How To Freestyle Rap For Beginners: Your FIRST Lesson
The ability to freestyle rap is one of the most enjoyable aspects of rapping.
If you can spontaneously rhyme and flow in expert sync with any beat thrown at you AND keep your thoughts in an organized, entertaining fashion…
…You can instantly turn friends into fans, you can impress people enough to help promote you…
Or even if it’s just a hobby, you can have an undeniably astounding skill that absolutely NOBODY will forget that you were able to pull off at any social function.
In today’s article, we’re going to give you your first lesson on how to freestyle rap for beginners, step-by-step.
As YouTube’s most subscribed channel on the science of learning how to rap with almost a half a million supporters (thanks for that by the way)…
We’re confident every step in this first lesson will help you on your journey to learn how to freestyle rap, so let’s get into it.
Step 1: Practice In Private First
Although you absolutely 100% will need to master the art of freestyle rapping in front of other people soon enough in your journey…
(It’s kind of a if-a-tree-falls-in-the-woods-situation)
If you have literally never freestyled in your life before, why add the extra pressure of having people stare at you while you fumble over your words or your mind goes blank?
Start off by first simply practicing in your bedroom or the shower for the first few weeks until you can get your footing, so to speak.
Just be sure to ALWAYS, always, always say your freestyles out loud. That’s the only major rule in step #1.
Do NOT make the mistake of thinking that you will “improve” by simply thinking of words that rhyme and not practicing saying them aloud.
Plenty of people in the comments can vouch for this, we hear all the time “I thought rhymes all the time but never said them and I didn’t improve. So say them out loud.
Step #2 Start With The Rhyme Game
The easiest way to start off is simply start by doing the “Rhyme Game” where you say something out loud (like an object, a person, etc.) and take a second to think of a rhyme for it.
Try to force your mind to come up with a rhyme as quickly as possible, but don’t FREAK OUT if it takes a few seconds, even 30 seconds at first.
Overtime you will get faster and faster.
Additionally you’ll start to make more sense over time because your mind will start to connect ideas in a simpler manner.
Worry more about getting comfortable with rhyming the last word said allowed than trying to rap out 8 Mile level stuff… which we’ll talk about in a second.
So, in fact, try The Rhyme Game right now. I’m going to give you a word and take a few seconds to think of a rhyme for it:
“YouTube”
Take a second and think of a rhyme.
See that wasn’t so hard was it? It might’ve taken LONGER than you expected, but if you do it a few times over the next week, and in fact come back to this article…
You will notice a difference.
If you’d like more drills to practice on your own in private with How To Rap guidance visit the link by clicking HERE to get info on our #1 bestselling freestyle course, “How To Master The Art of Freestyle Rap In 2 Weeks or Less”, but…
Once you’ve mastered doing the rhyme game in private for a few days, you’ll be ready to move on to step #3.
Step #3 “The 8 Mile Rule”
Remember how at the end of the movie 8 Mile, Eminem dominated his opponent by basically saying “I already know what you’re going to say about me, so I’ll say it first”?
This is what we call The 8 Mile Rule of Freestyling. Always try to freestyle rap about things that are relevant to you and eventually the crowd of people that are listening to you.
You see, freestyle rapping is not exactly the same as written recorded rap music.
There is an expectation in prewritten recorded music that serious organized thought is being put into the lyrics, and that the song may or may not be able the life of the listener.
There are many prewritten rap songs that actually have nothing to do with the listener directly, but are still enjoyable because they are giving us a window into the lifestyle of the rapper who wrote it, such as songs like “The Art of Peer Pressure” by Kendrick Lamar, “Cleanin’ Out My Closet” by Eminem, or “Brenda’s Got A Baby” by 2Pac.
On the other hand, the main “selling point” of freestyling is demonstrating how relevant to yourself or the crowd listening you can keep your spontaneous lyrics.
Whether it’s a rap battle where you instantly think of a hilarious line to roast your freestyle opponent standing across from you…
…Or it’s a spontaneous freestyle at a house party where you spit an entire verse on the spot about how much alcohol you plan to drink by the end of the night and when you’re going to jump in the pool…
The selling point of a freestyle is how you can tell the audience in advance what they’re already thinking in their heads… without having to write it down.
