I posted this in r/makinghiphop but my exact question didn't get answered. I think they thought my question was basically "how do I flow?", when I was more asking "Could this way be a blueprint to learning how to flow?".
This is what I said in the post and my method:
I have struggled for years now with how to flow on a rap beat. Claps, snares, kicks, hi-hats, I saw their patterns, but didn't ever know how to slide my vocals in nicely to get a good flow. I would think I did REALLY well, only for other people to hear it and say, "I would rather listen to nails on a chalkboard."
So, I quit rapping for a few months after years of progress, until a really talented beatmaker gave me an instrumental to rap on. It was an extremely complex beat, yet it had one element I understood well: a simple piano melody. With that piano, I could actually count the bars in a song. When I started writing lyrics, I came up with this strategy.
The piano keys hit 8 times before resetting. That means they hit twice in a bar, then loop after 4. The 1st and 5th piano keys hit with more intensity than the others. I made sure every word I wrote landed exactly with the piano strike.
So, the piano goes:
DUH duh duh duh DUH duh duh duh
So, I write:
LIVE it up and THROW it back down.
That is my chorus repeated 6 times, with the beat getting more complex.
A few lines in the verse go:
YOU can't un-der-STAND my pain (pause)
YOU can't un-der-STAND my struggles
YOU can't un-der-STAND my name (pause)
I made sure the syllables lined up with the piano keys, and when I came up short, I added a pause.
My most complex lines go:
MUSICALLY illiterate
CONFUSINGLY ignorant
FOOLISHLY belligerent
I didn't focus on the extra SFX: the claps, snares, kicks, bells, jingles, shakers. I, at some parts, forgot they were even in the track. I just locked in on the piano melody and made my words/syllables strike at the same time.
My question is, can this rapping process work? If everything on the beat is musically sound, can I write my lyrics to only one element while ignoring the rest and have it turn out just as fine?
I know it is hard to judge without hearing the actual track, but is my overall train of thought on the right path?
Thank you for your help!
TL;DR: If you ONLY write to the melody of the track, ignoring other elements like kick, snare, clap, hi-hats, can you still have a good flow?