The first is the first! Remember why you are writing and to whom you are writing. You must know your audience and how they will respond to what you are saying. Always write with the mindset of helping that person or even giving hope to those who need it. Sure you can make it fun and entertaining as long as the right message is conveyed clearly. For example, think of yourself as a listener and tune in to this song titled: For Every Tear. Now you automatically assume that this particular song will give hope to those who are crying due to the ordeals of life. So when you finally do listen, it delivers exactly what you expected. These songs relate to you and minister to your soul. Now this is what you call target marketing; However, we will get into that later.

So you see, you have to be able to relate to your audience in both a biblical and experiential way. Once you have this in mind, you are now ready to start writing. Before you write your first line, you need to make sure that your music expresses what you’re rapping about. I mean, you don’t want to minister to someone about God when your music sounds like Satan himself created it. You have to be fluent with both lyrics and music.

Most of the time what I do is let the music dictate what my lyrics are about. That way, the lyrics will flow easily with the beat, setting the right mood for the song. It’s like they belong to each other. LOL! Once you achieve this, you are now ready to write your first bar. A bar is when you create a line for your rap. When the second line ends with a rhyming word below, it’s two bars, and so on. Each line or complete sentence equals one bar. The standard for a pour is 16 bars, but the minimum is 8 bars. Each rhyme segment consists of 2 bars and a song hook is also mostly 8 bars.

Now that we’ve got all the technicalities out of the way, it’s time to minister the gospel. You must also remember that whatever you speak in your song, make sure that the word of God speaks through you. It is not the artist who delivers, but the power of God. Many Christian rappers make the mistake of just regularly rapping and mentioning Jesus from bar to bar, but never saying a soul-helping word. This is not what Christian rap is about. Gospel rap talks about life to give hope to one’s situation, not a feel-good message. You must send deliverance with your lyrics, not just feel good words with the mention of the word Jesus here and there. People hear the word Jesus and God enough. We as Holy hip hop rappers need to talk to them about how God and Jesus can solve their problems. As listeners, they tend to listen for encouragement, release, and hope. If you can serve your listeners with these three elements, you’re on your way to becoming a great Christian rapper. “May Gog bless your ministry!”