What else do I do?
I do different things for people pertaining to electronics. I took someone's records and made CDs for them. (They didn't have a working record player, and believe me, these records never made it to CD.) I've made samples for the party game where you listen to the short cut of the song and write down what you think it is. I've recorded camcorder tapes onto VHS tapes. Made mix tapes for people, etc. The Lord has blessed me with these things and the knowledge to use them, so helping other people is my way of working for the Lord.

What kind of equipment do I use?
This is written here for anyone interested in what I use. It's not posted to boast. I give glory to God for His blessings and for using me further His cause. For music making, I have Cakewalk Metro 5 on my Mac, running through Midiman USB 2x2 to my Roland SC-880. I also have the Korg Electribe-R for additional beats (recently aquired.) For recording, I have the Roland SP-808 Groove Sampler, Fostex DMT-8vl "Dinosaur", Philips CDR-765 dual-well CD recorder, Fisher tape deck (ancient), and Sony MXD-D3 MiniDisc recorder. I have two headsets, too, Sony MDR-7506 and Bose Tri-Port. I use the cheapest condenser mic on the market.

How did I record Crossed Out?
Crossed Out was recorded in this way: I sequenced the music in Metro 5 on my Mac and recorded the music into the stereo tracks in channel A on the SP-808. I then recorded the lyrics into track B (all tracks are stereo on the SP-808). Additional lyric tracks were put on track C, but I rarely used four tracks simultaneously, due to the fact that the internal Zip 250 drive would sometimes drop a track out if it had to play four at once for a while. I recorded from the SP-808 analog to the Philips CD recorder. The Philips also did all of the duplicating.

How am I planning to record Refined and Learning?
Lord willing, ReAL will be bangin'! This is how I have it in mind: I will use the SP-808 to sample beats from the Electribe-R, from Metro 5, and maybe even sounds I hear online. the SP-808 can sequence samples, therefore, I am on the road to a much more 'hip-hop' sounding record! When I have an appropriate music track ready, I will record it into the Dinosaur's first two tracks (for stereo). The remaining six tracks are then open for lyrics. Can't wait to get started! (Written April Eighth, 2003.)

Did I say Mac?
Yes I did, and I wouldn't trade it in for a hundred PCs. Mac OS X is the place to be. There are so many things you can do on a Mac and so hassle free! People who brag about Mac's aren't underestimating them. They ARE all-that!! Go Mac!

Want to learn how to rap?
Better Rhyming Skills.... by Jakfat April 6, 2003

Greetings. This tutorial is for anyone interested in pursuing the challenge of writing good rap songs. Rap music nowadays has (no pun intended) a bad rap. People who don't like it - and that includes a lot of people - tend to say that you need no talent to write rap songs, and basically, rap is easy and frivolous. My usual reply to those people is... try it for yourself.

You see, rap is not easy. You can't just jot down a poem, and put on a black accent and shout it out. If that was the case, rap would have been obsolete long ago, not a multi-billion dollar industry that it is today. Rap is becoming more and more popular, and is showing up more and more in other styles of music. Enough of the yadda, let's get down to business.

First of all, the whole idea behind hip-hop (rap music) is to express oneself, so by telling you how to rhyme, I am sort of defeating the purpose. With that in mind, you now have the choice to turn back... or keep reading if you want to learn more.

Okay, I see that you would rather keep reading. I take that as a compliment.

Rapping is much more than a poem with an accent. In fact, the accent isn't important at all. Again, hip-hop is a self-expression, so faking yourself will immediately show. The poem part can be excluded, too, to some degree. If you have ever listened to Grits or the song 'Father, Forgive Them' by KJ-52 (not Cross Movement) you will notice that not every line has a rhyme. So now, we may have just taken away everything you thought you knew about hip-hop.

When you write a rhyme, you should have a few things in mind. You should, right from the start, be hearing your rhyme in your mind as you would have it performed, i.e. very expressive, not reserved. You also need to hear the beat in your mind.

When I write songs, I write each line as if it were a measure in sheet music. In human terms, the beat goes - very simply - boom, tap, boom, tap (slowly). Those words represent the bass drum and snare drum in a straight beat. For every line of rhyming that you write, your words should pour over that beat.

Here's an example of a bad first line:

Today I felt stupid.

Okay, it works but it doesn't quite reach all the way across a beat. If we add a little more, we can make it fit better. Let's try again:

Today I felt stupid, do you want to know why?

Notice now that you can tap your finger to it four times as you read across the line? In this way, you express yourself more fully. The music will be thumpin' so get your rhymes right. Let's move on to writing a second that rhymes with it.

Today I felt stupid, do you want to know why?
I was in a hurry and forgot my best tie.

Sure sure, it works, but in my opinion, it could be better. Instead of incessantly rhyming the last syllable together, why not try doing some "multiple-syllable rhyming"?

Multiple-Syllable Rhyming: the key to better rhymes.

To do some MSR, back up. Start from the end of your last line and work backwards through the line. Notice that in your rhymes, you tend to rhyme - not simply the last syllable - but the last ACCENTED syllable. For instance, if your last word was 'money', you would naturally write funny (or something like it) on the next line, not just rhyming with the 'ee' sound. It's because the first syllable of 'money' is accented, not the second.

