Do you want to rap like all those BET stars? well its good to know some basics of anything before jumping in.
Here are a few steps to achieving your dream.
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 second-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,
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 Eminem did on this freestyle:
I take a beat and loop it,
I take a beat and choop it,
Choop it? What does that mean?
I don’t know but I got fat jeans on,
And I already said that,
I don’t know where my head’s at,
Another technique to use when you find yourself in a bind is to whip out a quick filler. Fillers are just little phrases that you can insert occasionally to give you more time to think of a dope line. Every emcee has his own fillers. For example, Eyedea says “I grab the microphone.” Jin often says, “I’m (nasty) when I’m freeing.” I usually say, “You know what I’m sayin’?”
Try to come up with a few fillers that you feel comfortable using. They’ll bail you out of some awkward pauses. As you get better, you can rely less heavily on your fillers.
Step 3. Rhyme in your mind ahead of time
Here’s the biggest trick to freestyle rapping: as soon as you know what word you’re going to end line 1 with, your mind should start racing to find out a word you can use at the end of line 2. Let’s say your first line is, “I’m colder than a Dairy Queen Blizzard.” As soon as you realize that you’re going to end the line with “Blizzard,” you should immediately think of something that rhymes with that word and might possibly be related:
wizard
lizard
scissor
miss her
pins hurt
Pick one and then try to carve the second line to lead toward that word. Let’s say you pick “wizard,” your next line might be:
I’m colder than a Dairy Queen Blizzard,
This is Lord of the Rings, you’re the hobbit, I’m the wizard,
If you pick “scissor,” you might say:
I’m colder than a Dairy Queen Blizzard,
A rebel since I was five, went running with scissors,
The real trick of freestyling is to have your mind constantly racing ahead of what you’re saying. This isn’t easy, but you’ll get quicker with practice.
Step 4. Write
Writing raps will help you freestyle. When you write, rhymes become embedded in your head, and you’re more likely to be able to pull these rhymes off the top of your head in a freestyle.
For the most part, you should never spit a long pre-written verse at a cipher, but you can certainly use rhyming words and shorter phrases that you’ve worked out beforehand. When Proof rhymes “Ewoks, treetops, and Reeboks” in a freestyle, you better believe he’s thought of those rhymes ahead of time. He’s still freeing, but he’s using rhyme words he’d already worked out.
Sitting down and writing every day will improve your freestyles. It will expand your memory of rhyming words, and it will give you experience working these words into clever lines. It’s also a good idea to write a few multi-purpose bars that you can spit at a freestyle in case you get really stuck. Put those lines in a “Break Out Rhymes In Case of Emergency” box, and smash the glass when you need help. This isn’t cheating; it’s shrewd.
When you’re writing these “in case of emergency” lines, make them strong and interesting, but not too ridiculously amazing. In other words, don’t do this:
Turn the beat up, it’s all that I need, (free)
Rocking my pumas … and my white tee, (free)
Hit or miss, this penetrates the uranium nucleus, (written)
Smoke crews like a hookah plus I’m nuking your crib, (written)
You don’t want your “emergency” rhymes to be that obvious. Try to write rhymes that generally match your level of freestyle but are clever and smart.
Step 5. Rap about things around you
This is definitely the best way to prove to the crowd that you’re really freestyling and not just spitting something you wrote in your room the night before. It’s also a huge crowd-pleaser, ‘cause it’s impressive and it makes everyone real glad that they’re hanging out with you. Rap about things you see. Incorporate objects, actions, people, clothing, situations, and sounds into your rap. When I’m in the shower, I’ll rap about what kind of soap I’m using:
Trying hard to get clean, maybe just a smidgen,
Make my Dove dirty, oh, now I call it pigeon
At a battle competition, this is crucial. You’ve got to spit things specific about your opponent. These are the hardest-hitting punches. Take Iron Solomon’s opening lines against The Saurus in a battle on the streets of New York. He looks his opponent up and down, sees that he’s wearing shorts, and then spits:
Maybe you should have come here rocking a better flannel,
Or at least some long pants,
You should have checked the weather channel.
One of the freestyle kings is a rapper from North Carolina named Spectac, who can spit a rhyme off the top of his head that sounds like it was pre-written. I’ve heard Spectac freestyle for 40 minutes straight over various beats, and I’ve seen him in action at a show, getting some kid to walk around the audience pointing at things and Spec rhymes about it. I asked Spectac what it takes to freestyle. Here’s what he told me:
“Honestly, first of all, you have to have a love for the music and not just the hip-hop genre. You have to love the instrumental. Once you have the passion for it, anybody can develop the ability to freestyle. It comes down to how much time you’re willing to invest in practicing that part of the art. When I’m freestyling, I’m thinking ahead. I’m definitely thinking ahead. At the same time, I don’t get too far ahead of myself. You try to enjoy it with the crowd. Enjoy the punch lines, but keep yourself focused on the fact that the party isn’t over.”
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