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"The Rap Lyricists Handbook"
"The Rap Lyricists Handbook" is not just another book to skim through. It's a powerful resource designed to be your go-to companion on your journey to rap mastery.
With 250 colourful pages of curated advice, practical exercises, and proven strategies, you'll have everything you need to create hit songs that resonate with your audience.
In this article, I’ll be teaching you guys how to create an amazing diss track, along with its dos and don’ts. There will also be a few examples here so that you know what your end result should look like.
So What is a diss track?
In its simplest answer, a diss track or diss song is created and intended to disrespect a person/ a group of people. Musical parodies and attacks have always been a thing, but the diss track gained more popularity and commonality in the hip hop genre, which was fuelled by the rivalry that is very evident in the hip hop community.
What Is The Purpose Of Writing A Rap Diss Track?
Maybe a rival rap artist burned you bad at a rap battle a few months back?
Or maybe you caught a fellow artist sleeping with your girlfriend? Maybe you got backstabbed by a friend and you want to let out your emotions on them, but not physically.
A diss track should always be made only when necessary. You can’t create one just because you feel like it, or just because you’re bored and you have nothing to do.
It should be made when someone either crosses the line with you, or you got dissed first by a fellow rapper. It’s never a good option to create a diss track just because someone stepped on your toe while you were walking, or they bumped into you while they weren’t looking.
That’s just sad.
Now that you know what a diss track is, and why you should only make it, it’s time to learn how to get started.
But diss rapping can become useful for improving your
1) Focus
2) Setting A Goal With Your Raps
3) Instilling Discipline
4) Forcing You To Practice Your Rap Lyrics
5) Forcing You To Write More Rap Lyrics
6) Forcing You To Take Part In More Rap Battles and Rap Cyphers
7) Building Confidence In Your Ability
8) Helps You Get Better With Freestyle Rapping
How to Create a Diss Track - Choosing the right beat for a diss song
This is one of the most important parts of creating a diss track, as is with any rap song you’ll create. Choosing the best hip hop beats for your diss track is crucial as it will help you have the best oomph to having an amazing song. This should serve as the foundation for an amazing song.
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You’ll have to spend a good amount of time with this step since it’s going to back up your lyrics. If you don’t have an astounding beat, then your rap lyrics wouldn’t even matter. People will focus on both your words and the music accompanying it.
If neither of them match up perfectly, you’ll more likely get dissed by your own fans rather than your intended person of interest.
A good example for an amazing beat would be Nas’ Ether. Listen to the beginning of the beat. It not only has such a strong impact throughout the song, but the first beginning beats demand that you listen up and pay close attention to the song and its meaning.
Don't Be Afraid To Diss Bigger Rap Artists
This is a good tip especially when you’re just starting out and you have a substantial following. If you go after the bigger artists, you run the risk of getting dissed back by them, but you also have the chance of their following checking out who you are.
This could be a good thing for you, or a terrible thing if you that wasn’t your intended plan. You have the choice of either going after one artist or a group of them.
If you have their fans check you out and have a listen to your music, you might gain some fans and exposure because the person you dissed, responded to you with their own diss track.
You’ll have the advantage since the person you dissed might have all their information plastered all over the internet, while you’re just an upcoming artist and not much is known about you, meaning they’ll be having a harder time to diss you.
On the other hand, don’t go responding back to every diss that you get. You’ll need to carefully choose who and who not to respond to because you do want to get exposure from other people, but you wouldn’t want to give smaller artists the attention that they crave for, right?
Sounds rude, but it’s the truth.
An example of someone going after the big sharks is 50 cent’s How to Rob, where he goes after everyone and in turn, everyone else responds.
How Do Yo Write A Diss Rap About Someone You Know?
- Find out as much about them as possible
Having just mentioned previously, if your opponent has a large following, you’ll be able to know more about them with just a few Google searches within the day.
This is a good thing to do especially if you want to write the best rap lyrics that you can – and all because you know more about them.
If you’re the underdog, then it’s good to have some information hidden from the public eye so that it doesn’t get used against you.
Because just like you, whoever you dissed can do a quick Google search as well and immediately gain every juicy detail about you and your life.
They can even go on Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram to learn more things about you as you can do the same to them.
It’s best that you also take some time in doing your research so that you can write few freestyle rap bars about them as possible, because you’ll need to spit out the meanest and realest on everything they do, have gone through, and might still be going through in their life.
You wouldn’t want to make stuff up, because they, along with their loyal fan base, can easily dispute your words over the knowledge that they have. This is why it’s best to go after people that are more famous than you. Simple.
Only diss another rapper if it’s relevant
I mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it again: Only create a diss track if it’s truly relevant.
You can’t create a diss track off the bat and start talking about random bull shit about a random person without having any proof to back it up.
You also can’t go after a person just because you hate them or that you don’t particularly like them in any way, shape or form.
