Sep 06

How To Be A Better Rapper

By Farra | Artist Development | No Comments

How To Be A Better Rapper

Once you have found your passion for becoming a rapper, it soon becomes an addiction. You can no longer look at words and lyrics the same way, you begin to dissect the rhythm they are delivered, and the meaning behind each line. This guide is to give you ideas on how to become a better rapper, so lets jump right in and get going.

Learn New Vocab

Many of the greatest rappers have a very wide vocabulary and a good understanding of words in the language they are rapping in. Not only learning new words, but also learn multiple meanings for the same word, and begin to introduce this in your writing process. Many of the greats such as Eminem have been known to study both the dictionary and thesaurus’s to expand on their vocabulary. The more that you know, the more that you can write about, and the more impressive you rapping will be to the listeners.

Freestyling

Freestyling is one of the most essential skills a rapper can have, and I will tell you why. As soon as you hear a beat, you can instantly come up with an idea that works rhythmically, and lyrically to some extent. Having the ability to freestyle off head can make you a valuable asset to anyone, and also a much better rapper. This will also speed up your songwriting process drastically, which will make you become much more efficient with the time that you have. Pair this step with the first, and you will be an idea generating machine!

Practice In Front Of People

What good is being able to rap if you can’t rap in front of anyone ? This is a major step you have to overcome if your looking to build a career as a rapper. This will also help you to build your confidence., but start small. Once you can rap in front of 1 or 2 people, try 3-5 people next. If you are comfortable with this, then expand and push yourself further.

Soon you will be comfortable with a crowd, which will make a much better rapper in a live performance. Even promote your ability online and get back on social media. Here’s a guide which will help you develop your Instagram presence.

Also, This will help you be more confident when it comes to recording your tracks, as you will be used to people hearing you rap. Performing in front of people will help you develop your delivery skills, which is an essential attribute that all the greatest rappers share. This is probably the make or break step in this how to be a better rapper guide. You can see our guide on how to obtain free beats to practice your skills over.

Learn To Sing

Learning to sing may raise a few eyebrows to some rappers, but hear me out, it can help your rapping ability majorly. No one is saying become the next R-Kelly or D’angelo, but by learning the basics you will be able to incorporate melody into your raps, which takes you to the next level. People love melodies. Melodies + strong flows is the perfect formula when accompanied with great lyrics.

Conclusion

Follow these steps and take action, and you will notice a massive difference in your rapping ability I promise. It may not come overnight, or in a week. But over time you will grow and develop, and more people will become fans of the musical artwork that you create. Like anything, you get out what you put in, so be sure to take that in consideration when you feel unmotivated.

I hope this how to become a better rapper guide has been useful for you guys!

Thank you for reading. Take action.

Check out our beat catalogue here and find the best beats suited to your needs.

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Sep 02

How To Find Free Beats To Rap Over

By Farra | Artist Development | No Comments

Free Beats To Rap Over

When you are starting out, most would deem it acceptable and also fair to find free beats to rap over. As your music career develops and you become serious, using free beats will limit your success. So for those aspiring rappers who are just getting into the game, this article will be most relevant for you. With that being said, lets look at ways how you can find free beats to rap over

SoundCloud

On sound cloud, there are thousands of free beats available for rappers to use. You can go to the website and type into the search bar exactly what you are looking for, and you can bet you will get results. Search terms such as “free trap beat” or “free drake type beat” can really help you find the sound you are looking for. Put your own twist on the searches with are most suited to you and your musical vision.

YouTube

Again, very similar to Soundcloud, YouTube has a massive variety of beats online which can be downloaded for free. However, a lot of beats on YouTube specifically state that free beats for non-profit use only, so be sure to respect the producers policies. TIP a great thing about YouTube is you can adjust your searches so you can find playlists of content. For example, if you type “free beats” into YouTube and on the search options you select playlists, YouTube will list all the playlists which contain free beats. This can help save a lot of time!

FarraTheProducer

On our beat store, there is an option to download our tagged beats for free. This is so artists can take away any beat on our store and write lyrics too. We feel as if this is a very flexible approach for artists, as they can write to the beat anywhere and anytime inspiration strikes. Artists can then do demo recordings using these beats, and have the option to lease beats after. But all tagged beats are totally free to use, so get downloading our free beats to rap over!

