Mandala Theatre Company – Creative Challenge 4 Creating rap and lyrics in a hip-hop style Led by Rawz Campbell (Urban Music Foundation) I had an idea and it sparked this Fire
I gave more thought and the flames got Higher
Sharing this heat is my one Desire Growing my dreams grow my minds empire> Grow my empire make it get more strong You can rhyme too no it don’t take Long Use this day before this day’s Gone Use these ways you can write your Song
Introduction This is Rawz very basic rap using his ‘Easy Rap Method’. You can adapt and employ this method to write song lyrics in any genre but for this challenge you are going to focus on the Hip Hop style.
Step 1: First of all we need to know that the rhymes are what gives our words their rhythm, you’ll notice that rhyming words are at the end of each line and that’s what give the lyrics their beat so they fit with the music.
Step 2: So, next we need to know how to find a rhyme. We need to break the word down into its sounds, I’ve picked two words to give you an example of how it works, but this works with all words. The words I’ve chosen are Fire and Song, because we’re going to make a fire song right? Fire in the booth and all that lol. So were gonna break these words down into the sounds that make them up: F-ire And S-ong Then we just need to take that last sound “ire” for fire and ”ong” for song and think of other words that contain these sounds preferably at the end. Any word that contains those sounds rhymes with either Fire or Song. Ok so now we know that, we’re ready to start this Easy Rap Method
Step 3: We need to pick two words; I’ve already chosen mine as you know, but you can pick any two words. If you’re just starting out go easy on yourself and don’t pick a really long word or one with an unusual sound at the end, you can even use the two I’ve chosen and try to come up with something different.
Step 4: Next we’re going to try and think of as many words as we can that rhyme with each of our words and write them in columns like this: Fire Desire Require Entire Empire Inquire Retire Higher Song Strong Long Gone Wrong Belong Tong Swan I’d recommend pausing the video here and spending about ten minutes just trying to think of rhyming words. You’ll need at least 4 for each word. If you’re a bit impatient or pressed for time you can always just Google “words that rhyme with …” and there’s loads of online rhyming dictionaries that can help you.
Step 5: Ok so now you’ve done that there’s one more thing that I need to teach you about, and that’s the snare drum. The snare drum is this sound… It’s one of the main things that gives a song its rhythm and its going to work with our rhyming words to tie the lyrics and the music together. You’ve got access to this snare drum track and the full instrumental and you might want to refer to that to help you from now on. Let’s listen to the snare track and take a minute to practice saying our rhyming words on every SECOND snare, so: Fire Desire Require Entire Empire Inquire Retire Higher Song Strong Long Gone Wrong Belong Along Swan Notice that the rhyming sound (ire and ong) falls on the snare no matter how long the word is.
Step 6: Next up we need to think of some sentences that are going to fit into the gaps and connect our rhyming words together. You might want to rearrange and get rid of some of your words at this point, we need 4 sentences for each rhyming word. Try and make your words fit together like a story. Pause the video now, while you have a little play around with your words and think of your sentences. Remember the rhyming words need to stay in the same place so don’t make your sentences too long or too short. Listen to the snare track or the full beat to help you get it just right!
Step 7: Now we’ve put all that together all that’s left to do is add the rest of the instruments back in and say our verse over the beat!
Please record or video your rap and send it to us for the Gallery.
