Elevation Centre: PUNCHLINES/WORDPLAY TUTORIAL

This is a PUNCHLINE/WORDPLAY tutorial. Since most people have trouble with it, A Punchline is called a Punchline because it has "PUNs" aka Wordplay. And yes, even the best struggle with wordplay. Look at Eminem as a famous example! He can have some majorly corny lines sometimes! Everyone is liable to mess up wordplay from time to time so I think this tutorial will be valuable for newbies and veterans alike, just to brush up even if things are out of touch at any time... Without Wordplay aka double meaning concepts, it is not a Punchline. This is a tutorial written by my dude ANSWER back in 2009 on a group which I won't name to be fair. It's been pasted on another group which I run because the dude doesn't mind it being shared around. He's got his credit for an amazing tutorial and this is spreading the message he obviously wanted out there.

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The most important aspect of this league is to give people an outlet to improve on their writing and be effective battlers. The most important thing I can say is this: If you already think you're as good as you'll ever be, you'll never be better than you are.

In other words, EVERYONE has room for improvement, and you should never stop TRYING to improve.

Punchlines:-

I'm going to start this guide with what I feel is the hardest, yet most important aspect of battling to master - punchlines. I will be adding more about multis, flow, personals, and even the psychology of battling in the future - but punches are ultimately the deciding factor in battles.

Wordplay is another one of those terms that people on rap forums seem to get misconstrued.

Wordplay is about finding a word or phrase that is open to interpretation. EVERY punchline involves ambiguity. Even comedians who tell one-liners use wordplay for their jokes. What most people don't realize is that rap battling and stand up are very much alike - SO MUCH that they can be interchangeable.

For example: One of my favorite comedians, Jimmy Carr once insulted a heckler in his audience with the joke "You're gay, right? Come on. You're so far in the closet you're having adventures in Narnia"

This line is a great example of a comedic joke that could be used in a rap battle, and be VERY effective.

Notice though, there is AMBIGUITY, meaning that there is more than ONE meaning to the phrase.

1. In the closet: (Proverbial meaning) Gay people are said to be "in the closet". People who announce that they're gay are said to be 'coming out of the closet'

2. In the closet: (Veritable meaning) This actually IS talking about a LITERAL closet.

Jimmy Carr could've just as easily said something like "You're so far in the closet, you're knocking over hangers"

and the CONCEPT would've been exactly the same as before.

A good concept is fresh - slightly, but *not OVERLY* complex - but mainly something people haven't used before

Which brings us to the second part of our tutorial, which is EXECUTION.

A concept is just an idea. Some battlers just look around at their environment for their inspiration. For example, I was once in my bathroom and happened to see a stick of deodorant and it said "Right Guard". I immediately looked at that and saw ambiguity - because a Right Guard is actually a position on the offensive line in football.

At that point I had a CONCEPT and nothing more.

The line I ended up using was:-

"Your raps stink, Right Guard ain't gone help you, it's over.
You need a left, right guard, AND a Center to block the Odor"

However, this is a great example of a good concept being poorly worded. A small part of being a text battler is just about having a certain level of intuition of what is and isn't an effective way to word your punches. This is the one thing that can't really be taught, and just comes from reading a lot of good battles and learning how to recognize what other people are doing - but what I will say, is always try to be as directly insulting to your opponent as possible.

A great way to find concepts is to think of idioms, or common phrases that people typically use. E.g. "Lighten Up" which could be misinterpreted as "Lose weight" or "Bought the farm" which could be misinterpreted as literally 'buying a farm'. There are tons of these.

Another great way is just trying to combine words at random. I personally like to look around at signs when driving, use closed captioning while watching t.v., and keep an eye out when reading things online. Basically, I'm always looking for words to manipulate.

When most people think of wordplay on rap forums, they tend to think of combining words, usually to create a homophone. There are two ways to go terribly wrong with this approach. The first way to go wrong, is plain and simply, to try and force things that sound NOTHING alike, to sound similar.

For example, there was a battle where someone tried to use the wordplay
Took yo
and Tokyo

Unless you have some weird asian accent, this is a stretch. Keep in mind, that it's not "Toke-yo" which STILL would've been a stretch from "Took" because "Toke" and "Took" are NOT homophones - but also that Tokyo is a 3 syllable word: Toh-Kee-Yo. You can't just cut out syllables and change the way words naturally sound in order to get it to sound alike.

