Video:How to Rap With Ice-T: Rap Battles
with Ice-TRap battles require plenty of skill and a quick mind. Watch this About.com video for tips from Ice-T, the legendary rapper and director of "The Art of Rap" for winning your first rap battle.See Transcript
Transcript:How to Rap With Ice-T: Rap Battles
What's a Rap Battle?
What advice would I give someone entering their first rap battle? Be prepared to lose. Uh, rap battling is definitely something you need to be prepared for cus a lot of times they go in heats and it has a lot to do sometimes with your ability to make up stuff off the top of your head. Because the more you can incorporate exactly who you're dealing with into the rap, it'll usually work.
Information About Rap Battles
Battling is a very interesting art form in itself. I'm a great battler. But it's different battling someone you know you're going to go against because you can prepare for them. You can take them apart, you can take their history apart, you can take their persona apart. But then when you have to battle random people you have to be spontaneous. But I wouldn't go into a battle without at least a clip of 20, 16 bars, 20 full rhymes, you know, 20, 25. And know your degree of difficulty in each one. Don't go in there and run out of raps. I've seen people get in a battle and by the time they get to the fifth round they're saying a rhyme they said earlier, "Boo, boo you said that already."
More Notes About About Rap Battles
So have your material together. In the movie it's funny because Cool Keith says, "I'm like the Russian government, I have a rap record, a battle record prepared for everybody." Would you believe he's got one dissing me. He's got one dissing everybody just in case. So you know, be prepared.