Definition
Flow is the way the rapper distributes syllables, accents and rhymes over the rhythmic grid of the beat. This card is rhythmic and technical: how syllables are mapped onto the grid, which flows are typical and how the triplet flow works. The card “Flow and rhythmic writing in rap” covers writing and style.
The rap grid
A 4/4 bar contains 16 sixteenth notes: the standard “canvas” of rap. Syllables are placed on these slots; rhymes usually fall on the strong slots (beat 4, slot 13; or on the backbeat).
- Eighth-note flow (8 syllables per bar): slow, spoken, very old school or relaxed trap.
- Sixteenth-note flow (up to 16 syllables): the standard flow of boom bap and “tight” trap.
- Double-time (32 syllables, thirty-second notes): displays of speed (Twista; the fast section of Eminem's “Rap God,” 2013; Busta Rhymes in Chris Brown's “Look at Me Now,” 2011).
- Triplets: 12 syllables per bar (eighth-note triplets) or 24 (sixteenth-note triplets).
The triplet flow
The rapper divides each beat into three equal syllables while the beat stays in a binary subdivision (sixteenth notes): this creates a continuous 3 against 4. The sound is “rolling,” cascading. The musicologist Ben Duinker (“Good things come in threes: triplet flow in recent hip-hop music,” Popular Music, 2019) distinguishes mixed uses (some triplets within a sixteenth-note flow), phrasal uses (whole phrases in triplets) and total uses (the entire verse), and shows that the patterns date back to the late '80s and early '90s (for example Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and the Memphis scene with Three 6 Mafia), before the popularity of the 2010s tied to Migos (“Versace,” 2013; “Bad and Boujee,” 2016), so much so that people speak of the “Migos flow.”
How to write a triplet flow
- Count “1-trip-let 2-trip-let 3-trip-let 4-trip-let”: each syllable occupies one eighth-note triplet.
- Three-syllable words with the accent on the first syllable (dactyls: “MÀ-chi-na,” “RÌ-de-re”) naturally fall on the triplet with the accent on the beat.
- Rests inside the triplet create variety: “x x . | x x x | . x x”.
- Return to sixteenth notes at the end of the phrase to let the contrast be heard and close on the rhyme.
Pocket, rushing and dragging
- Pocket: how closely the flow adheres to the groove; rappers “on beat” (syllables exactly on the grid) vs “laid back” (behind, 10–30 ms) vs “push” (ahead).
- Rhyme accent: often on the backbeat (snare), for mutual reinforcement.
- Breath: leaving the slots before the snare empty makes the snare stronger.
Interaction with the beat
- In half-time trap (snare on 3 at 140 BPM) there are 16 sixteenth notes at 140, that is, 32 slots per “perceived bar”: triplet flow on this grid is very fast.
- Triplet hi-hats and triplet flow together: coherence, but risk of monotony; the producer often removes the rolls when the rapper does triplets.
- 808 and rhymes: 808 notes synced to the final rhymes give “punch.”
Example
Beat at 140 BPM in A minor (808 on A1, F1, C2, G1). Bars 1–2: sixteenth-note flow with a rhyme on slot 13; bar 3: eighth-note triplets across the whole bar (12 syllables); bar 4: return to sixteenth notes with a rest on slots 9–10 to leave the snare uncovered, final rhyme on slot 15 ahead of the following 1.
Exercise
- On a trap beat, write 4 bars in sixteenth notes and rewrite the same words in triplets: which syllables change accent?
- Transcribe onto a 16 × 4 grid (a sheet of paper or the Piano Roll with one note per syllable) a famous verse in triplet flow and one in sixteenth notes; compare the position of rhymes and rests.
- Record the same verse on beat, laid back and push and compare the groove.
Connections
“Flow and rhythmic writing in rap”, “Triplets and irregular groups in the groove”, “Polyrhythms”, “Advanced half-time and double-time”, “Prosody”.