So you want to learn how to rap and freestyle? It's easy with our (patent-pending) 10-pronged technique. You'll find the guide below plus lessons on wordplay, punchlines, flow and more in The Rapper's Handbook. Also check out our rhyme boards, where emcees like you spit more golden nuggets of wisdom than a smart camel in a jewelery store.
Freestyle rapping is spitting lyrics in ciphers (or alone) that you make up on the spot. While you might sneak in a line or two that you wrote the night before, most of your flow should be improvised, spontaneous, and off the top 'o the dome.
This Freestyle Guide comes from The Rapper's Handbook.
The Official Flocabulary 10-Pronged Technique for Learning to Freestyle Rap. by Emcee Escher, esq. Step 1. Start Easy. No need to start off rhyming "the toasty cow's utter" with "most o' my flow's butter". No need to even rhyme. Just forget everything else and flow. The rhythm can be simple, the words might be 2nd grade level, but you're still freestyling as long as you make it up. This was my first freestyle rap, which I spit when I was 11 months old:
I am funny, I like bunnies, touch my tummy, mummy,
Step 2. Keep Flowing. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to sound stupid. Make your first freestyle rap verses your stupidest verses just to get them out of the way. Keep flowing. Can't think of a rhyme? Keep flowing! Stutter over words? Keep flowing. It's inevitable that at some point some of your lines won't rhyme, won't make sense, or that you will inadvertently diss yourself (I knew one guy who accidentally dissed himself all the time when we were freestyling), just keep flowing. If you make a mistake, do your best to incorporate your mistake into your next lines like this:
I drive you bananas, apples and oranges,