However, the biggest downfall people tend to have when using overly complex wording, especially the ones who have figured out how to make good homophones but still aren't quite at the top level - is that they completely fail to create the ambiguity that's needed to have an effective punchline in the first place

I could kill you with straight filler, you fake thriller......sign your grave - Cause even on the day that 'Gor-Illa'....he'd still be behind a Cage'!!!// - Cage Cannibal vs Gori

Firstly, Cage is playing off of his opponent's name by shortening it. That's pretty common. If he called his opponent "Go", then that'd definitely be forced - but "Gor" is somewhat acceptable as a nickname

Secondly, he's combining the words Gor & Iller in order to make the homophone Gorilla.

Iller and Illa is a slight stretch, but in rap, it's not that far of a stretch to drop the "er" for an "a". It happens pretty often, such as instead of saying "Killer" you might say "Killa"

So far, Cage hasn't really done anything wrong. I'm not saying it's perfect, but as far as pronunciation is concerned in the concept - everything is passable.

However, Cage makes the one mistake that I see ALL the time, and is the one thing that keeps Tier 2 guys from becoming Tier 1 guys: He screwed up the ambiguity with his execution

Look at these sentences:

1. "Even on the day that Gor Iller, he'd still be behind a cage"

2. "Even on the day that Gorilla, he'd still be behind a cage"

Sentence One: In order for this to be gramatically correct, he would either need to use the phrase "Gor is Iller" or at the very LEAST, use a contraction: Gor's-Iller.

Sentence Two: Just looking at this sentence, you can tell it doesn't make sense. Primarily because there's no verb whatsoever.

The one thing most people tend to do is ONLY pay attention to sentence one in this context and completely forget that there is ALWAYS a second sentence when using wordplay.

GOOD WORDPLAY RETAINS THE AMBIGUITY OF THE SENTENCE

Meaning that EVEN IF YOU USE multisyllabic homophones, you CANNOT compromise the equivocality of your lines.

Here is a GREAT example of complex wordplay from Logic_4Dub in a Tag Team battle with his partner, Phobia on [group name removed] in 2004.

"I'll never break - me n' phob got more 'Answers for Sick Lines' - than calls that Medics Take
for heavens sake -.. these dudes are Phoney BelowKnees..... like 'Prosthetic Legs"

He had a solid punch in his set-up, especially for his time period - but I want to focus on his closing punch. There are 2 interpretations of this line:

1. These dudes are phoney baloneys

2. These dudes are Phoney Below Knees

Grammatically speaking, it would be correct to say "Phoney below THEIR knees" but it wouldn't be abnormal in any way to omit the 'their'. This is passable ambiguity. The first interpretation is an idiom, and the second interpretation is a literal statement, and everything is executed seamlessly.

Here's another example of wordplay failing on one side but not the other:

Your heart, as well as your rapping-is-soft! So to say Nus is "Uppa' tear(tier)" just means there's been more bitching after-a-loss!/ - Tony [surname removed] vs NuSense in 2007

1. "To say Nus is Upper tier just means..."

2. "To say Nus is up a tear just means..."

To say someone is upper tier is grammatically correct, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with sentence one. However, notice that in sentence two, it falls apart. He's up a tear? Tier and Tear are definitely homophones, but you can't just ignore the rest of the phrase. I've never seen someone crying and said "Hey, it looks like you're up a tear".

However, there IS a common idiom "Tearing Up", which could've just as easily been used in this context, and the phrase "Tiering Up" wouldn't have been quite as far of a stretch.

here's one last example of wordplay being executed PROPERLY:-

"Fuck a rematch! He'll always be the hardest-of-losers! If "News(NuS) gets a round on me", someone's sparkin'-a-rumor!/" - Tony [surname removed] vs NuSense in 2007

1. If News gets around on me

2. If NuS gets a round on me

Notice that in this example, both sentences make grammatical sense. NuS, being an abbreviated version of NuSense's name is a homophone for News - whereas "gets around on me" is referring to a common idiom "News gets around" versus IT'S homophone "Gets a round on me" which makes sense in the context of saying NuS would get a win on Tony.

So take your time to write your bars effectively, and go read some battles to see what is and isn't effective. At the end of the day, the main key to elevating is consistently reading and consistently writing. You can't just do one or the other and expect to succeed.

As a final note, all 3 of these last punchlines are from Great writers, Tony [surname removed], for example, being the present Heavyweight Champion at the moment [at the time this was typed]- and these were cited as great lines by the voters. So do keep in mind that everyone does this from time to time, and it can be acceptable to break the rules. The goal here isn't for me to tell you what to do and what not to do when writing a punchline, but rather to make you aware of an aspect to writing that you may not have noticed before.

Edit: Edited to remove the surnames of people and other group names as to not give light or advertise them.

Edited by The Rap Daemon - 25 September 2018 at 12:39am

Yeah i 2nd Nigma there,know that your efforts are welcomed and noticed,
fine work my man,fine graph your putting in there to help others...peace.