a lot of extra stuff, because I’m not just writing to write, but there are definitely times when you’ve written for something else and it might not ever get used or come out, and then you hear something, and you try that over that beat, and you’re like, “Oh shit, it’s perfect! Absolutely perfect! I” think that’s the only time that happens for me just because I don’t have a surplus of rap.

Sometimes, you listen to an entire verse from a certain rapper, and you just get the feeling that it was put together piecemeal. The first 4 bars all fit together, they’re a unit, they all go together musically, thematically…

 [Cuts in:] And then something else happens, and you’re like wait, what? That doesn’t go there!

Yeah, and you wonder how that jump got made…to me, that just means the creative process was they carry around a book, put together a lot of one or two liners, until you get a full 16 bars.

Sometimes, that happens. I definitely know rappers who do that. I sometimes call it “rappity rap” – you’re just rhyming cat with hat, nursery-rhyme stuff. I don’t do that. No, for me, everything is tailor made, with that really small exception that I can’t remember the last time that happened. I thought of that today, I had a verse, and I was like, “I’m sorry that song never came out”, but for me it’s different, because then I can go and create a different beat for it. But you know there are a lot of emcees who do that. I think there are some rappers who are better at doing that seemlessly, because I don’t know 2 people who write the same. I write differently than Kweli, and Pharoahe…I go in and if I’m in the studio session, I’ll be like, “let me see how you write.” And there are people who write in paragraph form, using ABCD phrasing. It’s really interesting to see everyone’s writing process, and even if they don’t think it’s a process, it’s fascinating.

So much discussion of rap centers around flow: what it is, how to create it, who has it, and so on. What is good flow to you?

Flow is different for each particular person – everybody has their own flow. What doesn’t work for one rapper might work for another. You have to get to know your voice as if it was an instrument. Know what you can get away with – how you sound, almost what the frequencies of your voice are. I hear beats that I really like, but pass on them because I know my voice won’t fit. I hear other rappers say certain words and raps that I really like, but I know that I couldn’t get away with it. It’s like certain accents, like Southern, can use certain words that others can’t. I think rappers should think more about what words they can use in a certain order. For instance, if you change the rapper of a verse, but keep the rhythms and words the same, the feel of the verse completely changes.

What is the first advice you’d give to a start rapper music-wise?

           

Learn an instrument, it doesn’t matter which one: recorder, piano, whatever. You need that different musical perspective in your work. Always rap a loud too – some things that look good on paper might not work in performance.

What is the future of rap musically? Is there any corresponding trend you see today that will continue into the future, like Rakim’s internal rhymes?

I think things go in 20 years cycles…what you’re hearing today kind of mirrors the early 90s. I’ve got no problem with that, because it’s like the people now never heard that stuff back in the 90s, so they can recreate it. But as far as specific things, I don’t see it right now. I haven’t had a moment in a while where I’m like, “I’ve never heard that before!” Andre 3000 is great at doing that.

Alright, let’s try a small composition experiment. I’m going to give you a line and you tell me how you’d continue it. How about the final line of your song “Style Wars”: “Slit your neck open from your chest/ who’s next to duel?”

I actually don’t think that was the end of verse, I think I cut it off for the song. I would do the obvious thing and continue that 3-syllable pattern, “next to duel”, which I was doing right before that point on the song, with lines like “Catch you hiding in a darkened VESTIBULE”…Maybe mix it up by using 2 words to fit that 3 syllable pattern, just like vestibule was 1 word for 3 syllables. Eminem is great at doing stuff like that.

How about a line you didn’t write: “Give me some more reason to have the women in your mama’s church…” (From “Oh No” with Pharoahe Monche, Mos Def, and Nate Dogg”)

Well, the words that stand out are “gimme”, “women”, and “mama”…I’d probably continue the pattern of the m sounds. I like when Mos sticks in one place for a while, which he doesn’t do too often…his verse on “Thieves in the Night” [from Blackstar] is one of those times.

Do you have any other favorite verses?

Pharoahe’s on “Extinction Agenda” [from Organized Konfusion’s album “Stress: The Extinction Agenda.”]

Who do you think is the best rapper ever?

Ooooo…um…I can’t tell you that.

You can’t tell me, or won’t tell me? Even off the record?

Yes, I have someone in mind. I do, but I can’t.

Can I ask why you won’t tell me?

Probably because…I’ll just say no, because that’d give it away too. I probably have a top 2 or 3.

Can I hear those?

Nope. Maybe I’ll tell you on my deathbed.

If you had to make a single recommendation of one Jean Grae song for someone to hear that had never heard your stuff before, which would it be?

I think it’s changed for me, and I think it’s difficult to say. Right now, it’d probably me, “You and Me and Everyone We Know”, because I think there’s a lot of evolution of things on there. But then there’s a downside to that, which is introducing that, with the reaction of, “Oh, okay, you’re more of a laid back type of rapper”, and “I;m like no, not really,,,go check me out on Assassins.” It’s difficult for me to do that, but I do get that question. What happens is that that becomes the perception, and then they go listen to other stuff.

