How To Rhyme In A Freestyle (Step-By-Step)
In today’s article, we’re going to show you how to rhyme in a freestyle – step-by-step, using a secret method devised here at how to rap that instantly increases your rhyming skills.
We’re going to have you actually creating rhymes ON THE SPOT in this video AND have you FREESTYLING LIVE right here right now, step-by-step, so be sure to have your notes app or notebook ready, and if you need to, find a place to rap along if you’d like.
Additionally, be aware that the steps in this video aren’t just “theory” or something that “sounds good” to increase your rhyming skills – we’ve been coaching 100,000s how to rhyme in a freestyle for almost a decade on YouTube.
So, if you’ve been wondering how to rhyme in a freestyle and improve your rhyming skills instantly, sit back, get your notes ready, and let’s do this.
NOTE: Before we begin, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel “How To Rap” because we have more than 8 years of 100s of videos on everything from how to freestyle rap, how to improve your rhyming skills, and much more…And if freestyle rap is the main thing you’re trying to improve right now, be sure to pick up our brand new FREE video course, “How To Freestyle Forever In Front of Any Crowd” by clicking HERE.
How To Rhyme In A Freestyle Introduction
The first thing you must understand is when it comes to rap, as opposed to poetry or other forms of writing – the word “rhyme” is a more broad term than just words that perfectly “rhyme” like you learned in school.
So, in school and most poetry, they teach you that rhyming is only limited to “perfect rhymes” such as “hat” and “cat” or “fear” and “near”.
Now, if you notice, the easiest way to “create rhymes” from those perfect rhymes is to simply change the first letter.
To rhyme “cat” with “hat”, simply change the C to an H.
To rhyme “fear” with “near”, simply change the F to a N.
So, this is the first lesson you need to lock down in order to start coming up with more rhymes for your freestyle…
Simply changing the beginnings of words will give you more rhymes.
The Alphabet Game
Which brings us to the main step-by-step framework we’ll be using in this rap tutorial… we call it “The Alphabet Game”.
I created it many years ago when I was, just like you reading this, trying to figure out ways to come up with more rhymes for my freestyle rap INSTANTLY without having my mind go blank.
This step-by-step method will be absolutely CRUCIAL for you to master if you want to learn both how to rhyme better in rap overall, but also how to increase your rhyming skills for your freestyles.
Step #1: Write Out The Alphabet
Now, let’s get you writing.
Step 1 is to write out the numbers 1-26 (because there are 26 letters in the alphabet) on a piece of paper (or a notes app), and then write out each letter of the alphabet.
(And yes, if you’re wondering, you can use this same exact method in any language – so if you’re from another country watching this, you can do this in German, or Hindi, or whatever)
(Write out the letters)
Step #2: Write Out The Word You Want To Rhyme With On Your Alphabet Chart
Step 2 is to write out the main word you’re trying to rhyme with.
So, for the purposes of this example, let’s use “cat”.
You put the word “cat” next to C because it starts with a C.
Now, if you notice… I have 25 other POSSIBLE words where if I change the first letter, it might rhyme with cat. We’ve already discussed “hat”, so let’s fill that in there.
Now we have 24 other possible words where if I change the first letter, it might rhyme with cat.
We have “bat”, so we fill it in next to the letter B. We have “rat”, so we fill it in next to the letter R, and so on.
Just to make this clear – you can do the exact same thing with “fear” (write it next to the letter F) and “near” (write it next to the letter N)
…And even “clear” (I would put that next to C… even though you’re changing TWO letters, it the same principle).
Now it’s your turn, take a word you want to rhyme and go through the process of adding at least 5 different rhymes, and TRUST ME in a second this is going to get a lot more advanced so don’t be afraid if these rhymes seem super simple.
(Write out your rhymes)
Step #3 Practice Freestyling To Your New Words
Now that you have a list of at least 5 rhymes… you already have enough rhymes to start practice freestyling.
The best part about this is that by having your rhyming words already prepared (but without any connecting sentences or phrases), you can practice rhyming these things in different combinations over and over again until those rhyming words are internalized.
And once you have 100s of rhyming words INTERNALIZED, you can come up with 100s of COMBINATIONS of those same rhyming words in different orders.
Now it’s your turn to do it… we’ll have you freestyle for 10 seconds using the rhymes you’ve come up with.
(Practice rhyming the words on your list to a famous instrumental for 10 seconds)
WOW! How does that feel? You’re already freestyling, and this is a drill you can do over and over and over again.
Just to be clear, you can do this exercise over any instrumental, don’t feel limited to only doing it to the beat you heard or anything like that.
More Rhymes To Increase Your Rhyming Skills
Now, if you notice, while it’s lit that we’re already freestyling and rhyming words, creating a ton of new combinations to practice with… things are kind of limited and sound like elementary rap.
So, why not add even MORE rhymes using the exact same system… but changing the ENDING of the words, rather than the beginning?
Again, remember to get the “cat”, “hat”, and “bat” scheme all we did was change the first one or two letters and go down the alphabet.
What if I was to change the beginning, AND the ending?
