My Guide To: Rapper’s Singles
An artist’s singles are crucial things for the proper promotion of an album. Most artists have found a good flow of what types of songs to put out, and what times as well. Although, things have begun to change. Let’s examine the different types of songs to put out and when to put them out, and their benefits and faults.
First, you have the typical club song. Now club songs are good because they’re universal. Who doesn’t like to go out to the club every now and then. You get off work, you grab your friends, you get in the car, you drive there and get pumped and excited to pick up some girls. You get to the club, you meet a girl, you get turned down, you leave disappointed; its a rite of passage. The point of the first single is to get awareness. You need to start off strong and get as many people to know you have an album coming out. There are a lot of people in the club, hence the club song. Flo Rida, Soulja Boy, and Lil Jon have made careers off of these songs. The downfall is, these songs usually lack subject matter and may make your peers lose respect for you, and turn some hardcore hip-hop heads off.
Next, you have “the anthem.” The anthem can also be used as the first single, but it’s very tricky. These songs are best used by rappers who are actually good at rapping, and might be too lyrical to make a good club song. Punchline rappers probably need to try this approach more. Songs like T.I.’s “What You Know About That”, Kanye’s “Can’t Tell Me Nothin”, every DJ Khaled song known to man, you get the drift. They’re usually lyrically impressive and inspirational. The downfall is, its very hard to make a good anthem, because its usually dependent on the phrase you use. Anthems are all about the chant. The chant must be powerful, but catchy, and its hard to figure out what the right chant is. For instance, no hate, but where’s Ace Hood’s career going?
You now find yourself with the second single, which is almost always the ladies single. The ladies single is crucial, because the first single and maybe a mixtape can get you the male sales, but you HAVE TO win over the females. Oh, and if you’re not good looking, you’ll probably fail at this single no matter what, so you might as well just apply the club song or the anthem twice and hope to go Gold. Fabolous and Drake are of course the best at doing this, and LL Cool J is the godfather of the ladies single. These songs often feature the hottest r&b singer out at the moment just to solidify your female attention getting. The downfall of this is, if you’re a hardcore gangster rapper, you’ll either sound non-romantic and just awkward, or you’ll sound soft and lose all your street cred. Unless you’re Plies of course; he’s Da realist!
Then you have the intellectual song. This is where it gets fun. The gangster will suddenly have a change of heart and shed a hard body gangster tear for his lost homies. Somebody might talk about his daughter that he has neglected to see for years upon years but will now bring them up for the sake of sounding deep. The videos usually have this person walking around with a sad look on their face. Here’s a fun game to play, look at their video for their first single, if its a club song, it’ll probably have something to do with everybody knowing who he is and blah blah blah, and if they have the intellectual third single, notice how when he’s walking around he has no jewels on and nobody knows who he is or bothers to acknowledge him. They’re the most false, fake things out there, and they’re actually dying out now. It’s kind of sad. Nas, and artists like Common and Mos Def actually do these type of songs with sincerity, so they’re the exception.
So there you go, want to be a rapper? Follow this guide. Can’t rap, make a club song. Rap too well, come out with an anthem. Want to get the ladies to love you, look at the charts and figure out who’s the hottest r&b singer and ask him to do a hook for you. And if you want to sound intelligent, get an acting coach and shoot your own mini-version of Will Smith’s ‘Pursuit Of Happiness,’ ghetto style. Best of luck to you, hope you succeed!
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