In today’s article, we’re going to break down eight habits that only the WACKEST of struggle rappers do all the time that DESTROYS their careers…
…While successfully, happy, creative artists avoid these things like the plague.
As someone who has taught rappers from all skill levels over the last six years…
…From brand new artists to signed artists and producers…
I’ve compiled this list based on seeing the common traits that artists who don’t make it have and hopefully if you’re watching this as a fan of the music or an artist yourself…
…It will helpfully illuminate some of the main things to avoid on your rise to that top.
Now, two things successful artists DEFINITELY should do is subscribe to our YouTube channel “How To Rap” with notifications by clicking HERE because we release weekly videos all about how to transition into a full-time rap career…
…AND be sure to pick up our free video course, “The Top 20 Songwriting Secrets of Full-Time Rappers” to learn 20 different ways you can transition from amateur to professional as a rapper today. Click HERE to get that course for free.
1. Promote But Don’t Progress
Wack rappers almost invariably make sure to PROMOTE their music but they consistently do not PROGRESS in their musical abilities.
If you have a friend or fellow rapper that you consider wack, I can almost guarantee that if you listen to a song of theirs from this time last year and one they just released last WEEK…
…It is going to sound sonically the same and will likely show no progress in terms of creativity of wordplay, song structure, tightening up of flow, and many other aspects of becoming a GOAT level rap artist…
…Struggle rappers are almost synonymous with making worse and worse versions of the same song and yet spamming your timeline with captions like NEW! NEW! NEW… when it really is all the SAME SAME SAME!
Which brings us to wack rapper habit #2…
2. Spam And Beg For Plays
Look, spamming somebody’s timeline and begging them to just give you a listen is like begging for a girl to sleep with you on your hands and knees in the rain.
99% of the time you do that, you dry her thing up fast chapped lips during a sandstorm in the Mojave Desert.
The truth of the matter, just like a female knows that if you REALLY were an attractive valuable man with the ladies you wouldn’t be BEGGING and spamming her for attention…
…A real MUSIC fan knows that if your tracks were really DOPE you wouldn’t need to hop in a comment box and tell your life story before begging for someone to just listen one time.
You’d already have people sending your tracks by word-of-mouth around and you’d be too busy either make MORE dope music or getting requests to perform to sit around and spam people’s DMs and comment boxes for a listen.
Now, there is a fine line between spamming and promoting and not everyone knows it, so I’ll throw in a free book we wrote about releasing your first album on a tight budget that you can read by clicking HERE totally for free.
3. Blame Their Friends For Not Supporting Them
Similar to #2… if wack rappers music was actually GOOD… two things would happen:
- Their friends would enjoy their music and support it
- OTHER people who weren’t their friends would enjoy their music and support it, and they wouldn’t need their friends validation
In either scenario, you shouldn’t have to guilt trip somebody who is supposedly close to you to bump your stuff.
Think about it… if you have to guilt trip somebody into doing something… are they really your friend at all?
Additionally, you may be friends with them for a reason that has NOTHING to do with your respective careers.
I have friends that are my friends because we have the same political and philosophical views but TOTALLY different music taste.
I have friends who go to the gym with me and we talk about self-improvement. I have friends who I chase girls with.
Point is if your friendship is ONLY based on them liking your music… ARE YOU REALLY FRIENDS AT ALL?
4. Don’t Build A Team and Then Complain
Another way to avoid to having to rely on your friends for promotion and likes is to build a team around you that is committing to seeing your music shine.
Even from the very beginning you can join forces with friends who are passionate about photography, graphic design, mixing, etc.
If you are in a location without of a lot of people nearby into that stuff, use a website like UpWork.com and get freelancers to do it.
If you don’t have money to pay a big team, then MAKE music good enough that they will want to work for free for a while. Again, progress along with your promotion. Make songs that creative people want to help promote.
Pick up the free course on songwriting HERE and make sure that you can click off ALL 20 rules before reaching out to get people to work to you for free. THERE ARE NO EXC– USES.
The difference between a wack rapper and a successful artist is that a wack rapper doesn’t take the steps necessary like building a team to present something that the audience wants to see… they instead try to whine their way into a career which HARDLY ever works.
5. Write Inconsistently
Okay, so the first few were more related to how wack rappers promote… the next four will be related to how they create music that hurts their career.
Of all the things that almost guarantee a rapper will be wack, it’s that they don’t write enough raps to get actually GET good.
If a person doesn’t show up to the gym consistently, they will NOT get super jacked.
If a person does not play basketball consistently, they will NOT play in varsity high school basketball, let alone the NBA…
…As someone who’s been coaching rappers for a while now, when I have my new students fill out a survey and they tell me they only write one or two raps a week… before even hearing them I can know they won’t be elite industry level yet.
Successful artists are working 24/7 on their craft and if anything they have to learn how to slow down at times in order to get their other priorities in order…
…Think about how difficult the personal lives of GOAT level rappers like Lil’ Wayne, 2Pac, Eminem, and others have been…
…That’s partially because they spent MORE time focused on music than anything else.
Now think of your friend who supposedly says they are a rapper but you never see them writing or in a studio. Notice the difference?
6. Never Study Song Structure
Even if a wack rapper writes a lot of raps, often what also hurts them is they don’t know how to format those raps properly.
Your average fan can’t quickly identify WHY they like a particular track or song…
…Anymore than your average sports fan can tell you WHY a certain play was more successful than another…
…But they intuitively KNOW that they like certain raps better than others. This often has to do with proper professional SONG structure and FORMATTING that CAN be learned and perfected if studied.
Wack rappers don’t study anything. They don’t study promotion as we’ve mentioned, they don’t build teams, and they definitely don’t study structure.
I’ve already mentioned a couple times about our free course on this topic (click HERE to get it) so be sure to pick that up to learn professional rap song structure.
7. Never Experiment With Their Vocal Tone
Another very common error I see with wack rappers is that they don’t use their voice properly on the track.
For beginning rappers this usually means they’re too monotone… but it could also mean that they haven’t worked on which words they’re emphasizing even if they do emphasize.
I think we all know that a good rap voice or deliver can take an average verse and make it dope or at the very least entertaining.
One of the funniest examples of this is Kanye West’s verse on Schoolboy Q’s “That Part”. While a comical verse that borders on remedial in a way that only Kanye could do…
…It is a great example of how an experimental voice tone can make matter-of-fact lyrics into something at LEAST entertaining, whether or not you think it’s a lyrical masterpiece or anything.
8. Avoid Improving Their Sound Quality
I ended with this one because I believe you can use a very similar analogy with sound quality to the example we used in #1…
…If you listen to a wack rapper’s song from last year and the one he or she just released, it’s likely that they have the exact same level of poor sound quality as far as mixing, vocal tone, mastering, production choices, etc.
In 2020 there are more than enough affordable options to up your sound quality as far as recording devices and there are TONS of engineers both in person and online who are more than familiar with how to make your vocals sound crispy in no time.
If you’re just starting off, when you cop that free book that I mentioned in the beginning, you get an affordable home studio booklet which will tell you what to buy to get your sound quality up on the cheap… just click HERE to cop it.
But no matter what always remember that in the same way that each year your CELL PHONE quality gets better, YouTube video quality gets better, and EVERYTHING ELSE THAT REQUIRES TECHNOLOGY gets better…
…Your sound quality as a rapper MUST be improve if you want to stay current, hot, and not get left behind.
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