So, instead of just having “cat” rhyme with “hat”, and “bat”… I can have “cat” rhyme with “hack” and “back”… see? Now I’ve changed THE BEGINNING and the ENDING.
Funny enough, this works so well, can actually KEEP the first letter, maybe add another letter in the beginning, and change the ending and STILL have more rhymes…
ON THE SAME LETTER!
- “Cat”
- “Clap”
- “Crack”
- “Crap”
ARE YOU BEGINNING TO SEE HOW THIS CAN UNLOCK THE FUTURE OF YOUR RHYMING?!
This is what’s known as a “stretch rhyme” or a “slant” rhyme. That’s because it’s not a perfect rhyme like they would teach in school, but it’s MORE than acceptable, in fact it’s expected, in rap.
Now, let’s go through the exact same process but using stretch rhymes.
Step #1: Write Out The Alphabet
Write out the numbers 1-26 and the corresponding letters (or however many letters and numbers you have in your alphabet).
(Write down the letters)
Step #2: Write Out The Word You Want To Rhyme With On Your Alphabet Chart
Write out the words you want to rhyme, but THIS time focus on coming up with “slant” and “stretch rhymes”.
No pun intended, but “stretch” your mind a little farther this time around.
Again, if I have the top… I have the perfect rhyme with letters like B with the word “B” or D with “drop”…
But I also STILL HAVE MORE RHYMES ON THE WORD B…
- “Block”
- “Brought”
And I still have MORE RHYMES ON D…
- “Dock”
- “Dot”
Now, understand, using stretch and slants will take a little longer if you’re brand new at this, but over time you WILL get acclimated to doing this and it WILL get internalized. Again, when you sign up for that free course by clicking HERE you will be brought to a page that will explain how we can coach you more directly on how to drill yourself in freestyle to internalize this work.
(Write Your Rhymes Down)
Step #3 Practice Freestyling To Your New Words
Now, have the beat play for a little bit longer – 20 seconds – and practice freestyling the new stretch and slant rhymes you have written.
Don’t feel like you have to be an expert at this in the beginning either, it’s all about just getting used to the flow of things and you’ll master it over time.
(Freestyle For 20 Seconds Using Your Stretch and Slant Rhymes)
How To Increase Your Rhyming Skills In Freestyle Over Time
How does it feel, you’ve freestyled not once but TWICE in the last few minutes?
You can always come back to this video and re-learn the steps any time you’d like, no problem. But you’re already well on your way to learning how to have more rhymes in your freestyle.
Now, this gets much, much more advanced and you can apply these secrets to add even more advanced rhyme schemes such as multisyllable rhymes to your freestyles.
For more info on building multisyllable rhyme schemes using the alphabet game, click HERE.
With that being said, the next major secret would be to start RECORDING your freestyles.
This is one of the most UNDERRATED ways to learn how to freestyle rap and actually improve your rhyming abilities with no problem.
The reason it’s important to record your freestyles is that if you already have a system to identify ADDITIONAL rhymes you COULD use, once you actually hear yourself going off the top and NOT using those additional rhymes…
…You can know that you had opportunities to use those rhymes you didn’t rap out loud, and then adjust over time to include them.
In other words, it’s like watching the game tape in sports where if you lose again, you can rewatch where you missed the coverage in the defense and got tackled.
The steps I’ve personally taken to do this are:
#1 Choose A Simple Recording Set-Up
When it comes to recording my freestyles for the purposes of increasing my rhyming skills, I don’t personally care about mixing or mastering or making it sound good, because I just want to use it to hear what rhymes I used or DIDN’T use. It’s really just for me to listen back.
So I personally would focus on just using my voice memo app, or just pressing “record” into my mic with a beat playing.
#2 Always Use A Beat
We talk about this more in other videos, but when learning how to rhyme better in freestyle rap, it’s absolutely crucial to use a beat when performing this because it TURNS THE PRESSURE UP…
…And you won’t be able to use a crutch like pausing for 20 seconds to think of a better rhyme.
Don’t worry, once you’ve mastered freestyling to a beat, you’ll always be able to do it without a beat and in fact it will be a LOT easier because you’ll be used to having to work within the parameters of the beat’s tempo and so on.
#3 Record and Then Listen The Next Day
This is essential. Don’t review your rhymes until the next day when your mind is clear, and your brain will probably FORGET what rhymes you chose. This is will be good for seeing what your subconscious mind is rhyming with.
#4 Pull Out Your Alphabet And Write Down What Rhymes You DID — USE
Write down all the rhymes you used in the recorded freestyle.
What’s dope about this is after a few days you’ll start to notice which rhymes you ALWAYS seem to use when under pressure, and you’ll know you have to expand on that using the steps in this article to get better.
In other words, if you know you always seem to rhyme “cat” with “crack” because you’ve heard it on the recorded freestyles THREE times in THREE DAYS…
You know you’ll have to add some new rhymes to that “cat” scheme to not repeat it so much.
5) Write Down 10 Rhymes You COULD — USE In A Scheme
So again, you might decide to practice rhyme “cat” with “stack”, “splat”, “fact” using the steps in this article because you know you have to get away from using “crack” so much since you’ve heard it overused on the recordings.
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