(February 2011) | Interviewer Paul Edwards

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Previous "How To Rap" Interview Installments

Week One: The Lady Of Rage
Week One: Bishop Lamont

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Questions Asked By: Paul Edwards in October 2007

How to Rap: How did you learn how to rap?

Shock G: From singing along and imitating my favorite emcees of the time, mostly unknown people from my junior-high era neighborhood, but later also the famous and popular emcees once the rap records started coming out in the early '80s.


How to Rap: Is there a set process you go through when you're writing lyrics?

Shock G: Yes, there's about 3 different ones: 1 is the "thought about it my whole life" gripe you gotta get off your chest, which is a rhyme you've been loosely creating and upgrading in your daydreams all day, all week, all year, several years even, waiting for the right music or the right situation to record it. Then when the time comes to record it, you simply clean it up or modernize it to fit the tastes, styles, or music of the times. This type of rhyme is often updated and re-recorded several times in a person's studio history, each time another opportunity comes along to make it better or get it "right".

An example of this could be "Doowutchyalike" which had been recorded 3 different times in 3 different cities over the course of a 2 year period, until we finally did the released version that made our first album. Another example could be when 2Pac would take one of his older works from his poetry or rhyme book and "adjust" it to fit the current beat. Rhymes like these are usually things a person feels they "have to say" and remain urgent to the writer year after year, regardless of style changes or trends in the industry.

2 is the "pattern priority" method, where there's a fun new pattern you want to try, perhaps your own, perhaps a mixture of your own and
something that influenced you. The words could be important to you too at the time, but it may not be something you would've said last year
or will still be thinking about next year. Instead, the flow pattern and delivery gets more effort and focus than the topic or content. I think it's more common to write this way in a "guest rapper" situation, or when it's a multiple-emcee song and everyone's writing their verses on the spot. The topic may be sparked from something fun that day or a recent beef or whatever, but it's not a serious lifetime opinion or moral statement being made here. I believe there are rappers who walk around with patterns in their heads that are just as intense and sacred to them as another rappers words and topics may be, and who also are waiting for the right opportunity to bust the pattern out. Sometimes a persons creative new
flow pattern does as much for the art form, and can change the game, as much as a persons lyrical content can.

When the above 2 passions come together in one rhyme, (serious life-long issue, meets an effective original pattern), it usually creates the most memorable songs of all. Many of the classics we enjoy today are a result of this rare combination. I say "rare" because of the millions of rappers out there today, the majority of us usually have 1 strength or the other, style and delivery or content. The true greats always possess, and are aware of, both. Add a great voice, a cool look, and a great personality to these traits and "presto", a superstar is born.

3 is the plain and simple "go with the flow" method. This is when either the music itself or the other artists involved have already set the tone, perhaps with a specific melody or flow, and/or topic, and you just jump on board with your own lyrics and flava, but still sticking to the pre-agreed concept. An example of this could be "I Get Around" with us and Pac, the music sample already seemed to say "I get aroouuunn..." (it was actually Roger Troutman saying "I been around"), and the live keys tracks were already kinda jazzy and seductive, so we just rolled with the vibe that was already there. This one wasn't one of Pacs major points he carried around in his notorious rhymebook, or that was stored in his
heart long before the session, like say "So Many Tears" or "Keep ya Head Up" probably were.


How to Rap: Do you write your lyrics down on paper?

Shock G: Yes, always, but I personally know a few good emcees who never do. Not that they're necessarily freestyling everything, it's more that they write it from memory, and rehearse it in their heads only, without paper or pen. I admire and envy that ability in people. Rappers like myself, who also either play an instrument, DJ, or produce and mix, rarely have enough RAM left to write in that way, as our heads are always jammed-full of music patterns, chord progressions, equipment functions, or the names and model numbers to all the equipment we use or can't wait to work on. So we get "slow," like a computer that's heavy with data and continually multi-processing. This is why so many people who are supposed to be "smart", like world renown mathematicians, scientists, genius inventors, political leaders, and older people in general, seem to talk and answer questions so slowly when put on the spot, their "random access memory" is over-loaded with a lifetime of data. But the
fresh new emcee on the block is like a brand-new computer with powerful multi-processors pumped-up and ready ta fly!


How to Rap: Where do most of the ideas come from?

