- In this video, I'm gonna teach you how to freestyle rap.
With a full proof method that anyone can learn
even if you can't rhyme.
(upbeat music)
I'm Chris Turner.
I'm a professional stand up comedian
and also happens to freestyle rap.
I'll take you through the basics,
step by step and at the end of the video,
I will tell you what I believe is the secret
to becoming a great freestyle rapper.
You might've seen some of my freestyles on YouTube
or Reddit so if you're not already subscribe,
please do so you can enjoy those.
Quick note before we begin.
What I'm referring to is freestyle.
You might know as off the dome.
It just means a rap that is made up in the moment
rather than one written down and prepared in advance.
Some great freestylers include MC Supernatural,
Wayne Brady, Harry Mack, King Los, Corey Charron,
Abandoman so check out those guys,
if you wanna get a taste of some of the greats.
The term freestyle also refers to written raps
that are performed over a random beat.
This can get a little confusing
just know when I say freestyle in this video,
I'm talking about ones that are completely improvised.
Now that's all sorted, welcome.
Beginners you've come to the right place,
I'm gonna teach you how to freestyle rap.
If you're more experienced, do stick around
I'm gonna tell you some tips and hacks
that will take your freestyle into the next level,
and I'll also point out mistakes that a lot of people make.
(jazz music)
I'm gonna assume that you love hip-hop.
You love rap and you listen to a lot of it.
That's the first step and it is the simplest.
Wait, to become a freestyle rapper,
I just have to listen to rap?
Yeah, it's like that job where people got paid money
to watch all the seasons of The Office.
Note, that I said rap not freestyle rap.
Listen to music that is written not improvised.
Great chefs can conjure up a meal out
anything that's in the kitchen just by knowing
what ingredients go together.
But they had to start out by learning the recipes.
That's not a great analogy but what I'm saying is,
you shouldn't be trying to sound
like other freestyle rappers.
You should be aiming to sound like your raps are written.
When someone comments on my videos,
saying fake, written,
the audience are plants,
this can't be possible, that is the highest praise
you can give me.
People do not wanna believe this is possible
but it is and it is simpler that you might think.
If you're just starting out,
I know that level seems like a long way off,
but by listening to rap you are embedding in yourself
are knowledge of rhythm, a feel for the beat,
the knowledge of bar construction and even a compendium,
a library of rhymes that you can draw on
when the time comes.
(upbeat music)
I want you to practice with music.
Have a beat playing when you're freestyling.
Classic boom bap beats
are between 80 and 95 beat per minute.
Now, that's a nice tempo
but maybe it's a bit too fast for you
when you're starting out rapping.
(upbeat music)
Trap music is between 130 and 150 beats per minute.
That sounds fast, but you're just gonna rap a half tempo.
(trap music)
Use these beats, rap a half tempo.
The simplest way is to pick a beat
you're already familiar with from a song you know.
Find the instrumental online
and just rap along to that.
If it feels too fast, that's okay just pick a different one.
There is so many available on YouTube
and all you have to do is start rapping.
I know this sounds daunting and you might be thinking,
how am I gonna rap when you haven't taught me anything yet?
Of course you're gonna do it.
You can talk.
Rapping is talking.
You just talk over the beat.
Tell me about your day,
what you had for breakfast,
whether you had to use your AK
and this is gonna sound stupid.
But I don't care if you rhyme.
(trap music)
I just want you to stick to the beat.
Talk while a beat plays.
Now, a rhyme might come up in your head
and that's great.
You can fit it in but if it doesn't arrive,
really, you don't need to worry.
If you keep doing it for long enough,
eventually the rhymes will come.
I thought this guy said he could freestyle rap.
It's super basic.
It's just talking in time with music
and three to four minutes might seem like a long time
to talk for and it is.
You might get stuck but keep going, keep going.
Even if you repeat yourself,
even if what you're saying makes no sense at all,
I don't care just keep it up.
Keep up the flow for the length of the beat
so, apologies if you chose the original 40 minutes
and 46 seconds cut of rapper's delight.
This is gonna get your brain used to that beat.
Comfortable with the beat, when I started rapping on stage,
I used the same beat for every show.
You're not learning any lyrics
so the least you can do is learn the beat.
Once you're comfortable, pick another.
Maybe a slightly higher tempo.
Once you're comfortable with that,
pick another one et cetera.
The only way to get better at something is to practice
and I hate practicing, I hate it.
You're spending time out of your day to do something
you suck at and that is not fun.
So this is what you do.
This is one of my favorite freestyle tips
and one that a lot of people have told me
really helped them learn.
You're gonna freestyle in the shower.
(upbeat music)
depending on your level of personal hygiene,
this means you have about five minutes everyday,
or every two days, or having forbid once a week.
Fun fact, Queen Isabella of Spain bathe twice in her life
which is why she was such an awful rapper.
I'm Queen Isabella and I come from Spain,
step to me, I'm gonna bring the.
(groans)
You have five minutes everyday where you can practice.
Of course you can rap while you're walking the dog
or washing your hands for 20 seconds please.
But this is the perfect place.
People sing in the shower.
You're gonna rap in it.
