Emceeing
Introduction
Hip-hop is a very misunderstood music form. People who either don't like / don't listen to hip-hop, most of the time, simply rant on about how there's no skill involved, how the lyrics are too foul blah blah blah. I will argue this to the death. Skillful rapping, emceeing, or whatever you want to call it, is far more difficult than many realise. People who don't like rap / hip-hop are often narrow minded conservatives or just plain stupid. Many say "it's not real music" as if that means something. What the hell are you talking about!? As for there being too many curse words, thats got nothing to do with it being rap you idiots, since you can rap without swearing. People who don't like rap / hip-hop are usually those who only see the popular variety of the music. The commercialized mainstream variety which is often gangsta rap. This doesn't represent the whole. Rapping can be very intellectual and clever. It is simply poetry spoken to a rhythm / to music. If you say rap is bad, you are implying that poetry is bad and that all music is bad, since you can rap to any style of music.
Examples of someone's comments:
"Rap is not music. It does not use any musical instruments. Unlike all other conventional music generes there is no special instrument associated with rap. Rap does not embrace melody or harmony and it certainly is not pleasing to the ear."
This isn't true. It can use instruments. It can use any instruments. This makes it a very open genre in which people can be very creative and expressive. It doesn't have a "special instrument", yeah, so? It can embrace melody and harmony. The argument here is plain wrong.
"It doesn't take any talent to "do" rap music. Rappers don't sing at all."
Singing isn't particularly hard. Millions of people can sing very well. A lot of the singers you listen to probably can't sing that well, punk musicians sing out of tune and lazily, because that's the style. Skillful rapping is just as hard as singing if not more so. Many don't understand how complex it is. Still, anyone can become good at rapping with a decent amount of practice, and that's the point. It isn't some sort of special poncy club, it's open to anyone.
I'm sure when people read reviews of hip-hop writers some terms will probably leave people scratching their heads. And this is where I shall swoop in. Call me stupid, or pointless, but I decided to put on my glasses and suit, and become a bit of a professor. Now this little piece of writing is not meant to make you a "rap superstar", I just thought it'd be a good idea to point out what different kinds of "raps" there are, and what consists a "'rap", so I've flexed my dictionary skills to try and explain technical terms, the difference between good/bad emcees etc.
First of all, some basic terms:
Rap: Popular music characterized by spoken rhyming vocals, with or without musical accompaniment.
Hip-Hop: A culture innovated by young black people originating from New York which includes rapping, grafitti art, turntablism (DJing) and break-dancing. Hip-hop music is music which is a derivative of this culture.
Emceeing/Rapping: Where an emcee vocalizes improvised / pre-written rhymes in a rhythmical pattern, with or without musical accompaniment.
Rhyme: Similarity in the sound of word endings, especially in poetry. 2. A word sounding the same as / similar to another a word.
Rhythm: The regular pattern of beats and emphasis in a piece of music. 2. A particular pattern of beats in a piece of music. 3. The pattern formed by stressed and unstressed syllables.
Ok, that out of the way, lets put together an idiots guide to the art of putting a verse together.
Verse Creation
Rhyme Scheme
For many emcees a rhyme scheme is the foundation for laying down a verse. When you're writing a verse, chances are you will have a rhyme scheme. Now when you first start rhyming you will tend to stick religiously to the same scheme all the time, and then as you advance you probably will be able to do it off the top of your head with little effort, and then will certainly change rhyme schemes. So, here is an example of a rhyme scheme:
......A.....A../
......B.....B../
Now that's not a very impressive rhyme scheme (i.e., a 2 year old could put together a verse using that), however, it demonstrates how to put one together. The letters "A"; and "B" represent words that rhyme. So if the first letter, "A" is, say, "smack"; the next time "A" comes up you have to rhyme with it. The same applies for "B" and so on and so forth. The dots in-between represent words between the rhymes. The line at the end means the end of the bar/line. Here's a simple rhyme to demonstrate this:
You're wack in the sack /
'cos in the throttle there's a bottle /
Now this is a ridiculously simple rhyme scheme. It may be easy to use, but it'll get boring. So aspiring emcees should really change their rhyme schemes from verse to verse. I hope this basic example has demonstrated the idea of rhyme schemes and how they work. Ok, so you've sorted out your rhyme schemes, so what techniques will you need to know and what things will you need to be aware of to become a decent emcee? Well, these three things are the basis of what emcees are judged on: Flow, delivery and wordplay. Understanding these concepts is key.
Flow
Flow is the hardest to define really. Basically, having a good flow is all about rhyming well and having a good structure which gives a continuous feel to the lyrics. Traditionally, being able to flow well is simply rhyming continuously, smoothly, with good breath control (not pausing much) and with a "liquid" feel to it, combined with a rhyme scheme that clicks together well. Flow is as much about the writing as it is about the actual rapping since the written words have to be well thought through so they fit together like a jigsaw, making the sound of each word flow onto the sound of the next.
