How To Freestyle Like Juice Wrld
In today’s article, we’re going to give you five CRUCIAL tips how to freestyle like Juice Wrld…
…Breaking down clips from the late great’s legendary “off the top” freestyles on shows such as Tim Westwood TV and Fire In The Booth.
Using a combination of lyrical analysis, 15+ years of rapping myself, and more than half a decade as the Internet’s leading “rap coach”…
…We hope that this article will be full of helpful insights for you if you’re trying to become a rapper yourself and get some inspiration from JuiceWrld…
…Or are a major music fan who enjoys Juice’s music and would like some more information on how he constructed his art.
Now, before we begin the tips… be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel “How To Rap” by clicking HERE because we drop weekly videos on the behind-the-scenes creation of music on everyone from JuiceWrld to Kendrick Lamar…
…And if you are one of those rappers who wants to actually do this for a living, click the link HERE to check out our “Master The Art of Freestyle Rap In 2 Weeks” video course.
#5 Strategic Use of Breaths and Ad-Libs
Now, we’re going to do this list in a countdown format, so be sure to check out the entire article to get the most value…
…And #5 is Juice’s strategic use of “breaths and ad-libs”.
For the fans who’ve never heard the expression, the definition of an ad-lib in rap is an exclamatory phrase or sound a rapper makes, usually in the background but sometimes in the main vocal, to fill out the song.
A common example you’d probably know is the “it’s lit!” Ad-lib from Travis Scott, which is usually in the background…
…But you can also think of the times you hear a rapper say “ayeeee” (or “HUNGH!” Like Rick Ross) in the main vocal as an ad-lib as well.
In the case of Juice Wrld, by strategically using breaths and ad-libs in his freestyle verses… he is doing several clever tricks to make the spontaneous rhyme sound more natural.
1. Buying Himself Time To Think of Other Rhymes
When people watch freestyle rap or start freestyle rapping themselves, they usually think that the freestyle is never “thinking” or “organizing their thoughts” while doing the rap itself.
It seems so spontaneous, how could they?
The truth is that freestyle rappers, rather than not thinking, have developed secrets to “buy themselves time” WHILE freestyling to think of other things to say.
Click HERE to check out a clip of Juice Wrld freestyling… with our indications on screen of when a breath or ad-lib has taken…
…And notice how even just that extra 2-3 seconds allows him the ability to jump onto a new train of thought or rhyme scheme.
B) Keeping The Bop or Flow
Throwing strategic ad-libs and breaths in the freestyle also helps Juice Wrld to stay in perfect sync with the bop or flow of the beat itself.
It’s important to recognize that one of the beauties of rap is the interaction of TWO rhythms at once…
…The rhythms of the words, or the “flow”…
…And the rhythms of the beat or instrumental.
A master freestyler like Juice Wrld is going to take every opportunity he can to switch flows.
A seamless way to do this without words “jumbling together” like many beginner freestylers do is for Juice to throw a breath or ad-lib in between the two rhythms so that it sounds smooth and organized.
#4 Freestyling A Chorus (or Hook)
Another key element of seamlessly buying yourself time as a freestyler WHILE making it still engaging for the listener is to come up with a chorus on the spot to make the freestyle feel like a song.
In the case of Juice, he is well-known for freestyling entire albums, in fact.
I’m good friends with Purps of 808 Mafia who produced songs on JuiceWrld’s last album, “Death Race 4 Love”, and after work on the project was done, he told me extensively how quickly Juice could make song by essentially free styling in like he would on the clips we’re showing you.
In any case, if you are lucky enough to know the original song of the instrumental you’re freestyling on, you can do your own freestyle version of that hook with some new words and it will engage both fans of the original song AND people who’ve never heard it before.
Click HERE to watch Juice Wrld freestyle over some classic Eminem songs while still adding some slight lyrical changes to make it his own.
The other option is if you don’t know the instrumental, create your own freestyle chorus based on the basic tenets of chorus writing such as repetition, a key phrase to summarize the topic, less words per bar, and so on.
Click HERE to watch JuiceWrld make a fully original chorus while on Fire on The Booth.