Take your phone into the bathroom,
play the beat and just go.
Talk about the day you have planned,
talk about your immediate surroundings, yeah.
You're gonna spit a lot of bars about soap.
(upbeat music)
if you have a mirror in your bathroom,
that's gonna get steamed up
so this is an easy thing you can do.
Draw a letter on the mirror,
put a big A on there,
pick a word that starts with that letter
and start talking about that
so, you're rapping about aardvarks.
Remember, I don't care if you're rhyming
just talk to the beat about aardvarks.
When you run out of things to say,
move on to another word that begins with that letter.
But here is what we come to something really important.
You should never run out of things to say.
And I'm gonna tell you how to do it.
(scratches)
In this dramatic pause, I would like to share
three quick hacks for more experienced freestylers
to make your raps better.
Number one, use your strength.
If you have a great voice, emphasize that.
There are rappers, not necessarily freestylers
who don't sound like other rappers.
Giggs, Young Thug, Aitch.
Their voices sound so good, you would listen to them
even if they suck.
If you sound interesting, different, lean on that.
If you're not great with lyrics
but you've got good flow, emphasize that.
If you're funny, if you have punch lines,
focus on those.
Number two, practice with other people.
Get involved with psyphers.
This will make you better.
Much faster than if you just do it on your own.
You'll be forced to adapt and play off each other
and it's an audience but one that you know is friendly.
While I'm filming this,
we're currently all social distancing and in isolation
but you can still do it.
Jump on Discord, Zoom, rap over a beat with some friends
you will get better.
Just a note, maybe don't combine this one
with the rap in the shower, advice.
Unless you're really close with your friends.
And number three, drugs.
I'm being serious.
You freestyle using your brain
and Nootropics, brain pills
for a lot of people helped them.
For me, they aid with my short term recall,
my general awareness and speed of thought.
These are the ones I use,
I cycle on and off them and I find I perform better
when I am taking them.
Of course, your mileage may vary
but they do have a money back guarantee
if you're not satisfied.
You can find out more using the link in the description
and by using that to buy them,
you'll be supporting me and this channel
so I am very grateful and,
is there anything else?
Remember how I said you shouldn't run out of things to say?
(upbeat music)
when I run workshops with people
looking to become a better freestyle rapper,
the most common things that happens
is I give them a word and a beat
and I ask them to start talking over it.
And they run out of things to talk about
within eight or 12 bars.
If I ask them to rhyme while they're doing it,
they run out even sooner
because setting the rule of it has to rhyme,
obviously limits the number of words you can possibly use.
Why does this happen?
Without getting too psychology 101 about it,
there are two types of thinking play here.
Convergent thinking and divergent thinking.
You don't need to worry yourself about the science of this,
but when we're freestyle rapping,
we want to think divergently.
This means we don't limit ourselves
to the word we're rapping about.
We look around it for connections.
A quick example if someone asks you to rap
about the sun, and you spent all that time
focusing on the sun, pretty soon you're gonna run out
of things to say.
But if you think divergently,
that's letting yourself make connections
from the word sun to all the things around it.
Giving you so much more to rap about.
To take it one step further,
you can use one of these words as a jumping off point
to rap about other things.
Say you're rapping about the sun,
and then you move on to rapping about the moon.
Well you can use that as a jumping off point
and now there are so many more things you can rap about
by thinking divergently about the moon.
The lesson is not to focus too hard
on what you are rapping about.
Rap about it, but also rap around it
and when you're done, rap about something else.
That way, you can freestyle for longer
and it was all still truly inspired
by that initial suggestion.
In my live shows, as well as my live streams
which I do right here on YouTube so do subscribe
so you don't miss out on those.
I take suggestions of anything from the audience.
Sometimes things come up that I've never even heard of
or no very little about.
People ask me all the time if I have a photographic memory
or synesthesia or from autistic, none of those.
The truth is even if you don't know much about something,
you can still rap about it by thinking divergently.
A little bonus here, this type of thinking
is the bases for creativity.
So it will help you come up with solutions
and ideas for other areas of your life.
We're now most of the way through this video
and you might be thinking,
"Chris, you haven't taught me how to rhyme yet."
Which is true, so I'll tell you this
and freestyling becomes a lot less scary
when you hear them.
(upbeat music)
It is easier to rhyme than not rhyme.
So please don't worry when doing raps
'cause your brain's very good at filling.
You know what should go there.
It might take a second to think of it
but the more you practice freestyling,
the quicker those links will become.
It's gaps by the way.
You should've got that by now.
If I'm writing a rap and I sit down
and write the first line,
then I need to find a rhyme for then end of the second one.
Just by knowing words I will find one eventually.
Those words are in your head.
The rhymes are already there.
And the more you practice,
the closer they will come to the surface.
No need to sit down with the dictionary,
no preparing rhymes, by listening to hip-hop,
you've already got thousands of rhymes in your head already.
Remember how we're practicing by talking to a beat?
That's because rhymes are tied to rhythm.
By forcing ourselves to get better at talking rhythmically,
we are priming our brain to pick out
and provide rhymes for us.
Also, pro-tip.
