MC Improvement Article #06

   Visitor Email: How Do I Improve My Delivery and Make it Sound Polished?

I recently received a message from a hip hop fan interested in improving her flow. She had a good question which I thought a lot of people could benefit from reading. I ended up writing her a pretty long email in response and so I am now posting it as an article. You can read the email below. The sender’s name has been withheld for privacy.

NameWithheld@email.com writes:

Hey...so I wanted to say thanks for taking an interest, and wanted to ask you some things...I honestly used to write poems all the time...as the little white girl I am...but then I started listening to hiphop/rap a lot...I mean eazy-e...tupac...big...lil wayne...jay...all those guys...but I hear lately these guys like mims and it makes me sick. So I figured I shouldn't complain unless I can do better...so I just changed my way of thinking a little and I've managed to actually come up with some pretty sweet rhymes...but as far as delivery goes...I sound exactly like a little girl...and I didn't really see any thing about delivery and I wondered if you could help. My friend does beats and we're gonna lay some stuff down just for fun starting out...but I can't really "rap"...I mean in my head it sounds great...but I just can't say it like it sounds in my head...you know?...anyway...any help will be appreciated...thanks again ”name withheld”


Reply: What's up and thanks for getting in touch. Condfidence is number one when it comes to improving delivery. It's amazing how far that little concept goes. My man J. River was shooting the video for a song of his today and you should see how he commanded attention out there on the street with cars going by and everything. He wasn't phased by it, wasn't shy at all. What I mean is he got out of his own head...and got out of his own way. He put on a show with confidence...like a professional.

KNOW how good you are (even if you have doubts). Visualize who you want to be and then embody that image. I don't mean be fake by any means. But obviously if you want to stop "sounding like a little girl" you are going to need to change something. A successful and beneficial change begins with the confidence that you can make that change.

My point is this. If you are going to use phrases like "sweet rhymes" (in the way I imagine you saying it) and then expect it to sound hard on the mic...it's not going to happen. That's because you've grown acustomed to behaving completely different than what you are envisioning in your head. In your head you're envisioning other rappers voices using your lyrics...at least to some degree, do you agree? A lot of people sound tight that way...but can't pull it together on a track. That's because you should first be confident in your own ability to perform. Rap is not like an open-mic night poem where the words carry most of the meaning...it's a performance and your flow is akin to an actors ability to act. The lyrics are like the script. Both are vital. In a sense you should master rhyming before you master writing rhymes. As long as you recognize the areas you need to improve upon, though, you're on a great start.

Also, make sure when you rap, you rap loud, some people don't realize that and rap low into the mic. That is a tell tale sign of an amateur.

Practice your favorite male and female MC's rhymes in your own voice. If there's something about your voice or flow you don't like (for example you sound like a child), change it up and do the complete opposite (right in the middle of your rhyme..don't stop) and if that is too much in the opposite direction, pull back and find a middle ground until you're happy. Practice perhaps changing the pitch of your voice up or down a notch just to see how it sounds, speed it up a little and add your own words in, slow it down and cut out some words, sing and then go back to rapping, play around with this for a while and don't be embarrased. The goal is to be comfortable flowing to a rhythm. Even if you're not saying anything that makes sense, take some intstrumentals with you on a car ride, find the beat, and just freestyle like, "dadada doh, move back the bottles of Mo'/ blah dada blow, who's got the mind of a foe"

... it doesn't matter what you say, the idea is just to be comfortable with maneuvering your flow over an instrumental at the drop of a dime. This is not the time for you to worry about coming up with dope lines. You should be able to find the beat within a few seconds of hearing a record and then just use your words and flow as an intstrument over it. Anothing thing to notice when you're flowing is the emphasis' you use, if it's way off base or worse, you don't use any, then it's going to hamper your delivery and you'll sound more like you're talking rhymes and not rapping them.

If you already have decent rhymes then you are ahead of many people who visit the site. However, delivery is just as tough (and more important in terms of handing in a final product) and lots of people don't see that.

Another thing, if you sound like a little girl when you talk, then you're going to sound that way when you rap. Don't fake an accent necessarily but embrace different dialects if you have to...for some people it's easy to rap in different styles and still sound natural. (see Aries Spears impression of Snoop, DMX, etc. in our Videos Section) For others its nearly impossible. Usually, if this is hard for you, you might have to work on your rhythm. If you don't really FEEL a beat's rhythm and get in tune with it as the hungry artist that you should be...then you'll tend to resort to rhyming in the manner you talk...and in your case, you don't want that.

It's cute that you admit to talking like a little girl, but there's no need for you to rhyme that way. Your flow has little to do with your voice for the most part so believe that you can sound like a girl and still flow sick.

But finally, confidence is the biggest thing. People can feel it through the speakers. Trust that you have the ability to sound amazing on the mic and your delivery will improve immediately. Lastly, make sure you're having fun and never take it too seriously.