Multis, Inners & Schemes: How to Rhyme Better and the Lost Art of Textceeing
Brush up your rhyme skills, so you can better appreciate the fountain of political hiphop about to be unleashed.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time on online hiphop forums. In the early 2000s, they were a great way to learn more about old school and underground hiphop from around the world — after all, there were no music services yet that made it easy to dig into a genre. One could argue there still aren’t, but I digress.
The forums created communities which provided their members with lively discussion, feedback, arenas for battles, places to collaborate, and lots of guidance on how to craft better lyrics according to the dominant aesthetics of that time.
The preferred format for showing off your skills was through text. Internet connections were not that good yet, our mobile phones didn’t have apps, and the computers were far from the powerful machines we have in front of us today. Basically, it was difficult and expensive to get a good set-up to record, and required learning a whole different set of skills.
Due to text being the dominant format for these communities, rhyme complexity was one of the most valued attributes. Work in some good metaphors, similes, and a structure that ‘flowed well’ when reading it, and you’d be the talk of the forum.
I spent years honing my skills there. The purpose was always to better myself as a rapper. After retiring from the mic, all that time spent writing helped me compose a thesis that went viral and launched my career.
I hardly rhyme nowadays, at least not intentionally. Yet the lessons remain. They help me appreciate well-crafted lyrics, because I will notice things I wasn’t even aware of before. So, in sharing these lessons, I hope you will not just level up your rhyme skills, and become a better writer in general, but also grow a deeper appreciation for complex lyrics.
Lesson 1: multis
We can all rhyme. House rhymes with mouse. Cat rhymes with hat. The first step to going beyond that is multi-syllable rhymes. So you take a phrase, usually at the end of a line and try to rhyme as many syllables as possible in the next line.
Purists might say that this sentence doesn’t rhyme anymore, hat doesn’t rhyme with fact after all. However the purpose of using multis in rap is having similar syllabic sounds — in this case the last four syllables of each line.
I’M GOING TO BE QUOTING RAP. IF YOU TAKE OFFENCE EASILY: STOP READING. ⚠️
Let’s take the first bars of Eminem’s Rabbit Run (0.11) as an example.
Got it? Let’s move on.
Lesson 2: inners
Inners are often referred to as the glue that hold all the lines together. They’re rhymes that appear within the lines, but not on the end.
An example from AZ’s verse on Life’s a Bitch (0.21) with Nas:
Or for more complexity, these lines by Eyedea on Kept (0.32):
These bars are similar to Eminem’s bars cited earlier, in that they all end rhyming with the same multi. The difference is, these contains inners. One set of three-syllable multis in the first bar, and a set of four-syllable multis running in the second, third, and fourth line. Note that in hiphop, due to long misuse of the term, a bar has come to mean a set of 2 lines.
Eminem’s said that he enjoys rap, because it’s like a puzzle to him, but with words. Look at his early work on Infinite (00.36), for example:
The challenge is not just writing rhymes, but also making sure your lines still make sense, the rhymes hit in the right place on the beat, intonation and flow stays right, etc.
Lesson 3: rhyme schemes
Next comes the rhymes scheme. A typical rhyme scheme looks like A-A-B-B.
A: There was a cat
A: That wore a hat
B: Lived in a house
B: That included a mouse
Many songs follow a rhyme scheme with alternating rhymes, like A-B-A-B:
A: There was a cat
B: Lived in a house
A: He wore a hat
B: Just like the mouse
With multis and inners, these schemes become a lot more complex. Consider Lil’ Wayne on A Milli (1.36):
If you just look at the end of the lines, the scheme would be A-A-A-B-B, but as you can see it’s much more complex. A million rhymes with Sicilian, hair rhymes with all the words at the end of the first three lines, and there are multis at the end of all the first lines. The 4th and 5th line rhyme completely.
On to another example of a complex rhyme scheme — and I’ll have to break out the colours for this one.
KRS-One on MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know (0.43):
Lesson 4: rhyming entire lines
To finish it off, let’s look at parts of verses where entire lines rhyme. These are kind of difficult to pull off if you’re actually trying to say something and maintain a flow. When executed correctly, they’re truly spectacular — especially in a live setting. When listening to these it can be hard to even notice the syllables not included in the rhyme.
A couple of great examples:
Big Pun on Twinz (Deep Cover) (1:03):
A true classic — due to its timing & flow, it’s guaranteed to make a crowd go wild.
Eyedea on One Twenty (1.28):
Straightforward. Using the same multi throughout, also as inners.
A$AP Rocky on Suddenly (2.28):
The combination of rhyme scheme & flow make it feel like the whole verse is just one long rhyme.
Cam’ron on ‘Bout it ‘bout it (1.20):
Notice how the last line rhymes with the complete second line.
Eminem on Renegade (1.35):
Nearly every syllable rhymes here. Just missing 10 in 4 lines.
MF DOOM on Meat Grinder (0.38):
Just 2 syllables don’t fit the rhyme scheme here. Also note the first and last word of the fourth line rhyming.
Extra learning
To craft rhymes like a master, there’s a lot more you need to consider. Arguably the most important skill is flow, and it’s separate from rhyme skills.
“I can’t just rhyme- I can flow” — C-Rayz Walz
You also want your lyrics to be entertaining, or speak to the imagination, for which you can use devices like similes and metaphors. You’ll want to work on wordplay and punchlines.
A lot of tutorials on these topics can be found on YouTube.
The most important thing is just to start writing. Try to construct multis. Then create longer lines. Work in some inners. Remember Eminem’s comments about seeing rap as a puzzle.
Treat it like a game and have fun.
