Freestyle rap guides
Practical guides to freestyling, from your very first bars to flow, wordplay and punchlines. Most come with a 5-minute video drill you can play along with.
How to freestyle rap, a beginner's guide
Freestyling isn't a gift some people are born with. It's a handful of small skills stacked on top of each other, and every one of them can be practiced.
Read the guide →Rhyme schemes explained, AABB, ABAB and AAAA
A rhyme scheme is just a map of which lines rhyme with which. Learn to hear the three basic ones and your freestyles start to sound planned, even when they aren't.
Read the guide →A 10-minute daily freestyle practice routine
Freestyle is a reflex, and reflexes are built with short, regular reps. Here's a ten-minute routine you can do every day, anywhere with headphones.
Read the guide →Two freestyle rap exercises for total beginners
Starting with a blank beat and no plan is the hardest way to learn freestyle. These two drills give you lots of structure, so you only make up a small part of each bar, then take the structure away bit by bit.
Read the guide →How to improve your freestyle flow, three rules of rhythm
Most beginners think freestyle is about rhymes. It's about rhythm first. Get these three rules into your body and everything else in freestyle gets easier, and your raps sound like music instead of words over a beat.
Read the guide →What to rap about when you freestyle
You don't go blank because you have nothing to say. You go blank because your brain is juggling two jobs at once. The Big Topic drill trains both, so you always have something to rap about and can stay on topic.
Read the guide →Setup and punchline, how to freestyle like Harry Mack
Harry Mack's freestyles sound impossible, but a lot of the magic is one technique you can practice. Pick the punchline first, work backwards to a setup that rhymes with it, and fill in the gap on the beat.
Read the guide →How to improve your freestyle wordplay
Rhythm and rhymes make a freestyle sound like rap. Wordplay is what makes a crowd react. Here's what wordplay actually is, six tactics to reach for mid-verse, and a drill that frees up your whole brain to practice it.
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