How do rappers get cash to use in their music videos if it is only for show?
There are two ways: one, the money is fake and is printed by the production for the production. The counterfeit money is real enough to look legitimate on camera but not in person. It's treated like a prop and handled by the Prop Master on the production or an AD.Two, the money is real. The label or production company will factor the amount of money needed for the video into the budget and will be included in the overall cost for producing the music video.Often the producer will group the scenes involving "flashing cash" (let's say) into one shooting day. Someone on the production will withdraw the money from the bank and take it to the set/location on that given day. It may be that the money is withdrawn the day prior, too, but that depends on the production.The money is entrusted to a crew member, whether an AD or PA, Prop Master, etc., who assumes full personal liability for every dollar that is handled. Every single dollar is accounted for at the end of the production day and this person returns the money to the bank.
In a music video, if a car is blown up, or a rapper throws $100 dollar bills in the air, whose money is the rapper using in filming, directing, and making of the music video? Is the rapper using his own money? How about that car getting blown up?
Just about every piece of cash you have ever seen in movies, tv shows, music videos, etc, has all been fake. It's almost never real money. It's just a prop made to look real.But not made to look too real, because then they risk getting in trouble for counterfeiting. The fake cash is usually a different size than regular dollar bills, or it's got something else about it that clearly identifies it as fake money. There isn't usually too many long close ups of the cash so the prop makers can generally do whatever they want while making it.As for cars blowing up, they are bought by the production to be blown up. No specific person owns it, and nobody is sacrificing their own car for a three minute music video.
Can listening to music make you a better rapper?
Absolutely. Your instinctive direction is great. Listen for the following lessons:Breaking conventions: John Coltrane’s Blue Train album;Story telling in high concept: Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly soundtrack;Blending genres: Carlos Santana’s Supernatural album;Grandiosity: Earth Wind & Fire’s All ’n All album;Specificity: War’s The World is a Ghetto AlbumMastery: Bob Marley’s UprisingTest this out. Sit with each album for about a week. Quit writing beforehand. Listen to each song, each note, each lyric. Internalize it. Put it away. On Sunday evening, start with fifteen minutes of improvising, producing sound with your voice which you capture with Voicenotes or any recording app. After this, start typing or writing out lyrics.You will have an EP of significantly improved material within three months.
How to tell your parents your a rapper?
I've always loved rap music it's been a passion of mine and about 4 months ago I decided I want to make my own music. So I've wrote about a notebook and a quarter of lyrics and I've gotten pretty dope. Now recently (2 weeks ago) I've bought a mic, studio headphones, and software. I've been hiding these especially from my mom. I just don't know how to tell her specifically like hey mom I like to rap. She's one of those pursue school people but I know I got talent! So should I just break out the mic one day and just do what I do and act like its nothing or actually have a conversation about it. Plus if I just say it I have more time to record. I'm 17 by the way. Kind of a stupid question but I just want opinions!
Do rappers really write their own songs?
Yes. Almost any rapper writes their own songs. Even people like Flo Rida. It’s a point of pride in the Hip-Hop community to write your own verses. And to not write your own rhymes will lead to a lot of ridicule.Think about it. Traditionally, Hip-Hop is a genre where an emcee delivers poetry over a beat. It came in a time when in order to be a famous musician, you needed to have vocal talent. Rappers don’t really need that same type of vocal talent, so them writing their own lyrics was a sense of pride and justification to the older generation who didn’t want to accept them. If you aren’t writing your own stuff, and you don’t have any particular talent, then what are you?That being said, those expectations are generally relaxed for songs like One Dance, Hotline Bling, Starships, My House, and songs like those. It’s generally understood that those songs are meant to appeal to Pop audiences and aren’t really about the rapping.Also, I wouldn’t trust the names listed on a track listing to give you an accurate idea of how many people wrote a song. There’s two reasons why that is not a good idea. For one, the producers are listed alongside the lyricists. Secondly, there is a concept called “putting hands” on a track. That means that for resume purposes, anybody who had ANY input into the final product can have their name on that track listing. Some writers are there acting essentially as a focus group. With the main two or three writers (lyricist/performer and producer) run it by some other industry people and those industry people bounce ideas.
Does making your own rap music impress girls?
No.
Can I create my own genre of music as a Musician?
Yes. Absolutely. Kind of. Not really. But, maybe.Can you sit down and make up a song that doesn't neatly fit into any existing labels? Yeah, that’s easy. Let’s say, for example, you decide to make a song which you personally categorize as Metal Surf Rap.Can you codify certain elements of your own genre-subverting sound and produce entire catalogs of Metal Surf Rap? Yes, of course you can.Will other people listen to what you have created and immediately recognize it as Metal Surf Rap? Mostly no, they will not. They are going to call you Indie Rock. Unless you really get popular, in which case you will be re-labeled as Alternative. And if you go all the way and hit the Top 40, congrats, you are now a Pop artist.Maybe, just maybe, you’ll spawn an entire underground scene of Metal Surf Rap groups who all agree that what they’re playing is called Metal Surf Rap (as opposed to Rap Surf Metal, or Surf Grind-Hop, or Progressive Gangster Wave, or…). And in ten or twenty years when that scene finally goes mainstream, you may or may not still be remembered as the originator of the new genre.Don’t worry too much about labels. Don’t try too hard to classify your own compositions. If you want to make music that doesn't sound like anything else, more power to you. Just don't be surprised by how other people choose to classify your music. They probably will not make up a new word for whatever you are.