SoundClick

Soundclick is also another place where you are able to find free beats to rap over. Although Soundclick mainly consists of premium beats, producers often upload free beats to boost their brand awareness, so these beats are available for you use. Soundclick works off a chart system, so finding free beats may be a long process.

Airbit

Airbit is another online marketplace which has a free beat section. You can simply look in their free beat section and find beats from 1000’s of producers. Airbit has a very organised system, of which you can search beats by their mood also. This can really help you find an ideal beat to rap to which can convey the emotion that you are attempting to portray.

Pros of using these free beats

1) Good to practice too
2) Can inspire you to write new material
3) Can help you find producers to work with long term
4) Your taking action
5) No investment required

Cons of using these free beats

1) Can’t monetise
2) Lots of other people are practising with these beats
3) Lots of people have released tracks with these beats
4) The beats have no exclusivity
5) The beats may contain many producer tags
6) Aren’t always a producers best piece of work

Conclusion

For artists who are just beginning, using free beats is a great step in the direction of becoming an active artist. Free beats can also be a major resource which contributes to the progression of your songwriting ability also. However, for more serious artists who are looking to make money from their music, using free beats isn’t the way to go. Serious artists need quality beats which have a certain level of exclusivity at least, and preferably purchasing exclusive rights would be the most professional way to go. The key really is to start with free beats and when your ready, progress onto purchasing beats when your ready to take your career serious from a business perspective.

Thank you guys, I hope this article helps in regards to finding free beats to rap over, and also the pros and cons of these beats!

Check our guide on how to find the best underground hip hop beats

Sep 01

Finding The Best Underground Hip Hop Beats

By Farra | Artist Development | No Comments

Underground Hip Hop Beats

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As times change, new styles of music emerge. As we know, trap beats are the “in thing” right now, and everybody and their pet goldfish are using them. But this article I want to talk about finding the best underground hip hop beats, and how you can stand out using these beats. So lets get into it!

Don’t Use YouTube

YouTube is a brilliant supply for beats but lets be real, everyone searches for their beats on YouTube. This will result in you potentially using beats that 100s of rappers have used previously and people will categorise you as being a part of that culture.

Your better off finding a producer who you can either buy or receive beats from that you know hasn’t leaked the beat. TIP – You can find many underground hip hop producers by searching hashtags like #undergroundhiphop #boombapbeat #hiphopproducer into Instagram. This brings us to the next paragraph

InstaGram

Instagram is a brilliant resource for anything, and you can find so much talent and quality just by searching hashtags. In fact, this is how a lot of people find me online!

You can easily connect with producers on Instagram by simply interacting with their content, and sending them a direct message. This is a brilliant place to start building relationships with producers and get beats at very affordable rates. There are so many hip hop producers on Instagram that don’t get heard, it is really worth checking out.

Soundcloud

Although Soundcloud is a known platform, you would be surprised how many underground hip hop beats that haven’t been touched are on there! Sometimes it requires a bit of time and effort to go through a load of beats, but the key is to ignore the popular beats. Look for beats which hasn’t had much plays, these are the secret gems that you want to be checking out. Very few people if that will have these beats.

This Website

Although you see many trap and smooth beats on this website, there are also plenty of underground hip hop beats which are available at a VERY cheap price here. We try out best to keep a good variation of beats here to help everyone succeed. I will embed the beat player so you can check what underground hip hop beats we have available to use.

How To Stand Out Using Underground Hip Hop Beats

Using these beats alone should help you stand out from the crowd and give the real hip hop fans something to get excited about. But what will make you stand out is how you approach these beats. You need to perfect a style, whether it be comedy, politics, love, it can be anything. Become a master at writing lyrics which reflect your intelligence, and people will respect that.

Hip hop is about telling a story from a poetic perspective. Poetry consists of wordplay, puns, rhyme, syllables, timing and delivery. These are the skills you should adopt if you want to stand out and become an iconic figure in the underground hip hop world. J Cole is a brilliant example which aspiring rappers should study.

Conclusion

There are many sources for underground hip hop beats, but you have to actively search for them. Although trap music is dominant right and doesn’t look like its departing anytime soon, good hip hop will always live on. After all, there is only a certain amount of mumble rap one can withstand 😉

Hope you guys enjoyed the article!

Check Out this Guide About Instagram Promo For Rappers

Aug 15

How To Use Instagram To Promote Your Music As A Rapper For Free

By Farra | Music Promotion | No Comments

How To Use Instagram To Promote Your Music As A Rapper For Free

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Instagram is one of the best platforms to promote yourself as an artist. Many people already know this. So lets get to the question, how to use Instagram to promote your music as a rapper for free? Instagram firstly is a social media platform, so being social and active is in fact the most important step to achieving success. So lets shed some light on what you can do to promote your music on Instagram as a rapper, and how you can take action right away! Be sure to check the common mistakes that artists make guide here and compile this information into your plan!

Follow People

Following people is the foundation of Instagram. You may be asking your why, but the aim here is to get people to follow you back, so they see your posts every time that you post new content on to your profile. So what can you do right now? Set your self a goal, and that goal is simply to follow up to 200 people per a day. Spread this activity out over the day, do say 15-30 follows per an hour so that you keep under Instagram’s follow limits. Lets say 25% of people follow you back, that would be 50 new people a day following your music profile! That’s a great foundation to building your Instagram presence. Once you have followed around 1,000 people, start unfollowing those who haven’t followed you back, since these people are taking up valuable space which we can use to generate more follow backs.

Being Social

This is kind of straight forward, but people seem to forget this. I have rappers daily reach out and enquire about beats due to my social activity towards their content. Simply liking and commenting on peoples photos and videos will help drive your engagement rate on your posts higher. This will attract more attention, and more potentially loyal fans to your page. The key is to get them to engage with your content and give them the opportunity to become a fan. So make the first move and show some love, communicate with them, and respond to all DM’s from genuine people. People love being answered, and will be grateful that you took the time to respond to them. This builds a relationship, and these people will be genuine supporters of your music!

Hashtags

Yes yes you have probably heard this before, but 95% of rappers I see on Instagram post hashtags that has absolutely nothing to do with their content. Irrelevant hashtags are about as useful as a car with no seats and wheels. Here are a list of hashtags which you can use to promote your posts and make yourself discover-able in Instagram.

#newartist #rapper #newrapper #upcomingrapper #hiphopartist #traprapper #newmixtape #upcomingartist #freestylerap #soulfulrap #smoothrap #undergroundartist #undergroundrap #unsignedartist #unsignedrapper #hiphopmusic #newschool #newsingle #hotrapper #femalerapper #femaleartist #singer #freestyleartist #hiphopculture #rapartist

Use which ever is suited to you best, these hashtags are targeted and relevant to you as an artist, and of course feel free to add more that you think of.

Recap

Instagram is a pretty straight forward platform to get to grips with, and it really is a numbers game. The more followers that you have, the better it looks, and the bigger your reach is. So following people is essential to get the ball rolling, and being socially active will help you reach out with new potential fans and in return increase engagement rate. Ensuring that your hashtags are relevant, people will be able to discover your music via your posts, which can result in even more followers on your page. If you imagine 6 months down the line, you will have a pretty strong Instagram fan base who are familiar with you and will love to check out your music. Do this correctly and you will easily jump ahead of 95% of the competition, believe me, 95% of rappers aren’t getting this right. Check my Instagram account and you will see the results of these activities. Here’s a guide to make money as artist using these tips

Please share this article if you found it useful, as somebody else may need this information also!

Here you can find beats for sale.

Thank you, and take action!!!

Jul 01

How To Make Money As An Upcoming Rapper

By Farra | Music Promotion | No Comments

How To Make Money As An Upcoming Rapper

Artists of the stature of Drake, Future, Young Thug etc. are absolutely raking in the cash. But of course, these guys had to start somewhere and think of creative ways to get paid, and use conventional methods. Not many people are aware of how to make money as an upcoming rapper, and in all honesty, its a pretty tough task to accomplish. So lets talk about some ideas to make money and to set foundations for much bigger things.

Royalties And Adsense

I covered this topic in my previous article here, but lets break this down a little more. Once you have set up your YouTube account, click on the “channel” tab on the sidebar in your creator studio and enable your YouTube for monetisation. Follow the instructions provided and in no time you will be an official partner with YouTube. You will be able to track your daily earnings in Adsense. Many statistics such as amount of page views and clicks will presented in your personal Adsense account and you can monitor your growth. So where does the money come from you may ask? Quite simple. The money comes from the adverts that YouTube play before and during your videos. However, there is no set amount you will get paid for each view or click, it can vary depending on the amount that the advertiser has bid YouTube for these actions. Some adverts pay higher than others, but its worth noting that YouTube does award active channels, so the better your activity, the more likely that you will host higher paying adverts. You can find beats here which grant you the rights to monetise and make profit from.

Royalties are similar yet different. With royalties, you receive payments each quarter of the year, and works two quarters behind. For example, you will be paid your 1^st quarterly pay in the 3^rd quarter of the year. This is because the royalty collection societies have to collect data from worldwide and calculate the amounts each artist is entitled to receiving. You are entitled to receiving royalties if you work is publicly broadcasted. For example, if your music is played on public and legitimate radio stations, it will be logged and the royalty collection society will be informed, so you will be entitled to pay. The amount you get paid depends on a multiple factors, such as :

How big the radio station is

How many people were listening at the time

How long your work was played for

Territory where your work has been played

So as you can see, its quite a complex funnel. However if you are fortunate enough to break into mainstream national radio and get frequently played, you can expect VERY BIG pay-cheques. Check this link out to see how much the BBC radio stations in the UK pay approximately per play. Not bad, eh?

Merchandising and Sponsorship

Merchandising is where most major artists actually make their money, and they use their music as a promotional tool to promote their merchandise. A good example would be 50 cent’s success with his Effen Vodka brand. You can sell anything from clothing, alcoholic drinks, jewellery, mobile phones, anything that you can think of. The key is to create a product which your target audience will find appealing alongside your music. If you are a deep conscious rapper, you could sell clothing with your most intelligent personal quotes which people can relate to. One major thing to remember is that people invest in being able to express themselves. Stop and think about it, and create your own judgement of what I just said, and you will make your own understanding of human nature,and be able to cater to their needs, without them even knowing! Remember, your not only an upcoming rapper, your also a marketer and your running a personal business. This is how to make money as an upcoming rapper the proper way. Think bigger than just music.

As creative artists, it is in our best interest to collaborate with other creative individuals from other areas of business. By doing so, you can gain sponsorships and endorsements which can really benefit your progression as an upcoming rapper. Lets look at a very well known example, DJ Khaled promotes Diddy’s Ciroc brand, and gives Ciroc a much larger marketing reach and stronger branding. No doubt, Khaled is earning great money for this. On a smaller scale, an upcoming artist can work with other upcoming businesses and promote brands in return for endorsements. The options available are endless. The key is to be creative see potential opportunity has it arises.

(Idea) Running Your Own Events

In this section, we will talk about a potential idea which answers how to make money as an upcoming rapper. As an artist, your product can be used to promote just about anything and everything. As we know, everybody love a good excuse to get out for a night, have a drink with friends and to generally have a good time. This is an opportunity which you can capitalise on. By putting on your own event, you will be able to perform on your own show, bring in other artists and also DJ’s who are looking to break into the scene. This game is all about about networking, and by bringing people together, you never know who you may meet at your events. Back to making money, there are normally two options. You can charge an entry fee on the door, or have an agreement to take % on drink sales with the venue that’s hosting the show. By bringing other artists onto your show, you will also be reaching out to their fans, as they will more than likely bring a small crowd to the event to support them. Lets do some basic maths. If you could bring 10 rappers onto your show, each of them brought 10 fans with them and the entry fee was $5, that is $500 of income on the door. This is just an example of something you can do to make money with your music and other peoples.

Recap

Hopefully this article has opened up your mind to seeing past music sales, and as you probably noticed, I purposely left out music sales. As an upcoming artist, being just a rapper ISN’T enough to make the cut. You have to be an entrepreneur also. Having multiple income streams such as streaming, Adsense, merchandise sales, selling verses, live performances, you can make a living off your dreams and passion. The best thing is that you can start right away! Begin to make notes of potential brands and merchandise which you could promote using music and lyrical content. Also, reach out to upcoming companies and attempt strike a sponsorship deal with them. Just by taking these steps, more doors will open up for you. Use this guide here to look at how you can use Instagram to promote

Hopefully This article has shed light on how to make money as an upcoming rapper. Please share so that others can reap the benefit of this information.

Thank you, and be sure to act upon the information, this really does work!

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