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What is your background Paul, how did the opportunity to produce How To Rap come about?

I had been into hip-hop for a long time, but I first started seriously looking into studying hip-hop and hip-hop lyrics at university—I did a BA in English, and I had been reading a lot of hip-hop books and I finally got to write a dissertation for my 3rd year on rap lyrics, and it kind of just jumped off from there.

Everyone at the time was like, “what the hell, no one is gonna let you study hip-hop lyrics for your degree!” but I luckily had professors who were into music in a big way in general, so they let me really get into it.

I then did an MA and focused totally on looking at lyrics for a year and a half, and after I had finished that I wanted to continue looking into rapping by interviewing MCs and writing a book about it.

After 3 years of interviewing I had over 100 interviews and over 500,000 words from the MCs!

I approached a literary agent, she shopped the book around, we found Chicago Review Press—who have put out loads of great books on African American culture such as work by H. Rap Brown and Assata Shakur—and they loved it and wanted to run with it, and that was that.

What was your first introduction to hip-hop music? What was it's appeal for you?

I remember hearing a lot of hip-hop in the late ‘80s, my parents are big music fans in general, so I grew up hearing a lot of stuff. I think I really, really got into it around 1990, and followed it ever since. And of course I had to go back and do the research and listen to all the old school and early golden age stuff and brush up on the context that those records came out in.

For me the appeal was always beats and rhymes – I love a dope gritty sampled beat preferably and someone with mad skills doing all sorts of flows and topics over it. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate more club based stuff, because I think everything has its place, but I love to hear a crazy new flow, delivery, topic or way of conveying a topic.

There is such a broad spectrum of rappers and their thoughts on the art of rhyming found in this book. What was the process of compiling all of this information?

I made a big list of everyone I wanted to get hold of in the beginning and I went about getting hold of them one by one. I definitely wanted to have classic artists like Public Enemy and Kool G Rap alongside newer artists like Clipse and Royce Da 5’9”, and also underground and mainstream together, everyone from Immortal Technique to Will-I-Am.

As I got more info from them, it’d spark new questions and directions, and I put the book together as I went along. The most painful part was deciding what to cut, because there were half a million words of interview answers, literally, and so many stories and everything, so what do you cut!

Was their anyone that you reached out to that didn't wish to contribute? And with those that did was it hard to co-erce out of them information specifically pertaining to how they formulate their ideas and their techniques?

There wasn’t anyone that I remember who turned me down flat, like, “I don’t want to be in this book,” but with some, especially the really big artists, you have to go through a load of handlers who won’t reply or they say that the artist is recording or on tour, or whatever reason. I was surprised I got hold of as many people as I did because no one had to give me an interview at all.

Most of the MCs—especially ones known for being really lyrical like Crooked I, Kool G Rap, Tech N9ne, and R.A. The Rugged Ma—gave me long interviews and said loads of great stuff. I think the more into the craft they were, the more they gave me. No one refused to give up secrets, and I think after half an hour or so of just asking rapping questions, everyone let slip eventually, haha. The only times it was hard were if someone was just very vague, but I had enough very specific questions that they eventually pinned down their methods for me.

The book is broken down to four parts, content, flow, writing, delivery and under each there are further sub-catogorisations. Which of these two elements do you find make for emcees whose work you really enjoy? Do you think there are any rappers out there that you would say embrace a complete and equal strength in all of these facets of emceeing?

For me personally, I’m big on flow and delivery, because it’s music first and foremost to me, so if it sounds wack, it’s gonna be hard to get into the content. As some of the MCs put it, “you could be spitting the cure for cancer, but if it doesn’t sound good, no one will care.” Having said that, of course if the flow is there, then some next level content, some next level word play and everything obviously elevates it to another level, but for me the flow and delivery has to be there first—if you’re off beat and stumbling over your words it’s not a good look.

I think most MCs are either flow or content focused, or will have songs where they flow amazingly and then concentrate on the content on other songs. I think there are a lot of people who are great at both, but I don’t necessarily think you have to be great at both to be a great MC. It’s like you could be a great Blues guitarist, but suck at playing Classical guitar—that doesn’t make you a bad guitar player, it just means your specialty is one particular thing. 

Did you find that some elements of the art-form explained within the book came out as being more highly regarded or deemed 'more important' in certain regions? (e.g. did the east coast rappers interviewed place a greater importance on freestyling over rappers from the south.)

I didn’t really catch that happening at a regional level, but MCs who are very content based and political mostly would say that content is the main thing, MCs who are more delivery based will say it’s all about how you use your voice, crazy flow MCs will say it’s all about the flow. I think each region has its share of content MCs, its flow MCs, etc. so I don’t think there were any real broad generalizations to make there.

What do you hope readers of How To Rap will come away with after finishing it?

I hope that they’ll get a greater sense of what goes into the art form, and hopefully a broadened knowledge of different artists and styles. And if they want to learn how to rap, I hope they’ll sit down and really give it the time to become good at it, in the same way you might sit down and really learn to play piano or any skill really. I hope they have an increased depth of knowledge of hip-hop and appreciation for the MCs.

