How to be a Better Horrorcore Rapper

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is probably one of my earliest influences into the horror world. These are campfire type stories. Hellish children stories with creepy ass art to go with them. It costs, if you buy it used, one penny. Plus shipping.

There are other really good books. Books about vampires, zombies, serial killers, rapists, kings, Vlad the Impaler, and what ever else. Anything you are interested in has its books. Use that as a starting point. Also, don’t be afraid of comics, childrens books and genres other than Horror. I think the entire horror-core world should be reading Warren Ellis’s Transmetropolitan. These comics are very libertarian in ideals. No government, lots of social freedoms, lots of anger and antiestablishment rhetoric. Pretty funny and vulgar, too.

Also, Cruddy by Lynda Barry. Which is about a young girl doing drugs, trying to kill herself and remembering her life as an 11 year old, who goes on a killing spree with her daddy.

Another thing to look at is books on writing. Horror-core is centered on story telling in its lyrics. It takes more than just “I KILL PEOPLE” to be an interesting rapper. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I haven’t read many books about writing music though I’m sure there are some great ones out there. My favorite book on writing, which offers some insanely brilliant writing exercise is WHAT IT IS by Lynda Barry. This book pokes around in your mind and asks you to do simple tasks like writing. The more you write the better your writing will be. It pushes you to remember certain things from your memory which in turn helps you build complete concrete worlds in which your stories can take place, and touch on more emotional aspects of horror.

Another thing that bothers me about the horror-core world are the redundant samples. Why does EVERYBODY use the same fucking samples? Answer: They are all freely available on the web.

Make your own samples from movies and don’t just do obvious movies. Look for OBSCURE MOVIES by buying horror movie collections(you can also buy SCI-FI movies, FANTASY movies, GANGSTER movies) such as 50 Horror Classics. There are others, too.

Each of these movies will give you new ideas, so we can all stop ripping off the same ones. Plus it’ll give you a wider range of samples to choose from and hey, you like horror!

Now, we can all argue about which types of beats are better, rap/rock or ghetto metal, hip hop or hardcore rap, techno or analog, but that is FOOLISH because the scene thrives best in EACH of these. Find what works best for you. Listen to music you like and really seek out a beat maker(or make them yourself) that suits you as a person. Fuck the rest. Right?

The way spitting works best, for me, is when you sound convincing and energetic. If there is a local acting class in your area at a community college, TAKE IT.

Anyway, these are some slightly DIFFERENT ideas on how to improve your art. How to make it more YOU and more ORIGINAL. It might not help you rap better, it might not make you more successful, but at least it’ll offer the genre some NEW music.