How Do You Rap Fast? (10 Simple Hints And Tricks)
Juan Stansbury
Two of the most awe-inspiring facets of rap are the originality and creativity that it takes to craft your own lyrics, and the sheer verbal gymnastics that you need to do to rap fast.
However, as with most other skills and artistic endeavors, there are plenty of tips and techniques that you can learn to help you rap faster.
Indeed, if you want to learn how to rap fast, from scratch, then you’ve found the right place.
In this comprehensive review, I’ll teach you some simple techniques and inspiring exercises that you can use to vastly improve your rapping speed.
Most of these techniques work whether you want to write your own bars, or just recite some lines from another artist.
Either way, once you’ve perfected the verbal slalom that is rap, you can be sure that it will boost your confidence and attract some admirers as well!
Table of Contents
Learn To Count Bars
Video: “How To Count and Write 16 Bars in Rap”
Although it might not be obvious at first, most rap songs have a relatively formal structure hidden just below the surface.
As a novice, you should dedicate some time to learning how good rap flows are structured.
These means learning some new terminology like bars and stress and focusing on how these concepts are applied by some of the legends of the trade.
One of the most important steps to learning how to rap fast is learning how to count bars.
You need to have an internal rhythm in your head that helps you direct your focus to the stressed and unstressed syllables in the sentence.
If all this seems a bit much when you start, don’t worry.
It can be daunting at first to learn how to count bars, but when you do you will see how it helps you to develop a strong flow and immediately get your word count up.
Plus, as an added benefit, learning about the underlying structure of raps can help you immensely if you go to write your own raps in the future.
It really is a no-brainer to learn how to use this skill.
Tongue-Twisters Are Your Friend
Good rap is supposed to flow off your tongue, and tongue twisters are infamously hard to recite quickly, so this might sound like an odd piece of advice.
But in reality, you should embrace good old-fashioned tongue twisters.
They have so many repeated sounds and convoluted tongue convulsions that we all have difficulty saying them.
But if you practice very hard reciting tongue twisters, then you will find most raps to be a piece of cake by comparison.
By training with these gritty morsels of language, the succulent roast that is good rap will simply roll off your tongue.
There are lots of good tongue twisters to choose from. Make sure you practice with a range of options that allow you to exercise every kind of sound, from slender repeated consonants to broad vowels.
Some good tongue twisters to start with would be: Sally sells sea-shells on the sea shore’ and how much wood could a wood-chuck chuck if a wood-chuck could chuck wood?
Practice Simple Exercises
There are lots of simple exercises that you can do to try and train your mouth and brain to recite raps faster.
This is a combination of brain training and actual muscle training, because the tongue is an important physical instrument that you need to perfect.
You should do an internet search to find these kinds of exercises or talk to an experienced rapper to see what kind of drills they would recommend.
One of the most convenient exercises to immediately help you build spoken speed is this:
Simply insert a short word between the letters of a sentence and try and recite it as fast as you.
Short words like a’ or wow’ are ideal for this, and the great thing is that it works with just about any sentence.
For example, take the sentence. I am going to Nice on my holidays. Now insert a’ as shown: I a am going a to a Nice a on a my a holidays.
Immediately this lends it some rhythm and elegance, allowing it to be more easily pronounced quickly. Now practice this over and over again to build up you pace.
The great thing about simple exercises like this is that you can practice them anywhere and at any time.
Unlike learning an instrument, you don’t need any dedicated equipment or practice space. So, get in the habit of practicing these exercises anytime you are idle throughout the day.
Adjust The Playback Speed
Video: “Learn Eminem’s Fastest Verse In ‘Godzilla’ (Slowed Down + Scrolling Lyrics) “
Everyone loves to learn rap by reciting some classics bars from their favorite artist.
This is a perfectly valid way to improve your skill, you don’t need to write your own music just to learn how to rap fast!
Most people will use YouTube or some other streaming service to listen to these beloved songs.
Perfecting the faster parts of these raps, with all their hidden emphasis and nuance, can be very challenging at first.
This is where the playback speed options come in handy.
You can use these settings (available with most streaming services) to reduce the speed to a percentage of the normal playback speed.
Start by reducing it to 50%, then perfect your recitation at that speed.
When you have that down and are comfortable, you can increase the speed in steady increments and repeat the promise.
Eventually you will be able to rap along as well as the original artist.
To really improve your skills, and for a super hard challenge, you can even increase the speed to 120% or more of the original.
