Q&A for How to Survive a Freestyle Rap Battle

Keep it fast but not too fast and write down your lines if you need to.

If you want it be good, then yes. Just like with any song, it's a good idea to make the lyrics make sense.

If it's needed. When the battle gets intense, and you want to crush them, then yes.

If you are funny and have great rhymes then it shouldn't matter that much. Try to go faster to impress people more.

Write down the alphabet in the margin of your paper, then write down the rhyming ending next to it. Some may not be the right spellings, but when you say them, they may sound like actual words.

You may be afraid of him, but if you know you are better than him, just close your eyes and rap yourself into the title of best rapper.

Brush it off, you already beat him.

If it's at school, age doesn't matter. If it is at a club, you should be at least 21 years old (unless it is a teen club).

No way man. Just spit from the heart and avoid anything that might be racially insensitive. Eminem is white and he made it huge - Kendrick is African-American and he made it huge. It doesn't matter - just be you and spit what you feel.

Check your local library or online book store. Other than that, you could always check Urban Dictionary for phrases. You can ask your friends. You can research a little as well. Maybe you could write such a book!

Watch videos to improve your skills, work on timing, and be prepared with a lot of word combinations that rhyme (whack/back/slack/stack/crack/snack). Practice with friends or in front of a mirror - like any art form, the more you practice, the better you'll become.

High schools/recess time has a lot of rap battles, maybe you can join there.

If your opponent starts crying, you should continue rapping but tone it down. After the competition, go talk to them and congratulate them on a good game.

Practice rapping verses from fast rappers you know. Then use their rhythm to write your own rhymes with the same flow. Then do your thing!

Of course. It doesn't matter what your race is. Just avoid using potentially offensive racial terms.

It depends on you and the context. If you're very young or around family, you shouldn't. Otherwise, it's up to you. You don't need to curse, and you shouldn't do it just for the sake of doing it, but if there's something you want to express that a curse word helps with, or if it helps the flow/feel of your rap somehow, go ahead.

Yes. This is a classic tactic, and it's actually tame for a lot of battles.

Keep your flow and find rhymes. Try to keep a jazz tune. It's like poetry, but with a hood-like flow.

You have to be fast. Focus on talking fast in everyday life. If a word too long, break it down. This will help with your momentum.

Say that you rapped in a battle, and they didn't. Or, you can just say, "Yeah, that's right. I lost. So what?"

There aren't many tutorials, but you can watch battles on YouTube for tips and inspiration.

Actually, it is generally not good, if it gains too much intensity and causes violence. If all done in fun and a healthy sense of competition, it should, in theory, be fine. Unfortunately, some people do take things too far and could step out of the bounds of a friendly competition.

Just practice and stay calm. If you stutter, you can say, "oh hey look I impersonated you! Now you know how you do!"

It can be if you want it to be. That's how my friends and I do it. We roast each other hard but it's all in good fun.

Call them out on it, put them in the position where they have to decide or lose some credibility, obliging them to make a public choice about whether or not they face you.

If it's a freestyle battle, you shouldn't have to remember any words since you're supposed to make them up on the spot.

Show people your rapping skills and they might get interested in starting a battle, or getting someone to do a battle with you.

It doesn't really matter how you're dressed, so you can wear whatever you want. I would recommend trying to look cool though.

To think of a rhyme quickly, you just have to replace the first letter of the word with another letter, for example, "nerd" and "herd." Run through rhymes in your head whenever you have time. The more you practice, the easier it will get, as your brain will get used to thinking in this way.

Most likely this will not happen. But if it does, you can either run or fight him. You could also say something like, "You're so mad I bodied you in the battle you wanna fight now? Grow up son."