How To Write A Rap Song | PART 1: GETTING STARTED

This is the first video of a new series that I'm doing that's going to guide you through the process of writing a rap song from start to finish.

My name is Cole Maez and I've been helping rappers perfect their rap skills on this channel for the past 10 years.

And for this series I'm going to be using a Migos inspired instrumental that I produce called Take Off and I'll be sharing ideas that work specifically well for this beat.

So if you want to follow along you can purchase a license to this instrumental via my beat store which I posted a link to in the video description below

along with links to all the tools and resources that I mentioned in this video.

Now the first thing that you need to understand about songwriting is it's not always done in a linear fashion.

Meaning we don't always create a song in a particular order and we also don't always write from beginning to end.

You can approach songwriting in different ways each time as long as you understand the process and the techniques.

You can finish a song regardless of how you started it.

So while I do have my own preferred workflow for songwriting, which I will be sharing with you in this series, I still sometimes approach it in different ways.

You see, I like to think of songwriting as if it were a fire. Every roaring fire started with just some tiny sparks.

And in the beginning of writing a song, you're simply capturing these sparks.

And these sparks are your ideas, and they are going to build into something much greater than you probably ever anticipated.

And as you get more experience, you will start to trust the creative process.

When you show up to create something, you don't typically know the correct route to the finish line.

The creative process is iterative, meaning it's done step by step over time.

For every five ideas that you may think of, you may only keep one.

And for every idea that you eliminate, you make room for better ideas to come through.

And the songwriting process begins with capturing ideas.

This could be a concept, a premise, a scenario, a memory, an object, a punchline, a rhyme scheme, or even a cadence or a melody.

You never know when or why you will get these little moments of inspiration, so always be ready to capture them, write them down, or record them so you don't forget them.

With all that being said, here is my favorite approach to beginning the songwriting process.

Step number one, find an instrumental that moves you.

You don't always have to write to an instrumental, but I prefer to do so because it prevents me from going back later on to tweak my lyrics to make it flow correctly over the instrumental.

Also, instrumentals can help give you ideas of what to write about. I like to find an instrumental that moves me in some type of emotional way.

If you're not really feeling the instrumental that you're writing to, then you're basically fighting an uphill battle.

It's our job as entertainers to make people feel something with our music. So if we don't feel it, then why should anybody else?

So if the instrumental moves you in some type of emotional way, it's going to be much easier for you to come up with ideas.

So step one is find an instrumental that moves you. Once I find an instrumental that moves me, the next step is to do something I like to refer to as trying on the beat.

Shopping for beats is kind of like shopping for clothes. Just because something looks dope on the rack doesn't mean it's going to look dope on you.

So I like to try on the beat by scatting to it. While

I'm scatting, I'm getting a sense of the tempo and the

groove of the instrumental, and I'm auditioning different cadence's, and I'm also playing around with the tone of my voice, and I'm typically rapping in different tones to see which tone seems to fit the instrumental the best.

The instrumental will already be putting off some type of vibe and emotion, and I'm simply playing with matching that emotion with my voice.

And don't forget if you get some cool ideas while you're trying on the beat, go ahead and record and get those ideas down so you don't forget them.

And if everything is feeling good to me, I will commit to using this beat to write my new song. And step three is creating our song writing session.

The next thing I do is import my instrumental into a DAW, also known as a digital audio workstation.

A DAW is simply software that allows us to work on music.

I like using a DAW for song writing because it allows me to loop specific sections of the song I'm working on and I can easily record all of my ideas as I get them.

So I'm typically writing and recording my ideas pretty much at the same time.

If you don't already have a doll, my current favorite one for computers is Reaper.

And if all you have is a phone or a tablet, I recommend BandLab.

If you're not using BandLab, then before you import your instrumental into the doll, you need to figure out what the key and the tempo of the instrumental is.

One of my favorite free tools for doing this is Toombat.com's Analyzer. And you need these two pieces of information for the following reasons.

Your doll needs to know the tempo of the instrumental so that it can be in sync with it.

For example, if I put the wrong tempo into my doll, I would never be able to loop a section of the instrumental perfectly because it would always be out of time.

For example, listen to this loop.

Once you know the tempo and key of the instrumental, update the tempo of your doll accordingly and drag in the instrumental.