Wassup guys? Okay - a few things I wanna discuss. A lot of people have been asking me - they say they're a beginning rapper - I wanna know - you know, you know, how do you come up with rapping? The best way to get to flow a little bit better is - multitasking. If you can hit a beat - even if it's a basic bum tap tap boom tap - even if you can do that and still talk - see like I'm talking to you and I'm still hitting the beat, so my mind is doing double thinking - boom bap bap boom - then you know you can pick it up, so now I can still talk to you and hit that beat - and then once you get yourself talking and still being able to hit the beat at the same rhythm. Try to actually rap with it.
So if I were saying - "yeah, I'm standing here with a camera in front of me - all them tricks, yeah they try to just follow me. I've seen so many, but there is only one of me", so then you rappin' and you still hitting the same beat, so your mind is thinking - talking to the camera - and hittin' them - so I'm doing three things: I'm trying to concentrate and talking to you all, still hitting the same beat and still thinking of a rap. That's called multitasking with your raps, so then think about it like this: imagine not having to hit that beat or concentrating on you guys, so then all I have to do is rap, so then when your mind is like - woah, I have all this extra space to think about what I wanna say - and one of the best things you can do is think about your second line - don't think about your first line when you're rapping. You wanna think about your second line, so if I know my second line is going to be "fitted caps", my first line is going to be like "Yeah, faced on coming with tne city rap. I got this fly ass purple and white fitted cap". See - I thought about my second line, so that means I put my first line there, and then my punchline came after it, so they're like - wow - he made "fitted caps" and "city raps" rap together.
It's a lot easier that way, and I think that's where a lot of people - especially when freestylers make a mistake - and I think every rapper should practice freestyling because it makes you a better writer.
When we were young - rapping back in Baltimore, um, in Cyprus - you know in Cyprus - um on the streets, you know, people like Common would sometimes come up.
I remember one time we went to a club. He was performing, and we jumped in the (safers) with him, and the infamous mad skills, and I actually got a chance to jump in (safers) with some of those guys. They probably don't remember, but I do, you know, because it was big for me, they were my idols.
One of the things we did was the point game, and if you point at certain things, so let's say, up here I got this box of Lean Cuisine, you know what I'm saying? If you got this box of Lean Cuisine, you rap about this sort of thing, so we would have another person, you know, physically point at things, and you had to rap about it. So we'd be like, "yeah, I'm standing here with my Lean Cuisine from Stouffers, never been in limos, 'cause I never had chauffeurs, next I got this bowl, got too much soul, no kidding because these glasses is all I need ..." You just start rapping about certain things that's in the room, so once they point, your mind has to think really fast to get to these certain items. And then it makes you a better free-styler. So then when you're sitting down to write, it comes so much faster, because your punch lines are starting to come a little bit quicker. And not everybody uses punch lines and metaphors and things like that, but that's cool, you know. Whatever your style is, I think, the root of it is to be able to free-style, because you don't want to be called out one time, especially as an MC, and not be able to actually free-style.
As for the equipment I've been using, a lot of people have been asking about my equipment… I have the BX8 which are which are here, I have the M audio BX8 I have two of them, they’re beautiful studio monitors. Studio monitors and speakers are not the same. Please do not go and get a pair of those studio speakers and try to mix your music. I use the M-box, which is here because you need an M-box actually to work your ProTools, which is there, um… I also have, for microphone; I have this here which is my baby right here. It’s a sterling audio Microphone guys and shit, this shit rocks man that thing packs a good punch.
For, if you’re shooting a video, I think one of the most important things about shooting your video guys is that you have to have good lighting. I have two soft boxes, one, two, where I keep the lighting in the room, um, really lit… that's my green screen that I keep over there for work or whatever. But that's basically what I'm working with when I'm shooting a video. Of course I have a Mac core II duo, which just means that it has two processors and it’s running at 3.06, that’s the speed. Um the memory is 8 GB… and that’s pretty much it for my mac. I run straight of my laptop to do a lot of my editing, um, for my videos (let me see swap out… shit over here, I’m sorry guys). I'm using… sorry guys… for my video I am using Final Cut Pro. So that's what I'm shooting most of my material in.
If I'm out on the road and stuff, guys, I do use the Sennheisers. You get these. These are wireless microphones. They are the dopest, um, that you can get. They take double A batteries. You link them up to you, and you got yourself wireless microphones. So, you learned a little bit about rapping. You learned some of the equipment you can get to make some nice quality videos because the thing about Youtube I always tell everybody, um, who are just getting started on Youtube- they ask me about, you know, how, you know, how do you get started on Youtube and all this other type of stuff- but I always tell people, one of the most important things about Youtube is, um, especially as a musician, if people wanted to hear you sing, the would turn on the radio. Like, they come to Youtube to see videos. That's why you see me doing multi-screens, and I, I keep the fitted caps as fresh as possible, and I um try to keep it colorful because people want to be entertained through your video. So, every time- I don't care if you're a vlogger, I don't care if you do comedy, I don't care what it is- whatever it is that you do, make sure that your video is up to par. You know, get a HD cam, the type of camera that I'm using, the one that you're looking at right now, The Lumix GH 1 which is an amazing camera, shoots great HD um video. If your lighting's not good, if your camera sucks, people probably won't look at your video. There's been times where people will send me to their channel, and no offense, I can't look at it. But if the video quality is good, I'll at least give it a chance. Now imagine if your video quality is good, and you're good at what you do. Making people laugh, vlogging, doing the news, doing comedy, doing music, playing an instrument, whatever it is that you do, imagine if you had them both together. Then people are going to subscribe.
