Today I’m going to show you a quick and easy way to structure your rap lyrics accurately. This will help with making your rhyme schemes tighter and can also aid you in remembering your rap flow and where you’re supposed to take breaths.
BANDLAB
For today’s tutorial, I’m going to be using an awesome free tool called BandLab which is a mobile app that I use with some of my students who are on the go or don’t have access to a computer.
One thing that separates this app from any other recording software that I’ve used, is when you import your instrumental into a project it automatically figures out the tempo and key of the instrumental and aligns the instrumental to the grid of the program. This eliminates several of the steps we have to take in pretty much every other recording program.
DESKTOP USERS
But If you’re someone like me that prefers to work off your computer then I wouldn’t recommend BandLab because their desktop version has latency issues with recording audio.
So in order to achieve what Bandlab does automatically you need to do the following
[1] Detect the instrumentals tempo by visiting tunebat.com/analyzer and drag and drop your instrumental.
[2] Input the tempo that Tunebat gives you into your DAW of choice. If you don’t already have a DAW, My current favorite DAW is Reaper which only cost $60 and if you can’t afford that, it comes with a 2 month free trial and after that it still doesn’t lock you out, it just gives a pop up box every time you load it up.
[3] Remove your DAWS Snap to the grid function so that you can freely move around the grid
[4] Align the transients of the snares to the 2nd and 4th beat of the bar
[5] You’re done!
THE PROCESS BEGINS
Now I’m going to rap a few bars into Bandlab, quickly structure my lyrics, then I’m going to use my structured lyrics to improve my raps.
I’m going to be rapping over a beat that I produced called “Spaced Out” If you like it, and want to support the channel, I’ll post a link in the video description below to where you can get it. Let’s get it!
It’s 12 o clock at night it’s very scary
riding with a girl that’s named marry
it’s very Jerry Springer trust me you’ll tell me
Yeah this girl was a dime piece
she had brown skin and orange hair
and every time we chilled I had to use a bottle of some Visine
She made me cry I don’t think she liked me
Sometimes she’d fight me
and knock me out about two to three times this happened nightly
She was nasty, swore to be classy but she was shiesty
Let everybody on the block hit it
but then she would say that she liked me
OFF RHYMES
Now currently I can tell by ear that some of my rhymes are not aligned in time as tight as they could be. If you’re new to rapping, this may be difficult to hear at first, which is why it’s even more important that you structure your lyrics like I’m about to show you.
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF STRUCTURED LYRICS
So here’s the concept of how structured lyrics work. Every line on your page represents 1 bar in your recording program. So whatever syllable lands on the 1st beat of each bar in your DAW should be the 1st syllable on each line of your lyrics.
This means that you may have some multi-syllable words that get split between the ending of one bar and the beginning of the next bar.
If there’s nothing on the 1st beat of a bar then you notate it with a B inside Parentheses (B) which stands for breath. I also notate any others places I breathe with these as well.
Also, I recommend skipping a line every 4 bars to create a visual break on the page which makes it easier to navigate through your lyrics.
STRUCTURING RAP LYRICS
Now I’m simply going to update my lyrics so that it reflects which syllable or (B) is landing on the 1st beat of each bar, and I’ll also notate everywhere else I breathe.
Now that my lyrics are structured correctly I can more easily identify some of the issues I’m having with my rap flow and rhyme patterns.
BAR 2 + 3
BEFORE
[2] with a girl that’s named marry it’s very Jerry Springer trust me
[3] you’ll tell me (B) Yeah this girl was a dime piece, she had brown skin and
AFTER
[2] girl named marry it’s very Jerry Springer trust me you’ll tell me
[3] (B) Yeah this girl was a dime piece, she had brown skin and orange
I feel like on Bars 2 and 3 “tell me” is a bit too late as it carries over to the beginning of bar 3. I think it will sound better if I placed it on the end of the 2nd bar, so I’m going to create some room for it by deleting the word “that’s” and I’m going to add a pause at the beginning of the next bar since I’ve created extra space there.
