Rap Fast Exercises For The Hip Hop Heads
So i’ve been practicing my articulation and working on rapping faster with the ability to go back and forth with flows. Being able to spit fast helps a ton when you want to add some contrast into your music.
Being able to skid into some fast flows when upping the emotion can really get your point across. Similar to how Kendrick does it on Rigamortus.
Either way, I’m a huge nerd so I’ve compiled some of the ways people in the auctioneer community, debate communities and hip hop have used to get their mouth moving faster. And to teach you some good how to rap fast exercises.
1. Rap Fast Exercises With A Pen Technique
Push a pen back in your mouth horizontally as if you are biting down on it because you are trying to get rid of pain.
Make sure it pushes your tongue upwards. Then read something as fast as you can. Start over and read it again.
Keep doing this for 5 minutes everyday and you will enunciate more clearly and be able to rap faster. Don’t worry if your tongue starts to hurt, this just means that it is working.
The tongue is a muscle, and is responsible to for your ability to rap fast and still have people understand you.
2. Reading And Rapping Backwards
This technique will help you get rid of the slurred and blurred speech that comes as a result of trying to rap fast.
It doesn’t sound good if you spit super fast but no-one understands what the hell you’re saying. This rap fast exercises will make you read each and every word.
You will be super slow at first, but over time it will help you to focus on each and every word that is being said. A great technique that debate teams use to speak 350 words per minute.
Try rapping one of your verses backwards. Use the written to look as you go, and make sure to do it A Capella with no beat.
3. Insert the word “wow” or “a” in between every word you read
What this does is trains your mouth to get back to neutral as fast as possible.
For example:
“What a this a does a is a trains a your a mouth a to a get a back a to a neutral a as a fast a as a possible.”
Say it slow at first and then speed it up.
This helps you clearly articulate words and the difference between them instead of just mashing them together.
It’s not appealing to hear rappers rap fast but it all just blurs together. Garbage.
This is one of the toughest of the rap fast exercises, however when you get this down it changes your facial expression every single time you say a word.
As you speed it up you will eventually become more articulate in your speech and your raps will come out much more clearly when you are rapping fast.
4. Breathing technique is key to rap fast
Did you know that using your lower back muscle to breathe will help you generate the most power? Deep breathing is the best possible technique for being able to control your breath when rapping.
Think of a balloon. When you fill it with air and hold the end with your fingers. When you let it go all the air is gone almost right away. But when you slowly start to release the air at a more controlled rate the air will last much much longer.
You can rap faster if you have more air to do so. Pretty common sense but not something that rappers focus on. Like ever. Which is sad.
“Practice by opening your mouth as wide and as much as possible when spitting your verses. This will help it come out much more clear and articulate when you’re rapping fast. “
– Ed
5. Rap Breath control drill
I wrote out all 50 states below and organized them to flow better. Try and spit out all 50 states with one breath. Take a DEEP BREATH and try this 3 times.
If you want to notice the difference in deep breath compared to breathing from your chest. Try breathing normally and doing this. And then try taking a deep diaphragmatic breath and do it. You will get further.
Maine
Georgia
Kansas
New York
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Alaska
Arkansas
Delaware
Florida
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Iowa
Kentucky
Maryland
Michigan
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Ohio
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Indiana
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Mississippi
New Mexico
North Dakota
South Dakota
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
Louisiana
North Carolina
South Carolina
How’d you do? Haha I didn’t finish it the first time. But you better believe I kept trying. Tell me if you finished this how to rap fast exercises in the comments below.
6. Rapping Fast Tips From Twista
In the book “How To Rap 2” Twista gives some of his tips for how to rap fast. Which I Can appreciate because he’s one of the best fast rappers ever. These are some solid tips though for sure.
1. Repeat the same Rap lyrics over and over and over
Finding lyrics that are already fast and practicing them to get faster and faster will give you an idea of how you need to use your mouth to get out the words faster.
The more you practice it, the less effort your mouth will need to use, and the faster you can go.
What happens is you HAVE to cut words short or say them with slang. Articulating is huge still so you have to find a common ground.
Often words with a ‘th’ you can pronounce as ‘t’. Like ‘with’ you pronounce as ‘wit’. Or say the word ‘wanted’ you don’t NEED to pronounce the ‘t’ sound so perfectly.
There are spots like these you slowly pick up over time that will help you get faster without losing the annunciation.
2. Understand Rap bars and structure
Twista says you have to learn how to count bars. Which is so true. This will help you understand where the emphasis of the syllables go.
Whether you’re writing your own or just spitting tech n9ne or eminem, you should know how to count 4 bars on beat. And what the difference is.
Twista says he focuses on 4 bars at a time. This is huge advice because it shows through on 4/4 time signature in hip hop and how 4 beats are in a bar and 4 bars complete an idea.
3. Pick the right beats
There are certain beats that suit fast rap. Generally either really fast beats per minute like 120+ OR really slow at like 60bpm. So if you’re trying to write out a fast rap, you need to make sure the beat will fit with the fast rap style.
4. Record it until it’s perfect
Twista is very open that he is a perfectionist with the recordings and goes through take after take until it’s perfect and exactly what he wants. Don’t be afraid to re-record it if you don’t like it.
Practice and learn at LEAST ONE track from a fast rapper.
7. Which Fast Raps Are The Best To Learn?
Well obviously learning Eminem – Rap God fast part is ideal. In YouTube the videos with the lyrics on the screen are perfect for learning rap god fast part. You can slow down the YouTube audio playback and practice at half speed!
The best trick for this is run through it over and over again, even use the rap fast exercises in this post to work on that one song.
Start with the first 4 bars and get them down. Then move onto the next 4 bars. Start by saying the lines at 50% then run through them a couple times. Then ramp it up to 75% and eventually a hundred.
Tech N9ne – Speedom: https://genius.com/Tech-n9ne-speedom-worldwide-choppers-2-lyrics
Busta Rhymes – Can You Keep Up? https://genius.com/Busta-rhymes-can-you-keep-up-lyrics
Eminem – Rap God: https://genius.com/Eminem-rap-god-lyrics
Twista – Up To Speed: https://genius.com/Twista-up-to-speed-lyrics
Give some of these ones a shot. Start off with the first 4 bars. Say them super slow. Then try implementing some of the techniques I showed you up top and I guarantee you will crush at least one of these out.
This will help you learn how to write a fast rap yourself as well. There is a certain type and style of language you need to incorporate when writing raps fast.
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