During the introduction a couple of emcees highlight the need to be aware of and familiar with the artists of earlier generations, the Big Daddy Kane's and the Rakim's. Do you think the next generation of artists are aware enough of some of this cannon of artists from earlier years and do you think it is actually essential if one wants to be a good rapper?

I think a lot of the new MCs know the names of the legendary figures, I don’t know if they’ve taken the time to really listen and appreciate them and learn from them though. I think it is important to have a strong foundation and know the pioneers. I think you can tell an MC who has studied Kool G Rap, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Melle Mel, all those guys, and an MC who has just heard a few hits on the radio and is basing his/her style on a limited set of techniques.

I think it’s a good way to learn as well, going back to the pioneers, because you can hear from one record to the next the development in technique because it was expanding so quickly at that point, and so it’s easier to pick out the bits you want to add to your style. I think as well it’s good to know the prototypes, so you have a Kool G Rap, then you have a Big Pun (RIP), then you have an Eminem, and you can hear how they’ve got parts of Kool G Rap’s techniques in there, but they’ve adapted them and made their own styles from there. I think in that way you can develop your style by seeing how other MCs have developed theirs.

Do you think some people wanting to be a 'career emcee' don't have a true understanding of the many facets that come together to become a good rapper? Do you think this book may be a wake up call to them? 

Yeah, I think one of the worst things that happened to hip-hop was where just being an MC isn’t enough, you have to be a hustler and a businessman, and that’s kind of got mixed up in how people judge MCs now. You hear people saying, “well I think this guy’s album is wack, but I appreciate his hustle,” like they’re a shareholder or something. I don’t think everyone has to be super lyrically hardcore, I think it’s fine to do club stuff or catchy stuff, as long as you love the art form and you’re putting everything you have into it. It seems like some artists today just want to play down the artistic side though, and make it more about the corporate game.

I hope How To Rap inspires people and artists out there today to really take pride in their work and get back to just mastering the art form and respecting the art form and doing it because they want to make great music, not just do it like it’s a get-rich-quick scheme. I think How To Rap will also be a good learning experience for kids who may have seen a few rappers on TV and want to rap, but would normally only listen to those handful of rappers and not go any deeper. I think with How To Rap they’ll be introduced to a huge variety of MCs immediately, all in one place, and to all their techniques, and I think that’s a great place to grow from.

Now that you've released this title what are your plans? Do have any further projects dealing with the same concept?

I’d love to do another book on rapping, and I’ll definitely do another one on hip-hop, though I haven’t picked a particular project yet. At the moment my focus is on getting How To Rap out and noticed—a lot of publishers are actually very wary of taking on hip-hop books because a lot of them are very academic and don’t find much of an audience, so there is a lot to prove when you bring out a hip-hop book.

In fact I’d say the amount of stuff you do for your book has a direct impact on every other hip-hop writer, because it means everyone has to work that much harder to get things published if the current books aren’t finding their audience. So I’d like to make it easier for future writers to put out hip-hop books by doing a good job!

So now that you've written the book on How To Rap. Can we expect an album from you? 

I rap as a fun thing to do with friends, though I don’t have any album plans!

For the book I made sure none of the techniques or opinions came from me—it’s only info that the professional MCs had given me. I think that’s an important point though, to say that you can get a lot from MCing without having any grand scale plans to put out music, it’s OK to have fun with it and use it as a way to express yourself and be creative.

If you DO want to take it further, then all the MCs in the book have given you the tools to do that and to learn from, but I don’t think everyone needs to try to make it into a career in order to get a lot from it.

Though if Primo, Pete Rock, Large Professor, DJ Quik, and Dr. Dre threw some beats my way and I got Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Clipse, and Pharoahe Monch doing guest verses for free, then I probably would consider it!

Talking to someone that has done so much rap research I have to ask.. what's the greatest rap song of all time? and greatest rap album? 

That’s such a tough question because different songs have different purposes and there are so many ways to judge—if it’s the greatest in terms of what it brought to the genre, maybe something by Melle Mel or Rakim or Kool G Rap, because those are the people who laid the groundwork and everyone uses their foundational techniques.

But then if it’s greatest as in how many people it touched and who connected with it, then it’d probably be something by 2Pac or Eminem or Jay-Z, because they reach so many people and so many people really, really are in love with their music. Then if you just want to judge on what is the most crazy-lyrical, crazy-flowing track, it might be something by Pharoahe Monch or Tech N9ne, because those guys excel at the actual mechanics of MCing. If it’s just pure meaning and content, then probably Common or Public Enemy, who put a lot of substance into their work.

Then albums are a whole ‘nother discussion, because there are some albums which are classics because of groundbreaking tracks on them, but have filler tracks on them as well. And there are others which are front to back amazing, but which didn’t really innovate.

So that’s my way of avoiding that question! But if you want a clearer answer, I can give you a couple of my favorites: Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story” is one of my favorite tracks because it has great content, flow, and delivery, and Public Enemy’s “It Takes A Nation…” is one of my favorite albums because it’s just so innovative in every aspect.

How To Rap is available now via Chicago Review Press at all good bookstores. For more info on How To Rap check the official site, howtorapbook.com which also has links for online purchasing.