Could you pick an album?

I think it’s a really slept on album, I actually went back and listened to it the other day, because there’s a lot of shit on there…I think of rap as a snapshot as what I’m learning at the time. I’d pick “This Week”, for a full, complete thought.

Are you always running ideas through your head in the course of your normal day?

My brain doesn’t ever stop working. I operate in terms of writing, just everything: dialogue during the day, different ideas…it absolutely never stops and there’s no way I’d be able to get all the projects done that come up in my head every hour.

Do you ever get tired of it?

I am exhausted right now. I just finished the Christmas album, and I’m simultaneously working on this video, writing, directing, editing, and then working on “Gotham Down”, the next album out the 22^nd, and I’m producing, and mixing, and writing, and then my show, “The Life of Jeanie”…my mind keeps jumping around to so many things, and I enjoy the business of it, but it was like 9 o clock this morning and my eyes just hurt! I just wanted to go to sleep! So I kind of had to force myself to sleep. It’s a lot, it’s an interesting time of year…but I think when there’s this great creative overflow of stuff, you have to take advantage of it. You know, the scene in old school where he does the debate team and he comes on, and he just fucking blacks out for a second, and then he’s like “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God!” and then comes back, that’s kind of how it works for me.

Do you have any pets?

           

No…I love animals, we grew up having a lot of pets in the house, hamsters, mice, snakes, frog, fish….but not right now because I travel. It’s something else to take care of, probably not a good idea right now. I don’t have any pets because I like pets. They don’t deserve that!

Take Rap Lessons

If you want lessons on how to improve your flow, email me at mepc36@gmail.com. I don't necessarily "teach people to rap", but I will make you a better rapper. You will learn such things as how to count beats/bars, how to make your flow more continuous, the most important rap flow songs, and more. A sample lesson can be found at the end of this post.

I would teach you how to maximize your own talents, and how to get the most out of what it is you do. In the tradition of many great musical pedagogues, I believe it's impossible to teach a music-maker (composer, producer, rapper, singer/song-writer, whoever) their own voice. What I can and will do, however, is describe to you exactly what it is you are doing in your own music in a methodological way that allows you to consciously manipulate the compositional choices you make. For instance, you will realize why you place a rhyme in one place in the bar, and not another; or why you repeat a certain phrase at one point and not another; and, eventually, how to avoid monotony or un-interesting raps by being cognizant of all the different musical tools at your disposal that you can use to create raps that maintains a constant line of tension and interest in the listener's ear. (For instance, these "tools" in the toolbox will be the different ways to create accent, the manipulation of phrases, metric displacement, and so on, all of which will be explained to you in great detail if you decide to do this.) It's like this: Nas, Eminem, and Mos Def, for our purposes here 3 of the greatest rappers of all time, are complete masters of their craft. They cannot, however, in a methodical and consistent way communicate to you or anyone else  exactly what it is they are doing. They cannot notate their music and give it to someone else so that anyone can understand it. That is what I can do for you.

So, let me know if you're interested! They are of course free, the only thing I ask is that you spread links to my blog around a little, you know, facebook, reddit, twitter, wherever. Thanks!

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Sample lesson:
1. Go to my website. Take a look at 2 songs: Biggie's "Hypnotize", and Drake/Lil Wayne's "Successful" sheet music. You can find them under the "rap transcriptions" tab at the top.
2. Save them or print them out, or put them into that noteflight website we were using.
3. Write in the slurs underneath the notes that indicate where the words of the rap are broken up grammatically, such as by conjunctions like "and", "or", "but", etc., or periods, commas, question marks, and so on. If in doubt, listen to the song, and ask yourself where you yourself hear one idea ends and where the next one starts.

4. Make a frequency chart of the different note durations in each song. For instance, make a chart for each with an eighth note, a sixteenth note, a dotted eighth note, etc., at the top, and put a single tally under each column for each time that note appears. NOTE: Always count the note duration of a note coming at the end of a grammatical phrase as a 16th note.

The question I want you to think about:

Why does Biggie's song have such a more spread-out frequency of notes, with more and different durations, than Drake's?

Hint to answer the question:

Calculate how many of those grammatical phrases per bar there are in each song, for each's first 3 verses, and note in general where they start and end in each respective song.

If You Rap, Hit Me Up

If you rap, no matter who you are/how good you are, I want to make beats for you.

Here's the deal. I'm a little tired of the current state of things in the music world - lately, I cannot for the life of me figure out why things are done the way they are right now. So here's what we're gonna do.

Below are the links to three different beats I made on my soundcloud page. If you go there, you can download them (for free.)