Shock G: I write from joy, the highlights of my day or life. Or even just the highlights of my imagination, sometimes science fiction or fantasy even. I understand that this is not as popular in hip hop, nor does it carry as much passion or depth as stuff that's written from pain. This makes logical sense as the majority of the world is under intense stress, many in pain, so works of that nature relate more to the majority I guess.
The atmosphere in my house growing up was generally light, fun, and happy a lot of the time, and that became my center of balance, where
I'm most comfortable creating from. When I'm stressed or sad, I don't write, even as a release. I'm a sulker, and I've never written a rhyme or created in that state. I wait till I'm happy again. I was taught, "What you put out into the world and universe is what comes back to you". So I try not to recycle my problems, when I canhelp it. Some peoples problems may be too urgent, or too constant, for it not to surface in their work, and rightfully so.


How to Rap: Do you ever research the information for your lyrics?

Shock G: Oh yes. To a self-critical virgo perfectionalist like myself, accuracy is crucial. We researched MDMA (ecstasy), as well as psilocybin mushrooms, LSD (acid), and DMT (dimethyltryptamine); the 3 major hallucinogens, before we settled on the "official" lingo for the Sex Packets lyrics and album literature. Afterward, our sex packets became G.S.R.A., or "genetic suppression relief antidotes". Hee hee.


How to Rap: Do you think hip-hop today lacks a sense of humor?

Shock G: Hell no, these emcees these days are straight comedians intheir wise-guy battle raps, and in their retaliations on each other, and to their perceived enemies. Yes, it's wise-guy/gangsta/Italian/cowboy funny, but it's still funny. What about when 50 said, "the store owner's watching you, fo' somethin gets stolen stolen stolen." Hahahaha, you gotta admit that's a creative and humorous way to call somebody a broke muhfucka.


How to Rap: How do you come up with the flows and rhythms (how the lyrics fit to the beat)?

Shock G: Often it's a combination of what I like personally, what I think others will like, and what I think the game needs. Other times it's just however what I wanted to say came out my mouth; wherever the words fell over the music.


How to Rap: Do you have a way of writing down the flow and the rhythms?

Shock G: I hear and remember the word positions like percussion parts in my head. If I need to remind myself that the next sentence starts earlier or later than the "one" of the beat, I write it further to the left or right in relation to where all the rest of the sentences started. Like....,......this.
My friend Saafir (an American West coast underground champion) once told me he gets his word patterns from jazz horn players like Charlie
Parker and John Coltrane. He swings his words around the beat rather than on it.


How to Rap: Is it ever difficult to make lyrics rhyme and express your meaning clearly?

Shock G: Yes. Usually you have to make a decision before you begin, "shall I favor meaning and content, or flow?" If you choose to make every word of every sentence rhyme perfectly with every word of every other sentence, the message won't be stated at optimum impact, and vice versa.
If you choose to not "settle" in either area, it will be a more difficult rhyme to write, but will also hold the potential of being something unique and special. I believe it's easier to keep a perfect and consistent pattern going when sticking to the easy topics; how dope me/my clique/my neighbourhood is, how wack you and yours are. But if you're trying to tackle a specific issue, and trying to maintain passion, emotional impact,
clarity of position, and factual accuracy; you will then need to sacrifice some flow.


How to Rap: How long does it take you to write lyrics normally?

Shock G: Too long. I'm the slowest writer I know. Everyone around me usually writes faster. I never understood what the big rush is? If it becomes popular, you're gonna have ta say that shit a thousand more times in your life anyway, and it may get listened to around the world
for years and years, or even forever; so you might as well make sure it's what you really wanted to say. From touring I learned to constantly review my material first, test it for long term meaning, moral position, breathing space...can you jump around on a 90-degree outdoor stage saying it, etc.? 'Cause you might just wind up having to perform it for the next 20 years!


How to Rap: Do you write to the beat you will be rapping over, or do you write without the beat or a different beat?

Shock G: "Humpty Dance" the beat wasn't made yet, it was just to the music in my head at the time, which wasn't any specific beat, more like a vague/montage/fusion of all the stuff I liked at the time. My "dream beat" you could call it, we all have one and it can never be made or fully translated. It's the total mental collection of your personal highlights, the lifetime summary of your music listening experiences. It's the beat that's in your head when you're not even thinking about it. I wrote those 3 verses over the course of a day or so, a few hours at a time, mostly at the kitchen table in our manager "Sleuth"s house.

"Freaks of the Industry" was also written before a beat was made, and so was "Doowutchyalike". With all three of these, the lyrical content set the mood and guided the beat-making.

