If you're like me, by this point in the semester, you have completely checked out of all your classes. Perhaps you are ignoring homework, skipping entirely too much class, or maybe you have just stopped pretending you aren't facebooking during lecture. Whatever the case, you're probably looking for something to distract you from your responsibilities and make the rest of the semester go faster. Let me suggest recording a rap album.
I hardly need to point out that you don't actually need to be talented. With Asher Roth, Soulja Boy and 50 Cent getting regular radio play, quality is clearly not a prerequisite for success. And no matter how bad your music is, you can't possibly make an album that would compare with Shaquille O'Neal's 1994 masterpiece, Shaq Fu: Da Return.
But the most important consideration in recording your album is to cover the four songs that just about every rap album has: the song about yourself, the money song, the song about sex and the song about rap.
The song about yourself is perhaps the most important. This song establishes your validity to speak as a rapper. You can take this several different directions. You can focus on your passion for music and your skills as an MC, like Brother Ali's ""Pedigree,"" or you can make this song about your popularity and recognizability like Jay-Z's ""Public Service Announcement."" Another option, exemplified by Dre's ""Still D.R.E."" is to angrily reassert your status and ambition to ""stay on top.""
The song about money also allows some flexibility in your approach. Notorious B.I.G. has a ""money"" song on both of his studio albums, but the songs provide very different viewpoints. ""Gimme the Loot"" validates armed robbery as a method of creating wealth, while ""Mo Money, Mo Problems"" provides a dismal view of monetary success. The Wu-Tang Clan's ""C.R.E.A.M"" takes a sober look at the struggle of poverty, while the Cool Kids' ""Gold and a Pager"" is a tongue-in-cheek description of the materialistic urges of teenagers. This song is important to your album because it provides an insight into your goals as a rapper. For instance, the Wu-Tang Clan want monetary success for social mobility, while the Cool Kids clearly view the materialism in hip-hop as absurd.
The ""sex"" song is generally a misogynistic treatment of women as sex objects, although the motivating emotion varies widely. Dr. Dre's ""Bitches Ain't Shit"" angrily repeats ""We don't love them hos,"" while Snoop Dogg's ""Ain't No Fun"" provides an ironic tension between a smooth, romantic sound and the lyrics that project women as sexual objects to be passed around. Notorious B.I.G., despite the song title ""Me And My Bitch,"" provides an intimate, romantic examination of a serious relationship. This song will allow you to proclaim your sexual prowess or show a tender side of your personality while still reinforcing sexual roles.
Lastly, the song about rap can either be a song about the current state of rap music, or a song connecting you to past rappers. Some great examples include Kanye's ""Breathe In Breathe Out,"" Murs' ""The Science,"" and Jurassic 5's ""Radio."" Rapping about rap will let you explain your superiority to other rappers while connecting you with older, better styles of rap.
These four songs provide the basis for a solid rap album. Add in a club hit, or maybe a song about a serious social issue, and you have a well-rounded debut in hip-hop. But don't worry—you may not win any Grammys, but you're already better than Shaq.
Want to be like Shaq and tell Dale how your ass tastes? E-Mail him at dpmundt@wisc.edu.
