Sycosis
Mind Right Music
So You Want To Be A Rapper?
A while back I wrote an article on Mic Hype called Ghost Writers Anonymous where I outlined the basic skills and qualities I believe every artist should have. I call them the "Six Senses Of Rap". They are Beats, Lyrics, Delivery, Hook, Voice, and for lack of a better word Swag.
We have all heard the success stories of artist and how they got famous. Like how Biggie met Puffy, and How Jay-Z met Biggie, and then how Kanye met Jay-Z. But what we never hear is how they got to be as good as they are. What techniques did they use to write a song? What makes a hot line or a good hook? And what makes one person's album popular and relevant and another a CD coaster.
So what I'm going to attempt to do writing from a Psychological Perspective, is to outline the steps from beginning to end of how to put yourself in position to be the best artist possible. P.S. I don't think this has ever been done but just in case someone else ends up doing something similar, in the words of Lauryn Hill "If yours sound too much like mine I'm taking a percentage" lol. Alright lets do it. I will update this 1 Part at a time weekly so check back for new lessons.
Part I. Choosing A Stage Name
a) History Of Rap Names
For each generation of Hip-Hop music the types of stage names people choose change based on the slang, the current trends, and other cultural factors. For instance names in the 80's like EPMD (Eric and Parish Making Dollars) or LL Cool J (Ladies Love Cool James) had simple basis often associating the artist real name to concepts of "cool", "fresh", and "dope". The leaders then and now were always the most original like Rakim, KRS 1, and Queen Latifa.
In the 90's people had all kinds of names that didn't really associate with any one particular ideal. From Tupac, to Method Man, to Outkast everyone's name, style, and music was different across the country and even within the same region.
Today the concepts people look to be associated with are things like "fly", "hot", "street", or wealthy. When you chose a name just like when you write a song you want it to be timeless. You don't people to automatically know if you are young or old, a conscious rapper or a drug dealer, you want to keep them curious. If you ran across a CD (do they still make those? ) today with the name "Emcee E" you would automatically think the person is 40+, on the flip side if you saw one by "Young Rich" or "Lil QP" you already know what kind of artist they are and what age group they appeal to. The danger in choosing trendy names is once the trend is over your style and relevance is dead.
b) Four Qualities Of A Name
With that in mind you want to choose a name that
Q1) Represents you and who you are as an artist
Q2) Catches people's attention
Q3) Is Original
Q4) Is easy to say and remember.
Using myself for an example people always ask me how did I come up with the name Sycosis. I think the main reason they ask that is because its strange and kind of weird sounding and because they don't really know what it means. I tell them the story of how when I was just starting out the popular thing to do then in order to get better at being a rapper was to read the dictionary or thesaurus to learn more multi-syllable words to use in your songs. Going back to the history portion in the 80's punchlines were more simple people rhymed one syllable words like dog, fog, hog, log and as the genre progressed people started rhyming 2-3-4 syllable words like miracle with lyrical (we'll get back to this later in the writing portion). Anyway so I was reading the dictionary in like 6th grade and saw the definition of the word Psychosis.
Psychosis (noun): A severe mental disorder characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning.
So that had me thinking hmmm never heard this word before but it sounds dark which I was really into scary movies as a kid. I also thought about the "loss of contact with reality" part and remember all the times I argued that Canibus, Big Pun, and Lil Wayne were some of the best rappers out (back before anyone cared) and people looked at me like I was on PCP or something. So I knew I had a match for Q1 and Q3 because it was definitely original and fitted who I was as an artist.
So Then I had to think about Qualities 2 and 4 and how would I catch people attention with this weird word as a stage name plus make it easy to say and remember. Well the first thing I did was to change the spelling to the way it sounds. Take out some letters and its a little easier to say plus is looks better when you write it (Sycosis vs Psychosis). On top of that it was also cool to spell words wrong on purpose and make them stage names for the sake of Hip-Hop so I killed two birds with one stone there.
Finally I had to think of how to make it EASY to say and remember. Well it wasn't really a way of getting around it being a hard word to say. Even today people still pronounce is Sick-osis half the time lol. But I thought about the fact that almost every popular rapper ever had a nickname or shortened version of his name that people use most commonly. For example how many times have you actually said "Notorious Big"??? Never you probably say Biggie. That goes for almost every rapper no matter how simple or complex their name already is (i.e. Eminem=Em, Kanye West=Ye)
So I thought about what would people most likely shorten my name to...Syco? Yeah that would be whack so I made up my own shortened name and just started saying it in my songs, just the letters ~SY~. Its easy to say, easy to remember, and still gets the job done.
Now I'm not suggesting that everybody get a dictionary and pick a name as complicated and hard to say as mine just to look deep. But pick one that fits those qualities and that doesn't make you automatically fit into one time period, age group, or region. Be universal and time less.
Click Here To Read Rap 102 "Pick A Lane"