A diss is only relevant if the subject matter at hand is of any substance.
The worst kind of diss tracks are the ones that have no real meaning behind them and are made within a day just so that you can put something out.
If you listen to any diss track online, you can hear that they talk about being betrayed, or being fucked over by their peers, and so on and so forth. Those are the reasons that you need before you can create a diss track.
A good example would be Ice Cube’s No Vaseline, where he disses his former group N.W.A. over royalty issues. He created the diss track for a relevant reason, and not because he just hates them.
How To Freestyle Rap (19 Rap Tips Every Rapper Should Know)
Have Good Punchlines But Also Hide Them To Keep The Audience Guessing
So, you have a great beat. You took your time choosing the best one out of the bunch and you even spent a substantial amount of time doing your research about the person you’re going to diss. Now it’s time to write down your lyrics.
You’ll need to have great punchlines in your diss song..
This might take you a while but it’s always good to take your time when you start writing your lyrics.
You can also go about it the other way and write hip hop lyrics within a set time frame. It might sound crazy but trust me on this one.
Diss tracks are essentially a little easier to write since they’re about a specific person, so there’s really not much that you can do wrong on.
Just remember to keep your rhymes intact and that you should still have a rhyme scheme so that your audience and even the person you’re dissing can follow along with every word you say.
Always make sure to keep your disses within the research you conducted or else you’ll have just wasted your time all for nothing. You can make a few bluffs here and there but always make them believable and not too out of proportion.
Fix Any Lyrics When Necessary
If you went with what I mentioned last time about writing all your lyrics within a set time frame, then this is the tip that comes in handy. You’ll now need to edit your lyrics so that they make any sort of sense.
This is also necessary when you’ve written more lyrics than needed or maybe you go over the limit of your own track.
You’ll need to do this repeatedly until you feel as though you’re diss track is the best out there. If you don’t feel good about it, it won’t be.
Have faith in your writing skills and don’t down yourself every time you write your own lyrics. Continue fixing your diss track until you think it’s perfect.
Be passionate when you write about it. Yes your lines are all fixed and amazing. Yes the beat is dope as all hell. But if it isn’t personal, people won’t be able to connect with whoever or whatever you’re dissing and your fans won’t understand the importance of it.
Like I mentioned in a previous article, make sure to include some slang and profanity so that it sounds much more like a diss track than a pop song made for children.
Imagine how ridiculous all songs would sound like if nothing but proper grammar was used. Scary, right?
Go after emotional points than logical points
You can talk about people’s intelligence, that’s all good and done. But the best diss tracks are when they get personal. Always go after your target’s emotions. Talk about a past event in their life.
You could even talk about their past relationships and use that against them.
It’s all good and dandy here.
Logic is going to be your greatest enemy here. Don’t focus on what they do, but what they’ve been through. You can go talk about their living situation, like if they’re living with their parents.
You can talk about their hardships in school, their troubles in their family, and so on and so forth. Going after their emotional points are going to have a harder impact on whoever you’re dissing and will get an even stronger reaction from not only your fans, but also theirs.
Make sure you’ve done your research because this point is also going to be included.
You’ll have the chance of browsing their social media about their past and you might even be able to talk to a few of their past friends so that you can dig a little deeper.
whAT mAKES a gOOD dISS SONG?
This is also part of fixing the lyrics, but a little different. Here, you’ll need to put together the lyrics in the best order possible to have the best impact on both your target and your fans.
You can’t talk about how terrible they were in school, then move to talking about their love life and their parents, and then go back to talking about their terrible school grades. You’ll confuse even yourself with how your lyrics are placed.
Always be sure that the rap flow of your lyrics is always followed so that you can rap smoothly and diss them well with the impact of your delivery.
What Long Should Diss Track Be?
Don’t be that guy that creates a ten minutes diss track that goes on forever and only repeats the lyrics instead of adding more insults.
No one would want to listen to your song and the length of your song could be used as a diss against you.
Make sure that your song fits within the three to four minute margin of your beat and doesn’t go over too much to the point of having your beat be repeated from the top. You can go over four minutes but stay on or below five. Anything more and you’ll bore anyone who listens to you.
Just do it
If you don’t do it, someone will. You don’t want anyone else to take the spotlight so if you’re hesitating about creating a diss track, do it now.
Just keep in mind the tips and tricks I gave you so that you don’t make any mistakes with anything I mentioned.
Go over everything and make sure that it’s great and just the way you like it before you post it and show your audience. You wouldn’t want to give them anything half assed and not of your top quality.
!WAIT! Check Out
"The Rap Lyricists Handbook"
"The Rap Lyricists Handbook" is not just another book to skim through. It's a powerful resource designed to be your go-to companion on your journey to rap mastery.
With 250 colourful pages of curated advice, practical exercises, and proven strategies, you'll have everything you need to create hit songs that resonate with your audience.