These will really help you develop those tongue churning muscles.
Rewrite Some Famous Lines
If you really love a certain song, but you want to add your own original elements and improve your rapping speed at the same time, then one of the best drills you can practice is to rewrite some famous flows in your own style.
This means keeping the basic themes and structure the same but adjusting the references or lyrics to be more relatable to you.
By adjusting the internal stresses and rhymes you can also adjust the difficulty of the rhyme.
If you are just starting your journey, consider changing the flow to be slightly easier to spit out fast.
For example, you can add alliteration or remove parts where you stumble.
This is a great exercise to help you build confidence and artistic elements, within a structured environment.
Not only will it improve your rapping speed, but it will also help you develop your overall rap voice.
Record Yourself
Video: “Quick Tip: Sound Better Recorded”
This can be one of the most daunting things for a novice rapper to do. Inevitably you will hate the way you sound at first, but all the famous rappers did as well, so don’t be disheartened.
Pick your favorite track and make a rough recording of yourself.
When you listen back, don’t worry about the authenticity of your voice and emphasis placement at first, you can develop those skills later.
If you are simply trying to learn how to rap fast, then you need to concentrate on what parts of the rap you are finding difficult.
Listen out for parts where you slow down, stumble over words, or lose pace with the original recording. Then, look for patterns in all your missteps.
This way you can try and identify common trends and see exactly what words, syllables or sounds you find difficult.
Maybe you stumble over 3 syllable words or find broad vowel sounds hard. Once you identify your weakness, you can practice exercises that target these sounds.
But you can only do this if you record yourself in the first place and listen intently to yourself rapping.
Shorten Certain Words
This is one sure-fire way to speed up your rapping style.
Certain commonly used words in the English language can do a great job at tripping you up and slowing you down.
One of the major culprits for this is the simple word the’. To get an immediate increase in your all-important words per minute rate, you can replace the word the’ by da’.
This is far easier to say and simply rolls off the tongue. There are a few other easy wins here too. For instance, you can shorten the word this’ to dis’.
In general, shortening unimportant words can save your precious seconds in the longer run, without changing the fluidity or overall meaning of your bars.
Try replacing all your th’ sounds by d’ sounds and see what an immediate positive impact this can have.
Slang is nothing to be afraid of in the world of rap, so embrace the possibilities.
Improve Your Posture
Often, people don’t realize the impact that simple physical changes can have on their rapping ability.
You need to remember that your tongue is a muscle, and your ability to spit bars is intricately linked to your physical condition.
Breathing is the central link that lies beneath your rapping ability. If you have good lung capacity and control of your breathing, then you will find it far easier to spit rhymes faster, and for longer.
One simple change you could make is to improve your posture.
By sitting upright in your chair you can improve the strength of your diaphragm, which is the muscle that controls your breathing.
Poor posture has the opposite effect.
Do Breathing Exercises
Video: “Professional Vocal Workout – Part 1 “Advanced Breathing Technique””
In a similar trend, this is another simple physical change that will improve your lung capacity and help you learn how to rap fast.
Breathing is the key to being a competent and talented rapper.
If you have poor control of your breathing, strained or low lung capacity, then you will probably not have the power for sustained fast rapping.
Luckily, this is one area where you can improve by making simple changes.
Incorporating more regular exercise into your daily routing can help to build lung capacity.
Also, you should spend some time each day focus on controlled, heavy breathing, and learning how to swap between deep breathing and shallow breathing.
You need air to push out sick lyrics, so concentrating on your breathing will pay dividends down the line.
Chew gum
This might seem like one of the strangest pieces of advice in this article, but it is also one of the best.
Most people realize that your tongue is a muscle, and just like your quads or your biceps, you need to train it to build strength.
By chewing gum you are actually giving your tongue an incredible workout, which builds it into a powerful verbalizing tool.
Conclusion
So, how do you rap fast?
Learning how to rap fast can be a lifetime goal for some people, but by taking advantage of the many tips and tricks detailed on this page you can quickly improve the speed of your rapping.
The techniques illustrated here are equally applicable whether you want to write your own original bars or you just want to recite the latest Eminem track for your friends.
Either way, if you perfect this art you are bound to impress people.
It is important to practice the verbal and mental exercises described here regularly, and with a focused mindset.
This will help build muscle memory in your tongue, just as if you were playing a sport.
Don’t forget about the physical exercises as well, because learning to control your breathing is a key step to becoming a fast and competent rapper,
