How to write catchy rap lyrics – 3 fundamental rules

In this article, I will share with you 3 fundamental rules of how to write good and catchy lyrics for any of your rap or hip-hop tracks. I will try my best to give you the most valuable and not banal information. Hope you enjoy it.

Rule 1: Be honest with your audience and yourself

Nowadays a lot of newbie rappers rap about money, murder, and sex, but they don’t actually have such a lifestyle (or haven’t had). They want to be and rap like 21 Savage but don’t know that he got through a lot in his life for real. This fake texts will most likely drown out your rapper career in its start.
So what’s the way? Just make lyrics about your real life, your real-life situations, or what you like. I will give you a couple of examples:

1. Try to recall some very emotional situation in your life. Maybe even right now you getting through several hardships, like heartbreaking relationships or getting fired. Write about it, write how hard is this for you; you can even write it without any design or rhythm, just see what you have for now, what you have to tell people. And when its all done, compose it into a rap lyrics and then to a rap song.
2. Try to make lyrics about what you love, or like to do. If you like to play videogames, great, write about it, write about some awesome game you would play for the rest of your life. You can even tell some story in your lyrics, like for example how you have solo killed 6 people in World of Warcraft and then got an epic loot.

I hope you got what I meant by this principle. Just be yourself in your life and in your lyrics. Don’t try to be like someone and especially don’t steal texts. Of course, that’s okay to be inspired by someone and copy some specific stuff at the start, but in a rap game, you have to get your own style. Let’s go to the next rule.

Rule 2: Be consistent with your style

This rule is highly important because your audience, your fans will listen to your music to hear particularly your style, to get the specific vibe from your music. So it’s better to find your own style of music as soon as it’s possible.
Besides the style of music, you will need the style of your person as a musician. By this, I mean some you need to look unique, to have unique branding of your person. You can achieve this by picking your own fashion preferences, ordering a brand design from professional people. You can also take a look at how it’s done by other rap artists, they might hide their personal branding, but if you look closer, you will see some stuff that makes the artist more recognizable in a crowd.
So how to get your own style? How to find it? First of all, follow the first rule – be honest with yourself and make music from your heart, from your life. When (if) you already got a few tracks, analyze them and write down main characteristics for your music. For instance: what kind of beat do you use, what are your lyrics about, what vibe does your track contribute. When it’s all done, you will see the fundamental characteristics of your music.
Why should you be consistent? Your fan base will grow every day, and if you change your style dramatically, then you will start losing fans who liked your previous style.

Rule 3: Make sure you aren’t making completely similar tracks

I have seen and heard a lot of rappers who make a lot of songs, but they all sounds the same. I mean at the start you like it: love the style, theme, beats. But when you hear 3rd tracks which sounds the same, even with the same vibe, it’s just stagnation. And it’s answering a question “why you shouldn’t make completely similar tracks?” – because you will lose your audience.
So how to avoid this annoying thing? First of all, you need to analyze all your recent works and check, aren’t they sound the same? If you hear some similarity, then you should recognize where is it. Usually, the problem in things such as beats, flow, lyrics. So go check them; it’s easier to do separately. When you have found it, you need to think about how to fix the problem and add some new unique parts to your tracks, then apply them in your next works.
By the way, if you have such problems with your instrumentals, you can go check some of my beats, there is a large selection of tracks, maybe you will find a few perfects beats for your rap.