On "Same Song", as I was finishing the beat at home, Tupac and Money-B would call occasionally to hear it over the phone as they wrote and
perfected their verses from their homes. I wrote mine immediately after I saved the pattern, and I think we went in the studio that same night. The rush this time was due to us leaving town the next day, and we had to get in the studio before we bounced, or we wouldn't had made the soundtrack or the film because they wanted the song also performed in the film. That meant they needed to hear and approve the song before they actually confirmed us for the role, and had us standing by for a phone call from the films director Dan Akroyd to describe what kind of song he wanted. So that day, after Dan and I had spoke and figured it out, I immediately called Mon and Pac: "Yo, the title's Same Song, 8 bars each, I'ma start making the beat right now. They're booking the studio as we speak, it might go down tonight so be ready".

"Kiss You Back" and "I Get Around" were both written while listening to the actual tracks they became.

At the "Get Around "session, Pac came into the studio with his versesready after having the beat for a few weeks, so I'm not sure how long he spent on it. He announced that a messenger from Interscope records was on his way to the Bay Area to collect the tapes as soon as we finished, and then fly them back down to LA in time for the album's scheduled mastering session the next morning. I planned to begin writing a verse afterward, but as I was putting the final touches on the track and adding all the little live piano accents and whatnot, Pac was walking around with a pad writing verses for me and Money-B. Mun didn't like his and decided to write his own, but I liked what Pac wrote for me, so I rewrote it in my own writing, (to read it easier), and rehearsed it once or twice before I laid it. (Thanks for the hot verse Pac! R.I.P.)


How to Rap: Where do you usually write? (home, studio, car, etc)

Shock G: Absolutely anywhere. Wherever you are when the idea hits, on a bus, train, at work, at home. A lot of things begin for me on restaurant napkins. Or peep-show booth toilet paper, hahahaha.


How to Rap: Do you write the hooks first or the verses?

Shock G: Both equally as random.


How to Rap: Do you prefer rapping over tracks you've produced yourself?

Shock G: Nope, not particularly. It's fun to rhyme over anything hot and interesting no matter who made it. Speaking of producing, I don't consider myself a producer, I'm just a musician who likes to mix and arrange stuff a bit. I guess I made a few tracks, but I never really "produced" per say, meaning I didn't shape or groom the other artists. I'd just take an idea as far as I could take it, and then leave the holes for the next rapper or musician to add their thing to it. I'm not the type to "shape" someone else's career, I don't have that kinda vision, or at least not the gumption and ego it takes to tell another artist how something should go, what they should say, or how their music should be; it's all just opinion to me.

Real producers help with all that stuff, but with Digital Underground we all just took our turns adding our parts. If telling whoever's in the booth "yay or nay" as to whether they should re-do a vocal or not, if that's considered producing, then everybody in Digital was a "producer" 'cause we all did that for each other. Whoever was at the board when you're in the booth was your producer, even the pizza guy.

I was clear on what I wanted to hear, so I would just do the parts myself to keep from losing it in translation. Humpty was a rapper I myself wanted to see and hear but nobody else was doing it so I just did it myself. I wasn't Pacs producer, I was his piano player and keyboardist, his samplist, and so was Big D who was also his DJ. Pee Wee was his organist, Roniece Levias was his singer, Ray Luv was his ghost writer, and sure, maybe I stayed behind with the engineer to help mix the tracks that I laid; but does that make me a producer?

Dr. Dre's a producer. Rick Rubin's a producer. Puffy's a producer for what he did with Biggie, because if you take Puffy out of the picture, a major hole is left in Biggies' program. But if you take any of Pac's beat-makers out of Pac's equation, you'd still have the same glorious (and tragic) career, just different music. Therefore, Pac was essentially his own producer, making his rounds and gathering his tracks and collaborators. Um, what was the question again? Ha, sorry!


How to Rap: Have you changed the way you put together lyrics since you first started?

Shock G: Not that I know of, same process. But the processes themselves have changed out there, so my era's style of writing has ecome old school in itself, therefore making it seem like I have changed, but in fact, it's the world that has changed. For instance, Redman's new album is as good as his first or second, even better to most of my friends who listen to him, so his skills are definitely up. But it's not featured on radio or TV as much as his first albums were, so who actually changed, him or the radio? Or the public in general?


How to Rap: Do you use most of the rhymes you write?

