@5 Grand who are your rhyming influences?
Well I grew up in the 80s, so I grew up as Hip Hop itself was growing from Grandmaster Flash>Run DMC>Eric B & Rakim
But as far as my "influences" I try to rap like Biggie, Method Man and Nas
Biggie for his wordplay, some of his cadence is tricky the way certain words rhyme with each other
Method Man because of his punchlines
And Nas because of the way he squeezes so many words into a bar, but also because he touches on religion and the streets equally. I guess Nas's content is closest to my influences
I like to talk about religion and politics, but from talking to girls, I've learned that they like it when you rap about fucking girls. They don't really care for guns, selling drugs and violence, but they like when you talk about sex. If all you rap about is sex, girls will buy it. Ask LL Cool J.
So I try to keep an even balance between religion, politics and sex....and bragging.
But as far as song structure, I don't know if you remember buying mixtapes in the 90s, but back in the 90s mixtape DJs would have "freestyles" where the rapper would just rap for like 40+ bars with no chorus with the DJ yelling over the freestyle. There's a classic mixtape called 95 Live by Doo Wop. The mixtape starts off with 20 minutes of freestyles (rappers rapping over other people's beats with no hook). I've found that I like it when a rapper just keeps on rapping on and on and on. Alot of songs are ruined by corny choruses or lame hooks. For example, if you remember when Canibus dropped his debut album, he could spit but the song structure of the songs on the album were terrible. He'd spit a hot verse and then a wack chorus would come in.
So I have alot of songs where I just rap three 24 bar verses in a row with no chorus.
I try to make my albums like 90s mixtapes; 3 or 4 "freestyles" in a row, and then maybe a song or two with an actual hook, then 3 or 4 more "freestyles". In fact, most albums aren't worth listening to because they have forced hooks. If you eliminate the hook and just spit over the beat then everybody wins.
Also, all of my albums have 22 songs. 22 represents Victory because V is the 22nd letter. But also because I like it when an album keeps on going. I hate it when a good album is over. I want it to just keep on going. So I stay away from skits. I might have a song that's 1 minute long with just one verse, but no skits. I've never heard a skit that I wanted to hear twice.