After writing, "Today I felt stupid, do you want to know why?", back up from the end and find the second from last accented syllable. That syllable would be 'know' as you can see. So on the second sentence, we would want to change the second from last accented syllable to a syllable that rhymes with 'know'.

NOTE: The more syllables you rhyme together from line to line not only make yours rhymes more fun and interesting, but gives you more leeway to add syllables that don't exactly rhyme. An example: the words 'log' and 'dog' do not rhyme. They never have, they never will. However, I have them paired as a legitimate rhyme in my song, "Trust Me". Here's how it goes...

"So there I was, wet as a frog, dead as a dog
"I just wanted to go home to my bed and saw logs..."

The MSR's were "wet - - frog" "dead - - dog" and "bed - - logs".

Because of MSR, you probably didn't even notice it in the song. The dashes in the above line indicate un-stressed syllables. Any unstressed syllables could fit in there with no problem, (as long as they made sense, or course.)

In another song of mine "I Am I Am", it goes like this:

"You try to outdo Me - you hate Me in jealousness
"Even respected Christians betray me, it's devilish
"Everybody wants to stray and play Me like Battleship
"And on Judgment Day, they say - save me from the realm of death!"

Okay so what's wrong?? I'll tell you. Line three ends with 'Battleship'. But in all properness, it should have been pronounced, "Bettleship." My whole point here is.... The more rhyming syllables you have in each line, the more leeway you have to bend those rhymes to similar sounds, or even skip them altogether.

Imagine if, in the first example, we took frog, log and dog and tried to make a simple rhyme out of them. It would turn out like this:

I went to the pond to catch a frog
I looked in the trees, I looked on the logs
I grabbed what something quick, but it was a dog.

Mmmmmm, no. I don't think so. So let's get back to the real stuff, keeping in mind the importance of Multiple-Syllable Rhyming.

We left off at:

Today I felt stupid, do you want to know why?
I was in a hurry and forgot my best tie.

Adding MSR to it, you get:

Today I felt stupid, do you want to know why?
I was in a hurry and forgot my bow-tie.

Bingo! We have a winner! "Bow-tie" rhymes more fully with "Know why." Therefore, we have gained ground in the world of hip-hop song writing.

Moving on now, let's try to write a whole paragraph (four lines) that rhymes with 'know why.' Here goes:

Today I felt stupid, do you want to know why?
I was in a hurry and forgot my bow-tie
Got the wrong lunchbox, no it's no lie
At lunchtime today, I was eating cold fries.

It might seem harder at first than it really is. All you really have to do is find a word that rhymes with 'know' and another that rhymes with 'why'. More examples:

Slow guy - flow by - low tide - etc....

Don't forget when you're writing to switch up rhymes from time to time instead of just writing the same rhyme again and again. Like this: (The " - " signals a pause)

Today I felt stupid, do you want to know why?
I was in a hurry and forgot my bow-tie
The whole time - I was thinking about the day ahead
All I really wanted was to go back and lay in bed.

The page I read - in the Bible spoke to me
Phillipians 4:13 gives hope and peace
I can do all things through Him who gives me strength
Now I see that getting up was not some big mistake.

You like that? Some of the rhymes carried over to the beginning of the next line. Notice also, that the every time a rhyme carried over, there was a pause just after it. Without this pause, the carried-over rhyme probably would go unnoticed.

Here are some shortcuts for writing:

You're not really looking for words that rhyme, but syllables that do. Like, instead of looking for a word that rhymes with 'seek', just think of another word that has the 'ee' sound in the middle. 'Me' 'free' glee' 'feet' 'creek' 'heap'. Possibilities are endless when you look at it this way. Some constanant sounds will dilute the sound you're looking for, though. For example, and don't forget this: Generally, words with a long 'eye' sound are pronounced 'ahh'. Don't ask me why, it's just natural, while rapping. However, if you write 'light', the i is actually pronounced 'eye' not 'ahh'. 'Light' rhymes with 'pipe' 'hype' 'fight' 'kite' 'gripe' 'like' etc. Same with 'R' as in : 'fire'. The letter 'S' might also throw you off... "intricate" "idiot" "hypocrite" but "isn't it" "visit him" "fishin' it". Okay, it works, but the 'S' throws a curve. On to the final section...

Format of a rap song:

So you know that four beats is a line, and four lines is a paragraph. How long is a verse? How long is a chorus? **How long is a whole song??**

My standard format goes like this:

Song:
Verse 1:
Paragraphs 1 through 5:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Chorus:

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4
Line 5
Line 6
Line 7
Line 8

Repeat three times for three verses and a chorus for each. It's a lot of work, but don't become discouraged. Remember in the beginning, I said that hip-hop was not easy? Remember I said it takes talent? Now you know.

A suggestion: as you write your song, don't forget what you're writing about. Always try to have a main point, and focus on it and write examples about it, etc, all through the song. Don't just write a meandering fairy tale that goes nowhere. Make it worth listening to.

One last hint: If you listen to a lot of hip-hop. I mean like, one album after another. You will become entranced with it and your mind will start finding rhymes on its own. You will have a lot less time wasted trying to find rhymes and more time to think about what you are writing about.

The more you write, the easier it will become. Just keep working at it. I've been there. I've done that. It wasn't easy for me either. But thanks to the Lord and a lot of patience and practice, I can write songs with much greater ease than I used to.

Check out my lyrics pages for more examples.

This is Jakfat --

Signing out...