How To Freestyle Rap: Confidence Tips
Today, we’re going to have a few freestyle rap tips to have your skills up to date.
When learning how to freestyle rap, it can seem like a daunting and overwhelming process…
…So we want to make sure that you’re not making any of the common mistakes in freestyle rap that will slow you down.
Overview
This article is designed to help improve your freestyle rap confidence pretty much instantly, so sit back… relax… and let’s get into it.
Where Most People Mess Up In Freestyle Rap
Most people mess up in freestyle by continuously stopping and starting – they’ll get one or two “bars” in and then suddenly just go mute.
As Denzel Washington would say, “Anything you practice, you’ll get good at”
So if you practice stopping and starting… you’ll only get good at stopping and starting.
Freestyle Rap Tips: Easy Way To Solve The Problem
The easiest and most direct way is to START the minute the beat drops, and do not stop until the beat ends.
Essentially, by not immediately rushing into your into your verse the second the beat drops, you are coming in at the wrong time.
You’re actually TRAINING your brain to go blank… no wonder it’s so difficult to get those bars up off the top more consistently.
Where Most People Mess Up In Freestyle Rap
One of the most common mistakes I see when people are learning how to freestyle rap is:
They say an introductory phrase like, “Yo… yo…” or “Check it… uh huh…” for like one minute straight before actually DOING the freestyle rap.
It’s almost like they are nervous that they’re going to immediately embarrass themselves, as so they’re trying to buy time.
There are two problems with this:
A. You’re Not Fooling Anybody
First of all, most people, even if they’re straight up nerds, have heard someone try to freestyle poorly at some point in their life.
They know the clear cut signs of what “buying time” looks like.
(Now, there are WAYS to buy time seamlessly in a freestyle, which you can find out more about in our Rap Tycoon course’s freestyle training after you enter your email…)
But when you are buying time in the beginning by just ad-libbing, “yeah, yeah… yo”… it looks incompetent and you’re not fooling anybody.
B. Brain Automatically Shuts Down
When you do this, your brain is only going to shut down MORE, because as we said in the overview…
Anything you practice you’ll get good at… and you are PRACTICING with your brain… shutting down before you even start.
If you just wait for the beat to turnaround or hit a chorus… you often lose your entire audience before they have a chance to catch your vibe.
The most professional freestylers know that they have to start immediately to catch the crowd and gain fans on the spot.
Freestyle Rap Confidence Secrets
There are several ways that in over 15 years of rapping, I’ve improved my freestyle rap confidence, and I’d like to share them with you now.
One of the main ways I grab the crowd is by only rapping about things that are relevant to THEM in a freestyle rap.
As opposed to recorded or pre-written music, people hearing a freestyle in person are more impressed if you can weave in something around you or something relating to them…
…Than just telling your whole life story.
This is kind of counter-intuitive.
Whereas in written music, you have a lot more free space to “challenge” your audience with topics and ideas that they may not necessarily be thinking about… or even CARE about…
With freestyle rap, it’s a more interactive, live-action kind of rap as an artform.
So, people are expecting interactive subject matter and lyrical engagement from the artist.
So, when I start freestyling… I immediately am thinking of:
A) Location Based Freestyle Rap
If I’m at a house party during the freestyle rap, I will make sure to reference who’s house it is, what the vibe is like, what city we’re in, things like that.
Anything that is relevant to the location will impress the audience that you’re going off of the top about something they know very well…
WHERE THEY’RE AT!
B) People Based Freestyle Rap
I’m also going to be looking for rhymes and messages related to the people at that event or cypher that I’m rhyming in.
So, if my homey who’s watching the freestyle rap has a girl he brought with him. I might throw in a bar or two about their relationship and how dope it is.
C) Relevant Story Freestyle Rap
If I’m really at a loss for what to freestyle rap about… I will often just tell a story about what happened in my day… or something that happened with me and someone listening.
I learned this from a good friend of mine I used to freestyle with.
He wasn’t your typical rapper by any stretch… he had boatloads of cash probably from a trust fund…
He sold insurance on top of his inheritance money and for his age was more wealthy than anyone I’d ever met under the age of 25…
But he was a HUGE Wu-Tang fan and really loved to go off the top.
Now what made his freestyle rap confidence secrets interesting was that he would consistently tell stories throughout his flow.
Often, those stories would relate to something that him and I had gone through that day.
So, if we had just smoked out, gotten some food… and then decided to start going off the top…
He would describe what we were smoking on, the food spot we ate at, what the attendant looked like, what the weather on the walk back was like and so on…
This helped to keep the freestyle rap relevant, but ALSO made me as a listener feel engaged and become even more of a fan of his…
…Even though I was the one rapping WITH HIM!
Conclusion:
So, as a review… let’s look at the main concepts of this freestyle rap article:
Most People Mess Up By Taking Too Long To Start
Too many “yeah, yeah… yo, yo” moments will hurt your freestyle rap confidence.
The Fans Know You’re Lost And Don’t Like It
You’re not fooling anybody… most people have heard a freestyle… they know the difference between a pro and an amateur when they hear one.
Use Locations, People Based Rhymes, and Relevant Stories If Your Mind Goes Blank
Use the things around you to make people instantly take you seriously!
Freestyle Rap Confidence Comes By Not Letting Your Brain Shut Down
Anything you practice, you’ll get good at… so practice forcing your brain to freestyle RAP… rather than shut down.
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