TUTORIAL #0 - A FEW THOUGHTS ON LYRICISM
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'lyricism? i haven't heard that name in a while'
How's it going my lovely steemit rappers/hiphoppers/artists/random people who stumbled across this post! I've just released my new song 'demonboy [ghost ship]' and I honestly couldn't be more proud with how it turned out. I thought i'd give the most in depth tutorial possible as to what inspired the track.
DISCLAIMER: Since i don't wanna make this post TOOO big, you can find the lyrics to the track in the description of the song on SC. Ill be going over the lyrics further down this post so please open it up if you wanna follow along (also you must repost or like otherwise ill be sad)
IMPORTANT AS FUCK: Here's the track, you'll probably wanna listen to this if you wanna understand this post a bit more and the lyrics behind the track: https://soundcloud.com/p00rkid/demonboy-ghost-ship-prod-ream
My homie Dream! who made the beat, check him out and tell him poorkid sent ya <3
https://soundcloud.com/synthetic_dream
INSPIRATION
So the song got started after stalking Rap and HipHop discord servers like NOLIFECLUB and Felicity and all that (you can easily google them and find them) and asking people for tips on mixing vocals since this is my first venture into the realms of vocal production. Along the way i've made some fantastic homies who have helped me greatly but my main mention will be Dream!. He came to me and said i've got a few free beats i'd like to use. After a drunken night of jamming after a pretty shit week to his soundcloud, i fell in love with this dudes beats. I found 2 that i really liked the vibe of, sort of ethereal and isolating and very very sp00ky.
The beat for 'demonboy [ghost ship]' switches tempo and drums in the middle of the track and since I thought it was quite empty in these parts, I didn't view it as a bad thing. Think of any beats you are using (even your own) as a blank canvas, yeah it might be blank but that just means more opportunity. I used the simple drum beats and rhythm switch-up to contrast the hard as fuck vocals with a bit of my own singing and vocal performance. Basically to explain this in the most simple way, just listen to the track 'joji - Thom' and it has the exact same premise i'm talking about.
THE PROCESS OF WRITING
DISCLAIMER I'M NOT CLAIMING TO BE SOME SORT OF RAP GENIUS THESE ARE JUST MY THOUGHTS. DON'T GET YOUR APPENDIX IN A CONVEX TWIST.
Since the beat had that sort of foreboding feel, what with the minor piano chords and snare that sounds like its made out of cobwebs, I sorta built lyrics based on dark themes and all types of unworldly imagery.
"turn the frown upside down and vandalize the painting, you will never frame me as a stony bust of satan"
Now inspiration for the lyrics in question, remember to always be yourself but also never forget to have artistic integrity and don't be afraid to cover topics outside of yourself. I mean you think all these famous rappers nowadays have actually fucking killed people? I doubt they're all true to 100% of what they are saying (except gucci mane of course, love you guwop i know you're reading). My take on the whole issue of "oh you can't rap unless it's about real shit! you's a fucking phony ass bitch" is that I really don't think it matters as long as you're playing a character or are using things outside of your reality as something that bolsters your lyricism or adds to the experience. As long as you're not exploiting a popular or 'gangsta' community i think you're fine. Like you wouldn't expect me, a 5,4 British Bisexual white male to be rapping about throwing up crip signs or something like that.
see is this the look of a killer? no! does that mean you're not allowed to enjoy Lil Uzi? fucking listen to what you want who cares!
Now time to dissect how I like to write my lyrics. While keeping within my self built confines of darkness and spooky shit as a theme base for the track, I like to think outside the box. For example, for the lines "carbon dating tells me that your tricks are getting old son, lasso the beat towards me now I'm playing texas hold 'em" was thought up from a little exercise/game i play called 'outside the box, put something in it'. [i literally just came up with that name five seconds ago]
At the time, I was brainstorming ideas thinking of long words I could use to seem cooler. Basically the way the game goes is you take something obscure or unused in rap (e.g. texas hold 'em) and find stuff that can rhyme with it. I do this process constantly and just getting 2 words or phrases that are like 4 syllables to rhyme together just lets me build my bars from the bottom up. If you want a good site or tool to help you with this process, I'd highly recommend Writer online. (http://writer.bighugelabs.com/).
This is not sponsored promotion but Write online is really damn good since you can basically have infinite documents open online, edit them whenever you want and it auto-saves all the time. Once you're done, you can download a notepad file of what you've just typed out. Of course you can always be traditional and use pen and paper or whatever but I find this is quite convenient as it allows me to store ALL my lyrics in one place without letting me lose them.
PRODUCTION
So I had absolutely no hand in making the beat, just leveling it and remastering different parts. My tip for delivery is never be afraid to speak in whatever accent, voice or vocal range you have. It may take practice to perfect it (i mean fuck i'm not perfect no one is) but don't be afraid to shout, whisper and go fucking ballistic on a track as long as it means you're enjoying what you're doing and you enjoy what you put out. Feel free to experiment with multiple voices at different pitches if you wish but for this particular track I wanted it to be as clear and as hard as I could possibly go so for my rapping I simply kept it to one part.
As for the singing part, since I had no sample in the background just a janky ass drum beat, i layered harmonies of ooohs and aaaahs over the sample to a point I was happy with it. Then i layered low and high versions of my 4 bar verses. The lyrical content here as a lot more nostalgic and romantic cause I was inspired by the original beats sampling of some conversation about ghosts or some shit. Then just to add to the melodic switch up I drenched the whole central part in reverb which was especially handy considering the lack of instrumentation, synths and samples in this area of the track.
IN CONCLUSION...
...there really is no conclusion. I just wanted to help anyone with a few techniques or shortcomings they might have when making a track. I don't say this as someone with any authority over music, but as someone who sees a lot of people suffering from writers block (which i just dont tend to get) i thought i'd give a word or two about the subject.
I'm sorry i've been away for a while, i'm sorry this post is so long but I hope you readers (whoever you are) have enjoyed it and I hope you have a better day than me, who woke up at 2:00pm hungover as fuck with no money left in my wallet.
Give me an upvote and a repost if you wanna see more of this content or if I made you smile at any point, ill be back with another post as soon as I can make some more ideas ~~~<3
I love you all
-poorkid
This is so dope. You had me from this line "this is audio inspired fire flaming blaming others" and the way that went into the next line - you have some really creative twists of phrase and rhythm in here mate! Awesome! I also really appreciated your I-don't-give-a-fuck write up here. Very entertaining to read and you spouted out some wisdom even!
This post was nominated by a @curie curator to be featured in an upcoming Author Showcase post on the @curie blog. If you agree to be featured in this way, please reply and:
You can check out the previous week's Author Showcase to get an idea of what we are doing with these posts.
Cheers - Carl (@curie curator)
added on discord <3
Author showcase is up :)
https://steemit.com/curation/@curie/curie-author-showcase-march-22nd-2018
Dig your perspective man!! Track was cool! Your flow is really different, I'd really like to see you flow over a live band, maybe mixed in with some emo/screamo (I know people hate me using those terms, but I honestly don't know the genre). Think your shit would be DOPE over some music like that.
Keep droppin em' man!
Excellent write up
You've put a lot of work into this. Great job!