That’s the 8 Mile rule, freestyling about YOU and the people AROUND YOU because you “already know what they’re going to say” like Shady did in the movie.
So step #3 is practicing freestyling about things that are relevant to your own experience.
Step #4 Freestyle In Private Over A Beat
Although we’re only at step 4, you’re probably starting to notice a pattern here.
Each step builds on itself and you become more confident with time.
So, after you’ve found a place you’re comfortable with freestyling on your own… next you practice rhyming words together.
After you start rhyming words together, you start practicing them making sense by telling your unique story with the 8 Mile rule.
Next, you practice those unique rhyming stories over an instrumental so that you can freestyle like a professional with the words and stories making sense in rhythm and in time.
For now because you’re only on step #4 and likely pretty brand new at this point, simply pick any beat you’ve wanted to freestyle over.
Since you’re not planning to record this freestyle or release it for profit, you can simply find your favorite instrumental by searching on YouTube after you watch this video.
Search “(artist name) (song name) instrumental” on YouTube.
An example being if you’d like freestyle over “Moonlight” by XXXTentacion, simply look up “XXXTentacion Moonlight Instrumental” and go for it.
We additionally have pre-made beats with coaching drills attached in our freestyle course HERE, but you can easily spend your entire freestyle rap journey getting extremely fire off the top by using YouTube instrumentals. Don’t overthink this part just keep practicing.
Step #5 Rap For 10 Extra Seconds Each Time
You’ll probably notice that when you start rhyming over beats, things become A LOT harder since you’re trying to rhyme, trying to say words out loud, and trying to stay in time with the rhythm.
Probably for a little while you’re going to have your mind go blank and the beat will just keep playing while you freeze up (a terrible feeling by the way)…
…That’s okay as well. It will take time to get used to this. Even Eminem 8 Mile famously froze up and even THREW UP when he got his start.
Therefore, set your goal to simply rap an extra 10 seconds every time you freestyle rather than either giving up the minute you mess up OR trying to just mumble forever and losing confidence.
Just push for “one more rep” like you would in the gym.
Step #6 Create A “Freestyle Shuffle Playlist”
As you develop your ability to freestyle rap for longer and longer periods of time, you’ll also want to switch up the styles of beat that you choose to learn how to freestyle rap on.
Therefore we have found the best way to do this is to create a “shuffle playlist” of different styles of instrumentals to practice your bars on.
The reason this is important is that when you eventually start freestyle rapping for people in person, they will often ask you to freestyle rap over a beat that THEY chose…
…Not one that you want or not a style that you necessarily have practiced unless you do it in advance as we have taught you here in step #6.
I’ve been asked to freestyle over everything from electronic dance music to The Rolling Stones. Trust me, people will throw curveballs at you once they know you can freestyle, guaranteed.
So the best way to get way to “get ahead of the game” is to practice freestyling over a variety of different beats.
Simply use the tactics from step #4 and shoot for different rapper styles and beat types…
So beat 1 might be trap, beat 2 might be old school, beat 3 might be a club banger, and so on.
Once you feel more comfortable rocking on many different styles of beat, you’ll feel a lot better about your future prospects as you learn how to freestyle rap for beginners.
Step #7 Rap Through The Entire Beat
Okay, so now you have a variety of different beats, you’ve been practicing pushing yourself 10 seconds each time, and you’ve been focusing on The 8 Mile Rule and telling stories relevant to you and your listeners.
Congratulations! You’re on the way to mastery of how to freestyle rap.
The last major step is to practice rapping through the entire beat. That means for a full 2, 3, or even 4 minutes.
A quick tip to master this is VOCALIZE anytime you find yourself running out of ideas.
In other words, don’t be afraid to say things like, “My mind’s about to go blank, but I don’t care what you think” or “Might trip over my words, but I’ma keep going” and so on.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with vocalizing your frustrations even with the freestyle as you get better and better.
Again if you have an interest in speeding up your development when learning how to freestyle rap for beginners, visit the link HERE to master the art of freestyle rap in 2 weeks or less with our coaching.
Step #8 Like and Comment Below With Your Freestyle Journey
Be sure to hit the like button if you enjoyed this video and comment below with your personal journey in freestyle rap… what inspired you to freestyle rap? How long have you been freestyling?
