The Beat Hijack

Once upon a time, I used to write hip-hop verses profusely, I have books filled with rhymes and rhymes, some good, most of them probably bad. But it didn't matter, the writing, honing and creative process was important. I performed some of them whilst in bands or at open mics, but mostly they were just for me.

 

Back in the day, we'd write verses over other artist's tracks, we'd find instrumentals of hip-hop songs we loved and start writing and spitting bars over them. In recent times, I hardly write anymore because, you know...life...and hip-hop version of writer's block. Literary writers often use writing prompts to inspire their creativity and help with writer's block. 

 

The Beat Hijack blog is a writing prompt exercise for hip-hop verses. However, it has a little twist, my musical tastes are much more varied now and there are songs whose beats and/or the topic have inspired me to want to write a hip-hop verse. The idea is:

1. To select alternative songs outside of the hip-hop genre upon which inspire you to write a verse, but that doesn't mean hip-hop beats are off limits.

2. Don't overthink it - the idea is to inspire writing so don't overthink it and spend forever on it.

3. Simple recordings - the idea is to inspire writing and whilst it may be fun to get creative here, but that's not what the exercise is about. The recordings will be rough and ready, I 'ain't no producer.

4. Share it - by committing to getting something written, recorded and shared every month, it makes me continue with the exercise and overcome the block but also helps me get over the fear of putting something out there.

 

You can listen to all of the beat hijacks here if you don't want to read the blogs first.

 

If anyone stumbles across my little writing exercise prompt, please note this is a personal project, all rights to the original music belongs to the original artists and no commercial gain is made from this.

 

The FRAAPS (Forgotten Rhymes and Attempted Poetry) section of this site is where old rhymes will be posted for inspiration and any new non-beat hijack rhymes and attempts at poetry will be shared, in between new hijacks.