How To Rap: Should You Fake An American Accent?

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For the short answer, I think it’s best to use your natural accent and not try to be something you’re not, here’s a few reasons why:

Harder To Build A Local Fan Base

A huge number of rappers want to start rapping so they can eventually share it with others. Some of the fans you have the most access to are local to your location. Now, you may have moved somewhere your accent is different, but if you use a fake accent which is different from the local dialect, you could have a very hard time winning people over. Rap has deep roots in being authentic and it could be difficult to get a local following if you’re appealing to an audience somewhere else.

Too Hard To Maintain

It takes a lot of work to maintain a fake accent. Actors spend a lot of time developing and perfecting accents for roles. While it’s certainly possible to pull off a fake accent, it takes lots of work and if you’re learning how to rap, it’s an unnecessary extra step. You’ll have to learn to keep up an accent while learning to flow and all the other aspects. For many of you, it will simply slow down your journey to learn the skills.

I’d recommend learning to rap well first, then if you feel like you need to adjust your accent you can try it. It’s going to be hard though, as you’ll likely have lots of slips out which are going to sound unnatural if you try to use any words other than common ones you can easily recreate.

Not Authentic

This is my biggest point against using a fake accent. If the accent is fake to you it’s not going to come out naturally. People may or may not pick up on it, but I feel like if you have to strain and create some falsity in yourself to create music, you’re not going to make your best work. You simply won’t be in tune with yourself. You’re trying to be someone else, and that’s almost always going to bring down the quality of your work.

Great, so I’ve outlined a few reasons why you should use your own accent in your rap voice, but how can you find your rap voice? If you keep the accent, you’ll never sound like the famous rappers from the United States. …..and? There’s no reason to copy someone else’s style or track. Here are a few things to think about though if you’re rapping in english with an accent

Become Confident In Your Unique Sound

Here’s the bottom line. No matter where you’re from you have an accent. I have an accent. Now, I happen to have a specific type of accent that’s fairly common in the united states…..but that doesn’t mean it’s not an accent. Rappers you hear have a wide variety of accents, you need to take your sound, your accent and become more confident in it.

Normally I wouldn’t approach the topic this way, but many individuals asking this question are looking at combating some form of self-doubt. Throw what you think people expect out the window. It doesn’t matter. What’s going to resonate most strongly is something genuine to you. You have your own unique sound - work on bringing that out and don’t worry about adopting a specific persona.

Pronunciation Will Be Key

If you choose to use your natural accent but still want to appeal to audiences in the united states, your pronunciation will be key. The accent shouldn’t be a problem, but the clarity of your words could be. If your rapping has such a strong accent slant people can’t understand the lyrics, you may lose some of your audience.

Play around with authentic variations

Another technique you can try is to play around with authentic variations. For example, I don’t use the exact same speaking voice and rapping voice. If I want to come off more aggressively, I tap into a voice style I pretty much never use in normal conversation, however, it’s a performance voice. It’s not fake or recreated based on someone else, it’s a style I worked on myself.

You can do something the same. Maybe you don’t use your exact same accent, but you also don’t fake an american one. You play within the confines of what you can do to create a unique style of your own. It can take a while, but keep experimenting with different ways of speaking.

Hopefully that helps you decide how you want to use your accent in rap. Let me know if you have other questions! Cheers!

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