If you’d like to learn more about the secrets to chorus-writing as a rapper, click below check out our free course, “The Top 20 Songwriting Secrets of Professional Rappers”.
#3 Describing Things In Multiple Ways
You’ve probably seen (or tried yourself) rappers freestyle rapping about things around them.
Sometimes it’s amazing and sometimes it’s cringe.
In the case of JuiceWrld, he had a video go viral where he was freestyling about basically everything his team in the studio threw in front of him.
If you’re wondering how Juice accomplished this seemingly superhuman feat, let’s describe the key secret right here right now that he used and you can now use:
Key: Practice Describing The Same Object In Multiple Ways
Most people only say one name to describe an object or situation when they’re freestyling, which while useful LIMITS the amount of ways they can rap about it or how many RHYMES they have access to.
So for example if you practice free styling in the shower – which is where most of us start, to be honest – you might see the soap and only think of words that rhyme with soap… dope… hope… etc.
That’s great but then you only have words to rhyme with ONE scheme.
What if you were not only describe the soap with the word SOAP, but you were describe it as “DIAL” (a.k.a. the company of soap) so you have dial, smile, and other rhymes…
Or even better… HOW WOULD you — USE the soap? Clean / mean / dream … wash / floss / gloss…
Now, let’s show you a clip of Juice Wrld using this technique and watch for how he:
1. Doesn’t Say “Lighter”, Says “Stay Lit, Tho”
Juice is on a “go / yo / phone” rhyme scheme, so in order to both stay on the rhyme scheme AND describe the thing in front of him… he says what the lighter is DOING rather than saying what the lighter IS.
2. Doesn’t Say “Camera”, Says “Pop”
Similarly, he doesn’t say the word “camera”… he says “POP” because he’s on the POP scheme.
Click HERE to watch the video.
Now, in other parts of that clip, he’ll use the regular word for an object to help the rap…
…But the main lesson to get here is that you have MORE access to things to freestyle about when you practice describing a situation in MULTIPLE ways… what it IS, how to — USE it, what you’ll DO with it, etc.
#2 “Fallback Topics”
If you watch Juice Wrld’s freestyles in full, another common theme you’ll see is that he usually comes back to similar topics.
He talks about the girls he’s getting, how dope his raps are, how much he likes to party, the rappers he likes, etc.
These are what we call “fallback topics” at how to rap.
A fallback topic is one that you are very familiar with because it’s authentic to you.
Now, you personally don’t have to freestyle about girls you get or drugs you use if that’s not what you do…
…But you should make it a point to think of 4-5 different topics that relate to you and your listeners… even if it’s just your friends…
…So that you improve the chances you won’t slip up in a freestyle.
Common freestyle topics can include where you’re from… what you and your crew like to do for fun… what you’re going do when you blow up and so on.
JuiceWrld always has multiple topics he can fallback on, so even when he is waiting for the next object to put in front of him like that last clip, he can again “buy himself time” by rapping about something he’s familiar with.
#1 Encyclopedic Knowledge of Rhymes
…And the last, and most important skill JuiceWrld had in his arsenal as a freestyler was that… he KNEW LONG CHAINS OF RHYMES BEFOREHAND.
We cannot understate the importance of this enough.
If you want to learn how to freestyle rap or you want to know HOW freestylers do it…
…They know a million and one different rhymes with a certain word… beforehand.
Whether it’s through writing so many raps that the rhymes become second nature (which is very common)…
…Or free styling so much that they start to rewire their brain to remember rhymes to use…
…Or simply LISTENING to a lot of rap to know what common rhyme schemes are used…
There is NO replacement for having an ENCYCLOPEDIA of rhymes in your head when you want to freestyle.
This is part of the reason we personally tell rappers to avoid rhyming dictionaries. It’s putting a crutch between the rapper and their mind when they need to freestyle.
JuiceWrld doesn’t need crutches because he’s worked on his ability to access rhymes on the fly and it shows in every rap he ever rapped.
Conclusion
Let’s review the key points we discussed today:
#5 Strategic Use of Breaths and Ad-Libs
#4 Freestyling A Chorus (or Hook)
#3 Describing Things In Multiple Ways
#2 “Fallback Topics”
#1 Encyclopedic Knowledge of Rhymes
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