If someone ask you to rhyme
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,
one you just need to rhyme ocious
and two, they're a prick.
- Cheeky.
- I know it seems weird but do trust me,
if you're forcing yourself to rhyme
right from the very start,
you're gonna have way more failures.
You're gonna get disheartened and you're gonna give up.
I don't want that.
I want you to succeed.
So, don't worry about rhymes for now.
Eventually, they'll come.
(upbeat music)
Cum. (laughs)
In a moment, I'm gonna give you
my number one piece of advice.
But before I get too far ahead of myself,
I wanna give you a quick word about thinking ahead.
People assume freestyle rappers
are thinking several lines ahead
of what they're currently saying.
When I ask the audience for suggestions,
people think I'm preparing the rap in my head right then.
That's not freestyling, that's writing
and that's not fun for me.
Because for me, freestyling is about being present.
You have to exist in that moment.
I find if you think too much about your next line,
you're gonna trip up and stumble over the line
that you're currently on.
Great freestylers are not thinking ahead.
They are letting their mind flow freely
from one thought and onto the next.
I'm not saying don't set up a rhyme for a bar
that you know it's gonna hit.
If you're rapping about communion wafers
and you think of a great rhyme for transubstantiation,
you should go ahead and set that up
but don't get too obsessed with this
because you'll just find yourself filling time
while you think ahead and missing opportunities
that naturally present themselves in the rap in the present.
That's getting into more advanced territory
and please do let me know in the comments
if you want further explanations of topics
I've discussed in this video
or things about freestyling that you would like covered
in a future one.
Now, as promised it is time for the main secret
and it is so simple.
Get a grill.
Gold, platinum, diamonds, the more bling the better.
No really, the number one secret
to being able to freestyle, comfort.
(techno music)
the best way to freestyle is to be comfortable
while you are doing it.
Let me explain.
Most people are terrified of public speaking
and that makes sense, it's an alien environment.
You're standing in front of a crowd of people
and you are the only person facing the wrong way.
But when it comes to talking to your friends,
you might be telling stories, jokes, making them laugh,
you're not nervous.
And that's because in that environment,
you are comfortable.
To become a great freestyle rapper,
you need to develop this level of comfort.
And the process I've taught you in this video,
all springs from and revolves around
that one central concept.
We started out by talking rather than rhyming.
Because talking is familiar to us.
It's comfortable.
We're talking over a beat that we already like.
A beat that we already know,
a beat that is already in our muscle memory.
We're rapping with our friend rather than with strangers.
We're leaning in to our strengths,
emphasizing aspects of us that we're more comfortable with.
And most of all, we're practicing in the shower.
A place we've been thousands of times in our life.
Except you Queen Isabella of Spain.
People talk about pushing us out of our comfort zone.
To do that, you need to establish one first.
Freestyle rap is already so fun
out of people's comfort zones
and that is one of the reasons
why it's so exciting and it's one of the reasons
why we love it.
When I started rapping in public,
it was so scary, there is no doubt about that.
I was nervous but nerves are just adrenaline
and adrenaline, is your friend.
It helps you think quicker
which improves your freestyles
but you have to keep it under control or you choke.
Shoulda worn your Crocs Marshall.
A big crowd is terrifying and you can't shut them out
because it's a freestyle that you have to engage with them
you have to interact, that's what we do.
So I would tell myself.
That crowd is rooting for you.
They want you to succeed.
They want to be blown away.
They want to be on their feet.
And this help me get into a more comfortable mindset.
Now, add to that the fact
that I use the same beat to rap over,
I wore the same clothes on stage.
Everything to make me as comfortable as possible.
In one round of performances,
I was closing the show with a really complex freestyle.
I would take childhood memories from the audience
and weave them together into a cohesive, coherent narrative.
It was a hard freestyle to pull off.
To make myself more comfortable,
I brought a rug from the apartment I was renting
and put it on the stage.
So when I was on that rug, I knew I could do that freestyle.
If you watch me wrap, you'll notice I introduce every rap
with the same exact sentence.
Don't worry, it won't be anywhere near as atrociously,
embarrassingly bad as you're expecting a privately educated,
middle-class white boy to be.
(audience laughs)
In the 18 years I've been doing this,
I've done thousands of raps.
And that little mantra is one of my anchors.
It's one of the things that keeps me comfortable.
The more comfortable you are,
the closer you are to the flow state
where your subconscious mind takes over
and does all the hard work for you
and makes your freestyles better.
But that's for another video
where I will explain in more detail
how you can take your freestyling to the next level
so do subscribe so you don't miss out.
To recap, what are you gonna do?
Listen to rap.
Practice to a beat.
Talk over that beat.
Do this everyday in the shower.
Talk around a topic as well as about it.
Don't worry about rhyming.
Don't get caught up thinking ahead.
And get comfortable.
That's it.
There are links and resources
in the description of this video,
including a link to check out those little pills
for your brain and please do use the comments
to ask me any questions you have
about learning to freestyle.
Let me know how you're getting on,
share tips with everyone else
and if you have to, you can just text me.
Thank you so much for watching.
Now, go take a shower.
(upbeat music)