BAR 4 + 5 + 6 + 7
BEFORE
[4] orange hair and every time we chilled I had to use a bottle
[5] of some Visine She made me cry (B) I don’t think she liked me, some
[6] times she’d fight me and knock me out about two to three times this happened
[7] Nightly She was nasty (B) swore to be classy but she was shiesty (B)
A similar thing happens between bars 4 and 5. I don’t like the placement of the last word of this rhyme scheme which is “visine”. It carries over to the next bar and I prefer for it to land at the end of bar 4 so that’s it’s closer in time with my other rhymes.
So I’m going to delete “ a bottle of” which makes room for my rhyme at the end of bar 4 and it free’s up more space on bar 5 which was already feeling pretty cramped which was causing my rap flow to suffer and my rhyme “nightly” to land at the beginning of bar 7 and I prefer for it to land at the end of bar 6.
Now I’ve moved the word “She” from the beginning of bar 5 to the end of bar 4
And I moved “She’d fight me” from the beginning of bar 6 to the ending of bar 5
Also I moved “Nightly” from the beginning of bar 7 to the ending of bar 6
AFTER
[4] hair and every time we chilled I had to use some Visine She
[5] made me cry (B) I don’t think she liked me, sometimes she’d fight me,
[6] (B) and knock me out about two to three times this happened nightly
[7] She was nasty, swore to be classy but she was shiesty let
[8] everybody on the block hit it but said she liked me
BAR 8+9
BEFORE
[8] (B) Let everybody on the block hit it but then she would say that she
[9] liked me
And on BAR 8 I have the same issue I’ve had before where my final rhyme scheme is landing at the beginning of the following bar. So I’m going to remove the words “then she would say that” and replace it with “said “which frees up a ton of space so that I can place my rhyme at the end of bar 8.
AFTER
[8] everybody on the block hit it but said she liked me
BEFORE AND AFTER
Now here’s a view of all the lyrics before and after
BEFORE
[1] (B) It’s 12 o clock at night it’s very scary riding
[2] with a girl that’s named marry it’s very Jerry Springer trust me
[3] you’ll tell me (B) Yeah this girl was a dime piece, she had brown skin and
[4] orange hair and every time we chilled I had to use a bottle
[5] of some Visine She made me cry (B) I don’t think she liked me, some
[6] times she’d fight me and knock me out about two to three times this happened
[7] Nightly She was nasty (B) swore to be classy but she was shiesty (B)
[8] (B) Let everybody on the block hit it but then she would say that she
[9] liked me
AFTER
[1] (B) It’s 12 o clock at night it’s very scary riding with a
[2] girl named marry it’s very Jerry Springer trust me you’ll tell me
[3] (B) Yeah this girl was a dime piece, she had brown skin and orange
[4] hair and every time we chilled I had to use some Visine She
[5] made me cry (B) I don’t think she liked me, sometimes she’d fight me,
[6] (B) and knock me out about two to three times this happened nightly
[7] She was nasty, swore to be classy but she was shiesty let
[8] everybody on the block hit it but said she liked me
NUGGETS
Now here are a few major takeaways.
If your lyrics don’t accurately reflect what you’re doing musically you’re somewhat shooting in the dark and it can make it more difficult to spot problems and figure out solutions to solve them.
Also notice that sometimes when my rhymes were landing later than I wanted, or my bars were too wordy it would create a domino effect and the bars after would be negatively affected by it as well.
Also, you don’t have to always place your rhymes at the end of your bars. You can place them anywhere, just be intentional about it and create patterns out of them so that they sound good.
My name is Cole Mize with colemizestudios.com where I strive to make you a better rapper now! If you’re trying to perfect your rap skills make sure you get yourself a FREE copy of my eBook The #1 Fundamental to rapping, below. And always remember, when it comes to rapping, theirs no rules, theirs only techniques. Peace!
