Hip Hop and Rap Beats

Posts in category Hip Hop Beats

Inns and Outs of a Hip Hop Beat

Jan13
2011 Written by admin

But how do you get to know the ins and outs of a hip hop beat? And can’t you just listen to a lot of hip hop music to learn how different beats work? The answer to the last question is no, you can’t just listen to a lot of hip hop music to become familiar with how a hip hop beat actually works. The only way to really uncover the mechanics of hip hop beats is to dissect them as much as you can and then to find out how your own style works with them. Only once you have put in time dissecting different beats can you really uncover your own style and what and what not you can work with.

In order to dissect a beat you really need to get the instrumental version of the song. And the reason you want to get rid of the lyrics is because you don’t want to be swayed by what another artists did with the same beat you are working on. But the beat doesn’t necessarily need to have already been rapped to. It’s perfectly acceptable to take some instrumental hip hop beats and work with those. What matters is that you take your time listening to the beat and asking yourself not only where the chorus comes in and how many choruses there are, but more importantly how the rhyme structure works.  What is the driving component of the hip hop beat? In most cases the bass will let you in on the timing, but not always. Often the bass, while having timing, isn’t the element that will determine how you rap to the beat.

How you rap to the beat is entirely up to you, but you can look to different elements in the song to ground your freestyle to. To see what this means, first rap just to the bass line. Since we don’t have a beat in front of us, it’s difficult to point this out, but once you have flowed to the bass line try rapping to something in the midrange. Listen for the other elements of the song, choose one and rap to that.

While elements of a song will generally run on the same timing they will not all be doing the same things.  And because this last statement is true the way that you go about rapping to them will not be the same. Where and how you rhyme will be determined by the element of the hip hop beat that you choose to key in on. You can always focus on different elements to change up your sound or even to develop a different sound. You can also distinguish your sound from other rappers by keying in on a unique element of a song and rapping to it. Also, by dissecting a few hip hop beats on your own and flowing to separate elements of a song you will come pretty quickly to learn what you can and can’t do with your own flow. Once you have learned this, then you know your own personal limits which will help you even more, both when you go to choose a hip hop beat and when you are flowing.

Freestyle to Hip Hop Beats Without Training Wheels

Oct15
2010 Written by admin

A lot of people will write down or memorize their different freestyles and repeat them to different rap beats at different times and act as if they are truly free styling. The fewer of these raps you have the more limited you will be in your repetitive skills when you freestyle to different beats. Your limitations will be especially obvious when you try to put your preferred and prearranged freestyle down over a beat that you are both unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. In cases like this your flow will prove weak because you just can’t work with the beat because the cadence of the beat will not work with your prearranged rhythms. Then you will be on your own to come up with a true spontaneous freestyle without the help of your written flows that amount to nothing more than training wheels.

If you want to flow then you have to take off the training wheels or you will never develop as a rapper. Everybody knows what the training wheels are and who uses them and how and when they do. In many cases there is nothing wrong with having a bunch of different fall back lines and even verses to drop whenever you get in trouble over a beat. Using stock phrases or whole written graphs can also be a good way to get yourself going and begin a real freestyle to a hip hop beat. But the real power behind rap has always been its freestyle, and with regard to this technique, remembering different rhymes and verses and repeating them is not and never has been freestyling.

Now you can use this method to help strengthen your flow or get you past tricky spots to build up your spontaneous skills, but at a certain point if you are ever going to be good at freestyling or even if you are going to spend anytime in a studio making tracks you are going to have to learn to really flow. This is more true than you might think with regard to studios as studios are so expensive having the ability to drop a sick track to a new beat when you come together with new people is a skill that is in short supply. In other words your performance even in a studio setting where you are supposed to only be laying down written or remembered tracks will be greatly enhanced if you develop a  flow.

You are going to have to develop the ability to talk to a beat. Some people have the gift and can do this naturally, others have to learn it, either way it is still a skill that you can develop over time. When you hear a beat, you should be able to talk in its cadence or talk to its beat structure. To do this, you’ll need a lot of material ready at hand so reading and paying attention to media is a good idea so you can have opinions to pour out once you’ve developed the knack of picking up a rhythm and putting your words into that rhythm.

The Only Way to Practice to Hip Hop Beats

Oct15
2010 Written by admin

Practice is what your mother tells you to do. Practice is what the coach wants from you, or what television programs ask for from children, but you don’t have to practice to hip hop beats, do you? The answer is of course you have to practice to hip hop beats. There is no other way to perfect your flow without practicing. And not only do you have practice, but you have to have a goal in mind when you practice. In other words, you have to be trying to accomplish something specific when you practice to hip hop beats.

Having a goal in mind when you practice to hip hop beats can mean several different things.  For instance, one of your goals in practicing over hip hop beats can be that you specifically choose a style or beat that you have trouble working with. Then you take the beat from ClickBeats and listen to it wherever you go. Listen to that beat on the train, the bus, in your house, wherever you are. The point is that you get down the beat’s rhythm and timing. Once you have gotten down the rhythm and timing of the beat then you can begin to rap to it. At first this might be difficult, but soon you will develop a rhyme scheme that works to this particular style of hip hop beat. And once you have developed the rhyme scheme that you use when you flow then you own that style of hip hop beat.

A word of caution, a lot of novices will just make up a rap that seems to work over a type of hip hop beat and then repeat the rap. While this method can work at first, it is a bad idea to get into the habit of repeating the same lyrics to the same beat because you are not flowing or further developing your style instead you are simply reciting, and anyone can recite lyrics. It is okay to start your freestyle to a beat with a rap that you have in mind. You can start with the same set of phrases  or lyrics as long as once you get into the rhythm you leave what you already have written and begin to freestyle without the training wheels, so to speak. Beginning your raps this way can be an easy way to get you off the ground, but don’t come to rely on the method too much or you won’t advance.

Another reason to find a more difficult or personally disagreeable hip hop beat to learn and to rap to is because it teaches you to rap outside the comfort zone. By rapping to hip hop beats that are difficult for you you must get outside your box, and anytime that you can do this you will improve what skills you already have. By choosing more difficult beats and mastering them you are learning new and different styles that in time will help take you to the next level of hip hop.