Links To The Beats

I want you to download them, and write raps over them. All the beats right now are all instrumental. They are each about 8 minutes long, of the same section of beat over and over. This is to facilitate you writing raps over them. I want you to download them, listen to the beat over and over, and write verses. When you have, email me the raw vocal audio information at mepc36@gmail.com. I will take the vocals and put them on the song. I will tailor the beat to be specifically fit to your version of the vocals, such as where drops are.

Because here's the thing, and how it differs from how things are done right now: I'm not gonna screen the verses that go on the beats, and I'm not gonna restrict the beat to just one, final, "official" version. That's why the beat is in such a rough state right now. I have a ton of other musical ideas to put over them (like an electric guitar one for the rhythmic spaces beat), but they aren't in there yet. Also, the mixes are a little rough. Thus, the beat is incomplete, and it is greatly in your interest for you to email me your verses rather than just steal the beat. This is so I can fill the beat out. Also, you might get sued*. (See footnote for more information.)

Now, you have two options. You can 1.) Write whatever the hell you want over the beats, or 2.) Follow the rough guidelines I give below for what I want to hear in the song. The second option will make you a better rapper definitively and make me pay more attention to your stuff. If this goes well, we will all want to collaborate in the future. But below is just to give you some idea of what I'm looking for. (Also, these names for the beats are just temporary, and obviously can be whatever you want.)


For any of the 3 beats, the one you like best, try to do this:

       I want the form to be really specific. I want it to be a freestyle - that means, no real chorus, at least not like the ones you hear on the radio, where the verse and chorus are obviously really different. For instance, not like Biggie's "hypnotize." I want what I'm calling the Kendrick Lamar freestyle form. Listen a lot to "Backseat Freestyle" from "good kid, m.A.A.d. city" (you can hear it here,) or "Rigamortis" (heard here) from Section 80. Notice how the verse leads really smoothly into the hook (the repeated part "All my life...") and then notice how it moves from the hook back into the verse really easily on "Backseat Freestyle". This is not just because of how Kendrick spits a verse/chorus that is both thematically and musically leads into and out of it, but also how the vocals are mixed. That is, the vocals, whether chorus or verse, are always centered. It's the difference between how Eminem's vocals in "The Way I Am" (able to be heard at this link here) sound and how the vocals in "Backseat Freestyle are mixed." I will be mixing them like "Backseat Freestyle".

     This also means you gotta make the music flow over the bar line, and make the text thematically very consistent - always be talking about the same thing. Go to my blog and read the Kendrick Lamar GKMC analysis, to see what I mean- scroll down until I'm talking about "elision." That is, he changes the repeated part of the freestyle, the "hook", on its final line the last time the hook is repeated and then goes to a different flow. That's what I want you to do.
     
      To make music flow over the bar line, check out this transcription of Rakim's "I Ain't No Joke". (Even if you can't read music, you can still understand it.) Listen to the song here. Follow along to the song with the transcription. All of those little vertical lines separating words from each other, such as between "no" and "joke", are called bar lines. These separate off things called bars, which is a measure of musical time just like a minute is a measure of chronological time. Look at those little slowly curving lines on the music as well, such as from "I" to "joke." These mark off complete grammatical ideas, like sentences. They form the bigger units by which we understand the rap. Listen to how Rakim's words, such as in the sentence, "I Ain't No Joke", all fall over the bar line. This makes the rap flow better by not stopping at such a natural break for the music, the bar line. He does this all over the song: "Cause you'll get fried in the end, when you pretend to be competing...",  "Cause I put your mind on pause" (completely inside the bar), "Remember me?", and so on. Identify all the places where he does this in the song. This is how I need you to write.

This is because I'm not gonna change the essence of the background beat. That doesn't mean I won't vary it - I'll take parts in and out, for instance take the organ out, put it back in - take the bass kick out, and so on. Then, I'm gonna have a ton of unique musical ideas, like I've got one for a funky guitar, but they'll all just come and go once. Think along the lines of Cool Kids beats, something like "Cool Kids' "Action Figures" listen to how that synth idea comes and goes.

General Flows and Words/Stories/Text/Poetry I Really Like:

1. Jean Grae (song "Style Wars")
2. Mos Def/Talib Kweli (song "RE: DEFinition")
3. Eminem (song "We Ain't", his verse, not Game's)
4. Busta Rhymes (song "Holla")
5.  Kendrick Lamar (backseat freestyle from before, see above.)
6. Lauryn Hill (her verse, starting around 1:50, on the Fugees song "The Score")

Generally, they're heavy with rhymes, with quick rhythms, and they rap about dark, macabre stuff.

Again, email me at mepc36@gmail.com with the verses you come up with, and I'll put them up on the blog. You can post them to where you want to, but PLEASE give me credit. You will want to do so for the reason below.



*Here's why you really don't want to just steal these beats and not give me credit: they are all registered with ASCAP, a musician's union that will sue you for me to get me credit and royalties. Proof is provided below: