Rap Tutorials: The Asylum Tutorial

To remain a member of The asylum, your going to have to stay active i the battlefields and stand your ground.  This introductory chapter will teach you how to prepare for an upcoming battle.  The pre-battle rituals that can help you develop strong punchlines.

 

First:

It is a great idea to gather information on your opponent.  When I have a battle, I first look for contradiction my opponent have made.  This can be anything ranging from stating false information to misspelling words.  As you grow as a writer you will learn how to use the simplest misspelling of a word against your opponent but for now stating false information will service considering its easy to work with.

 

How to use false information statements as a punchline?

>Say for example your opponent writes the following...

 

 

if under the giving circumstances your opponent isn't the greatest on the site or even close you can flip his punch against him. Maybe his battle stats are proof that he is far from great.  Or maybe its a well known fact that no one respects him.  In this case, a punch like the following will hit hard...

 

 

Notice how the the first line(the opponents') gives life to your punch.  This is an effective flip.  Beware though, when attempting to flip avoid merely mentioning something your opponent said.  It proves to be a very ineffective flip.  When done correctly, flips can give you the edge you need to win a battle but when ineffective, they can backfire and destroy your verse completely.  I'll cover effective flipping later in the tutorial.

 

When checking for contradictions made by your opponent, try to think of possibly ways to use them.  Look for easy to grasp concepts that aren't to complex to use effectively and are simple enough for your audience to catch on to.

 

Nameplaying is a form of wordplay using the opponents name.  When using nameplays, it is not good enough to be effective.  You must also be very original considering the fact that nameplays are usually the first kind of punch used.  They are very easy to use though.  When preparing to use nameplays, first analyze the name of your opponent.  Really pick it apart.  Try to find other words within it, connections between it and something else, other places it's been used, wordplay opportunities, etc.  Once you've found these things, try to attempt to get a punch and/or wordplay from them.  This intial punch can be very raw/underdeveloped considering you'll revise it once you begin your verse.

 

Example:

Name: Glitch

 

Starting punch: Glitch is a mistake

 

Notice how basic it is.  Not much of a punch right.  Wrong!  Now comes the development of the punch.  In your actually verse, u dont want to just say glitch is a mistake.  You want to make his very own name insult him.  By leaving the original punch basic, you leave alot of directions you can go with it.  In the next example i'll show just one of them.

 

 

Notice how I keep the initial concept of glitch being a mistake while adding another aspect to it with his existence.  Its perfect nameplay because glitch (which is his name) is a mistake and it also make you think about the existence part.  Every part of the line is relevant to the punch which makes it perfect.

 

Chapter 3:  Personals: 

Next I'll talk about a very important aspect of battling; The personal.  The personal is important simple because it's usually the strongest, hardest hitting offensive weapon you have.  First step is to find some personal information about your opponent that can be used to insult them.  For the sake of this tutorial, I'll create the following character

Name-Blitz
Group-Groupie
Age-16
Gender-Female
Location-Canada
Occupation-N/A
Interest-Performing Live

Based on the profile, and the knowledge obtained in the nameplay section, a blitz flip should immediately come to mind (blitz is a football play, also a arcade football game).  However, we are looking for personals.  There are many ways to attack using the info in the profile.  I'll use a sometimes complex method of linking for this tutorial.  Linking is using two personals in one punch

The personals I've chose are age and interest...Based on the age provided, I'm going to assume that this chick isn't old enough to peform live.  Or at least not at any good venues.  The punch could be worked many ways, but this is how I'd do it.

After I'm done with her, Man this bitch'll be fucked...
How the fuck you performing live? You not old enough to get in the club

Personals usually hit regardless of how well they are executed but when a personal is worked well, it can win a battle by its own.  Remember, Practice makes perfect

Chapter 4:  Flips:  (opponent must drop first)

The Flip is my personal favorite method of attacking.  A good flip is always extremely effective.  This is so, because a good flip draws on the weaknesses of an opponent verse to make yours better.  Some writers are beyond flips, because they write near flawless verses, but if your mind is abstract enough, you'll find something to exploit from their verse.  Flips are probably the most fear form of attacking.  Some people go as far as making rules to make them illegal in there battles.

When looking to flip, first be sure the rules allow it.  If the rules allow it, the first thing you want to do to develop the flip is to carefully read your opponents verse.  Look for weak spots, fake personals, and contradictions your opponent made.  Lets look at the following profile

In the mean time, use the above information to start working on punchline development.  The rest of chapter one and the entire book will be posted soon enough...

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