Delivery
Here's the real crunch time for an emcee. How much lyric-spitting capacity have you got? Can you rapidly spit lyrics, rolling them off your tounge, barely pausing for breath, with extreme clarity? How nimble and dextrous are you with words? An emcee with good delivery can provide all of the above, and the top emcees can spit multi-syllable rhymes at top speed without making the words any less clearly pronounced. Speed rapping is a gimmick that emcees often use to show off their skills, and having a brilliant delivery is crucial to this. Delivery is all about your ability to project each word clearly and precisely whilst maintaining the flow and tone of voice.
Wordplay
Here is where we separate the men from the boys. This is the advanced part of emceeing, and where poetry really links in with hip-hop. This is also the most creative part of emceeing and you need real brains and creativity to have good wordplay. I'll split this into parts:
Similies and Metaphors
While many heads don't class this as wordplay (instead as a completely separate category) I disagree. Using extended metaphors is obviously playing with words, and hence can only be wordplay. These two skills are the basic wordplay skills and most (good) emcees will look to integrate these into their verses. Extended metaphors are a nice way of getting your point across; for example, emcees often compare themselves to a gun in songs, however this is a very played concept and is unoriginal.
Alliteration, Assonance, Punchlines, Personification etc.
Yes this is the complicated kind of language use that is common in poetry. In hip-hop, they are tricks for an emcee to really show off his lyrical skills. Keep in mind that integrating these types of things in, always making sure that the different parts of your rap (structure, rhymes, flow etc) are intact is mind-bogglingly difficult.
Multi Syllable Rhyming
This is again moving into more complex territory. Multis, for this purpose, involve stringing together words that use, as the name suggests, more than one syllable. Now this can either be complete words like "contradiction", or multiple words put together and spoken quickly like "on-to-fiction". It's fairly easy to integrate this into verses, but creating a verse which uses a multi-syllable rhyme scheme is very difficult, as you have to rhyme long words consistently whilst maintaining the meaning and other elements of the verse, which, as you can imagine, isn't easy. This is one of the flashier ways of showing off your skills. Most really skilled emcees can do this, but emcees that use this regularly are few and far between.
Internal Rhyming
Internal Rhyming is surprisingly similar to what the name suggests – it consists of emcees using the same rhyming words within a bar. So if an emcee rhymed, for example, "bold" and "cold" within the same line, with internal rhyming the emcee would add other rhyming words in as well, like "sold" and "fold". A very simple example, but internal rhyming can take on a shockingly complicated twist. Say your rhyme scheme takes on more than one rhyme in a line – for example say you rhyme "first" as well as the aforementioned rhymes. Now try to imagine a line which rhymes internally, like I’ve demonstrated, with both "cold" and "first", yet which still makes sense (i.e., doesn't just throw in superfluous rhyming words for the sake of it). Scary stuff indeed, and only for the most advanced and skilled of emcees.
So those are the basic, and slightly more advanced parts to a verse. Every emcee will usually be judged according to these criteria. I hope this has cleared up any confusion that may occur with non hip-hop listeners about terminology.
Different Types of Rapping
Freestyling
This is where an emcee simply "raps" for an unlimited number of time, either over a basic beat or no beat at all. There is no pre-writing here, the emcee is not allowed to write their verse beforehand. They simply spit their verse off the top of their head, and have to improvise all the way through. This is one of the most difficult rapping skills and it takes imaginative quick-thinking and creative lyricism to freestyle well.
Battle Rapping
This is where emcees compete lyrically against each other. It can be one on one, tag-team (2 on 2), or crew battles. The idea in battle rapping is to lyrically hurt your opponent, using punch-lines (plays on words that exploit your opponents weaknesses), complicated literary devices like alliteration, assonance and similes/metaphors, as well as humour can also be used successfully in battle rapping.
Brag Rapping
This is linked in very heavily with all elements of hip-hop, especially battle rapping and freestyling. Although in battles, I tend to see bragging as filler (in-between the punches), bragging can be both interesting and annoying. Bragging is, obviously, an emcee simply boasting about his skills and putting other rappers down as inferiors.
Narratives/Story-Telling
This is arguably the most constructive form of emceeing. Here, emcees stick with the usual rapping style in all areas, with or without musical backup, and simply construct a narrative that tells a certain story. A difficult skill to successfully achieve – creating a cohesive, gripping plot that makes sense alongside a technically good verse (good rhyming pattern, flow, delivery etc.) is a very difficult thing.
Of course, these are very rigid structures. The majority of verses created by emcees will combine many of these things. As a general rule, verses either have a point, or they don't (if you understand my vague language). A verse is either telling a story, lyrically battling an opponent, making a point about society/life etc., or it may be a simple freestyle where the emcee is randomly bragging and dissing.
Round-up
Ok, hopefully you’ve learned a bit about the process of writing a rap verse – what kind of linguistic skills are involved, how these can be put to use etc. I also hope I’ve made you realise how difficult it is to be a good emcee, and put into context the skill level and intelligence of top level emcees in the rap game today.
