Rap

The most important elements of a rap song are the lyrics and the beat.

In a rap song, a rap artist, or rapper, speaks the lyrics in time to a strong 4/4 beat.

When you write a rap song, make sure that the lyrics coincide with the beat, so that a syllable in the lyrics is stressed whenever a beat is stressed. Each measure (bar) will contain four stressed beats. 

As with songs in all genres, the stresses in the lyrics should be in places where words or syllables would be stressed in natural speech.

A rap song will be enhanced by the rapper's flow - the way that the rapper uses his or her voice to interact with the rhythm and the lyrics of the song. Flow includes such things as timing and pace as well as vocal pitch, volume and timbre.

The lyrics of a rap song can discuss controversial or adult topics and contain graphic references to sexual acts or acts of violence. In this way, rap music resembles rock music.

Rap music is a part of hip hop culture, which has its own slang. Using hip hop slang in a rap song can make your song more appealing to listeners. However, if you use hip hop slang, you should make sure that it sounds natural, not forced.

Although rap songs were originally recited a cappella (without accompaniment) or with a simple drumbeat, rap music has evolved in complexity since its origin in the 1970s. Rap songs may have complex instrumental arrangements. For example, a rapper may be backed by an electric guitar, as in the song Party Like a Rockstar by Shop Boyz.

A rap song can have lyrics that are partly sung and partly spoken. In the Eminem song Stan, for example, the verses are spoken by Eminem and the chorus is sung by Dido.  When a rap song has some lyrics that are spoken and some that are sung, the artist who speaks may be different than the artist who sings, because rapping and singing require different skills.

Poetic Devices

In all music genres, songwriters make use of poetic devices, such as rhyme, alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification and allusion.

However, because rap music tends to focus more on lyrics and less on instrumentation than other kinds of music, the use of poetic devices can have a stronger effect in rap music than in other genres.

Rhyme is extremely important in rap. Rap lyrics often rhyme phrases as well as single words.

 If you want to write a good rap song, you should include internal rhymes (rhymes within lines) as well as rhymes at the end of lines.

A well-crafted rap song will contain multisyllabic rhymes. In a multisyllabic rhyme all of the syllables in a multisyllabic word or phrase rhyme with all of the syllables in another multisyllabic word or phrase.

Rap lyrics often use slant rhymes, also called imperfect rhymes, for variety. A slant rhyme is made up of two words or phrases that sound the same but do not rhyme exactly. They may share the same vowel or the same final consonant.

Sampling

Rap music is known for sampling - taking part of a song that has already been recorded by another artist, in any genre, and incorporating it into a new song. The portion of the original song that is placed in the new song is known as a sample.

Examples of the effective use of sampling can be found in the songs Takeover by Jay-Z, which samples the song Five to One by The Doors; Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem), also by Jay-Z, which samples the song Hard Knock Life from the musical Annie; and Sing for the Moment by Eminem, which samples the song Dream On by Aerosmith.

Including samples of songs in other music genres in a rap song will add variety to your song.

If you want to use a sample in a rap song that you are writing, you must first get permission from the owner as well as the publisher of the original song. You may have to pay a fee for the sample, or the owner of the original song may demand a percentage of the copyright of the new song.