Shock G: Probably about half. I usually won't write a rhyme unless there's a project or purpose in motion already, and about half of those ever make it to fruition. Back when I was a teenager though, I used to write just to do it, just to hear it myself.


How to Rap: Is it easier collaborating with other MCs or doing solo tracks?

Shock G: Solo's easier for keeping an idea uniform, to where it maintains a certain style or point of view, like "Humpty Dance" or "So Many Tears" by Tupac. Even though we were back to produce another one for him, unlike "I Get Around," Pac kept us off "Tears" cause it was specific and focused on his life, just like the "Dance" focused on Humpty's.

But then, collaborations are easier for making something interesting and diverse; more input, more variety, more levels of thought. Like "Doowutchyalike" or "Same Song".


How to Rap: What's more important to you, the subject matter or the flow?

Shock G: The honesty and believability is most important, no matter what the subject matter or flow is. If subject matter was more important, Talib Kweli and Common would out sell Snoop and Too Short, but they usually don't. If flow was more important, Tech N9NE or Wu-Tang or Twista (depending on what u like) would out sell, say, Lauren Hill or Tupac, but they usually don't. How come Tone Loc and Sir Mix-A-lot have as much popularity as say Ras Kass or Immortal Technique? Because people believe all 4 of them.


How to Rap: Do you freestyle any of your lyrics on records?

Shock G: No, hardly ever. Once or twice here and there, but nothing that ever really did anything.


How to Rap: Do you memorize your lyrics before you record them, or do you read them from the paper?

Shock G: Both, but it always sounds better when it's fully memorized. Sometimes time and schedules doesn't permit though.


How to Rap: Do you decide where you're going to breathe in the track so you don't run out of breath?

Shock G: Yes, if it's tricky like that. I also walk around and test bust it loud and live, to make sure I can breathe it.


How to Rap: Do you record a verse all in one take, or do you punch-in different lines and put them together?

Shock G: Both, but mostly one long take.


How to Rap: Has your breath control improved since you first started?

Shock G: No, not really. It gets harder as you age really. There's more energy per breath when you're younger.


How to Rap: Do you prefer performing live or recording in the studio?

Shock G: Live is so much better, you can feed off the energy from the audience. You can also instantly gauge and adjust the performance from their instant feedback.


How to Rap: Is being a good live performer as important as having good records?

Shock G: I don't think any of it's "important," it's all just entertainment. And no record is really more "good" than another, just more popular. Every record's good to at least one person, the fool who made it.

But for the record, a good performance doesn't require any specific behavior, it only means that your audience left happy and satisfied. Let's take for instance, Jay Z, Diddy, LL, and Pac: Pac moved around on stage with a blunt in one hand, a drink in the other, voice cracking and gasping for breath the entire time. LL moves around on stage substance-free and with plenty of breath, but also sweaty and with no shirt. Diddy wears a nice shirt on stage, a suit even, but still moves around, and even does extensive dance routines. While Jay-Z, who also dresses neatly, barely moves, rarely breaks a sweat, and instead uses smoothness and clever wordplay to keep the audience interested and entertained. All of them totally different on stage but still move the crowd, and all make great records in my opinion.

Acts like Biggie or Wu-Tang just stand there and bust, with with all their homies and entourage on stage, not giving a fuck. But they know their audiences don't wanna see them dance, they just wanna see and hear them. Hmm, perhaps this suggests that good records are more important, because if people like your records, it doesn't matter what you do on stage.


How to Rap: What extra skills do you need to perform well live?

Shock G: Nerve. Self confidence. Gall. Hahaha... also intuitiveness. Gotta constantly read the audience.


How to Rap: What do you think about today's MCs, compared to older MCs?

Shock G: Tougher skin, due to rougher times, hard times, war times, and also due to 100 times the competition older emcees had to face. Hats off to all the current rising emcees, 'cause it ain't no cake walk out there.


How to Rap: What advice would you give to people who want to be better at MCing?

Shock G: Don't try to fit in, screw these cliques and rules and "codes", even if spoken by your favorite rapper or magazine. Break all the rules and go left young Jedi. The fans and listeners will appreciate you more. Doowutchyalike, writewutchyalike, and be free! Think HUGE, don't plan to add another leaf to the tree of hip-hop, instead start you're own branch. Shit, plant your own tree even. Everybody who does, and who
means it, and who sticks to it, eventually wins.

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