Rap Tutorials: Ink's text Battling 101

Welcome ladies & Gentlemen, to Text Battling for Beginners. I will give you my insight on the basics of text battling. To begin, we will examine what a text battle is. A Text Battle, is where two lyricist accept to meet each other in a clash of wit. In a text battle, the object is to diss your opponent with clever puns, double entendres, metaphors, and similes. The basis of text battling, is formed in things known as a bar. A Bar is 2 lines that rhyme together in text, in audio a bar is literally one line. But this is text, so 2 lines that rhyme off the same rhyme scheme = 1 bar. You will agree to battle an opponent to a a set amount of lines/ or bars.

Ur pussy who i can tell is breakin

Ur so poor, u got third world countries celebratin

/\ an example of a bad punchline

U presidential Sweet, this pushover never has bread, dudes iffy..

So if ur ever blowin Bill's D? u got a bigger mouthfool than monica Lewinsky!.

/\ Complex Haymaker also a TRIPLE ENTRENDRE 

the first bar, is your bread & butter. The first line is used to set up the joke in the 2nd line. welfare/section 8 all relate to being poor. A third world country, is the poorest a country can get, so this is a well executed bar. This is what you should aim for and now for the 2nd bar, which is what you would call a Haymaker, the most powerful bar in a battle. This is what you should be your true goal, folks. So there's alot going on in this 2nd bar. this is considered a complexed punchline, it is a triple entendre. This Punchline is laced with wordplay thats formulated into a metaphor. The first line introduces the joke by referencing presidential - sweet/suite and has no money. While the second line is a name flip on a guy name D, where he phrases it as Bill's D. Which can mean Bill clinton's dick or bill's D as in D is paying his own Bills BUT ALSO BLOWING BILLS AS IN MONEY! Mouth-Fool can mean you got a big mouth, fool! like your a fool with a big trap. It can also mean Mouthful like his mouth is full of shit, which the monica lewinski reference ties it all together. This is considered a haymaker, a very hard hitting punch.

So when you're writing bars for a battle. You must use the first line to jab him, by setting up the punchline. The set up is a crucial part, for the potency of the punchline. If used properly like the above bar, it can make a punchline into a haymaker. A haymaker is usually the line that makes the reader say "damn! oh shit". The goal is to have as many as them as possible, but this is not an easy task. Even the most accomplished text battlers have trouble with a consistent through & through haymaker filled verse. Its something to strive for, it takes time to hone the skills to do it. Practice makes perfect, but remember a punchline is what wins the battle. Multies & wordplay alone will not win you the battle, neither will personals. All of those tied into your punchline, will make it deadly. A personal worded into a punchline, is the utmost dangerous type of haymaker. Nothing trumps it, except a better personal haymaker. Wordplay & multies polish the flow as well as the read, for the voters. But multies/wordplay/personals can't beat a well executed haymaker or basic punchline. 

Thats like a boxer just showing off footwork and the ability to slip punches. While the opponent throws all the punches and might miss alot, yes. But he will land and by doing so, he will beat the guy who is all about flash and style rather than you the guy who is about substance and attacking. Just remember to set up & punch. Once you got that down then you can implement wordplay, multies & the personals.