So you wanna make a hit rap record?

By Joey Wilkerson

So you wanna make a hit rap record?

So, you want to be a rap star? While it may seem hard to break into the industry, it’s really simple. Now, what I’m about to do is to share with you a secret of the industry. With this blueprint, you should be able to assemble a platinum CD and be on top of the billboard charts in no time.

To start off, you’re going to need one song for the radio and MTV. Without radio airplay and a hot video on “TRL,” you can kiss your career goodbye. This song is usually a catchy hit that has really simple lyrics that are easily remembered and recited when the song is on. This is the song that gets the most play at the club and too much play on the radio.

Most people will buy your album for this one song (and be greatly disappointed by the rest). Next you’ll need to add one song for the fallen homey. Puffy took the murder of his friend Biggie Smalls and turned it into a VERY successful track. Just remember that your listener’s heartstrings are parallel to their pockets. Most times, an R&B crooner will sing the hook. If you haven’t lost any friends or family lately, a beloved pet will do.

Now that you have your hit and you have raped the dead, it’s time to get down to what you’re really in the game for, the honeys! Add two songs for the ladies to get their groove on to. These songs encourage the ladies to shake their asses (but to watch themselves), drop it like it’s hot, or to engage in some other act that would only be acceptable at a strip club. When these songs come on, every girl in the place loses her damn mind and shakes it like she’s getting paid. This is also the only three minutes and thirty seconds that the creepy guy in the corner can get up on the dime-piece in the tight white pants with no draws on underneath. The wallflowers are depending on you! These songs are usually followed by one song for the women. Unlike its X-rated cousin, this song encourages us to respect the ladies and treat them as people instead of objects. Wow. You can’t overload your album with the songs above or you might have every feminist group in America breathing down your throat. However, one of these songs is enough to shut them up.

Okay, industry rule number four thousand and eighty, record company people are shady. That’s why you gotta have one song about how unfair the music industry is.

Usually after the artist records this track, they leave the studio and make a mad dash to their limo in order to get back to their multi-million dollar house that most normal people only get a glimpse of on MTV’s “Cribs.” Once there, they more than likely spend the rest of the day hiding out in a hot tub or with their equally famous and wealthy significant others. Damn those music industry bastards! Now to fill the holes your album will surely have, add nine or ten songs warning people what will happen if they cross you or your crew.

Most rappers talk big but carry a small stick. If they actually did live their hype, everyone would be locked up. (FREE OL’ DIRTY!) Rather than fight on the street, keep it on the wax. If you talk yourself up big enough, no one will ever mess with you again. Hang out at a gun shop and learn as much about firearms as you can. Transfer your knowledge into you rhymes.

Now all you need is about 25 cameos from artists with actual talent, a track produced by the Neptunes and a newsworthy event to draw attention to yourself (a club shooting will do) and you will have an album that will be wildly popular with the current generation of hip-hop heads that find importance in flash and glamour instead of substance and meaning. Enjoy your new success!