Kema Kay

Rapper
Singer
Songwriter
Producer

Activities

Watch Kema’s interview:

Songwriting

Activity 1

Listen to Kema’s track ‘Take That Away’:

What do you notice about the song?

• What are the lyrics about?

• How does the music connect with the theme of the lyrics?

• What’s the mood of the music and lyrics?

• Do you notice any patterns in the lyrics or music?

Kema has used song writing as way of exploring his life, discussing the discrimination and racism he experienced growing up alongside the trauma of losing his mother. Music has been a massive outlet for him, and he credits it as a major support in his successes to date, in terms of building self-confidence.

As a theme we are going to explore our own identities and use the phrase:

I am good enough

Activity 2 - Rhyme Alliteration Warm-Up Game

This is a game where people have to fill a one beat space with a word that either rhymes with the previous word (frog and dog) or starts with the same first letter (dog and door). They must do this whilst staying in time with a beat or pulse.

Step 1

Start by creating a simple body percussion 4 beat groove, as follows:

Step 2

The game begins with the first person or leader rapping the following lines over the body percussion groove. The game then begins either going round the circle with each person filling the space in turn, or it can bounce back between the leader and each person un turn.

This is a game about rapping and rhyming, alliteration, and your timing

Ready _ begin _

I say frog you say dog

I say dog you say door

I say door you say ????

I say ???? you say ????

This could be a circle game or a game in pairs. You can decide whether people get a set number of lives, which they then lose if they make a mistake. The important things are to keep a steady beat, make sure you say your word in the right space and that you’re either rhyming or saying a word that starts with the same letter.

Activity 3 - Thought Clouds

Step 1

Close your eyes (if you feel comfortable) and think about the statement ‘I am good enough’. What do we think this means, to be good enough? Spend two minutes thinking about the following:

• What do you notice?

• What images come into your head?

• What do hear, feel, see, smell and taste?

• What memories do you have?

Open your eyes, and chat to your partner about what you both noticed or what you were thinking about.

Step 2

Using a thought cloud (like the one below), write down all your ideas. There are no right or wrong idea! You might write down single words, or phrases and sentences.

See if you can write down at least 10 ideas… the more, the better!

Activity 4 - Creating Metaphors

A metaphor is a way of describing something by saying it is something else.

Using our senses, we are going to create a list of ideas around our theme and using the ideas we wrote down in our thought cloud. Come up with as many ideas as you can.

When I think about the phrase ‘I am good enough’

I can see…

Eg. I can see myself scoring a penalty.

I can hear…

Eg. I can hear the crowd cheering and chanting my name.

I can taste…

Eg. I can taste the hot chocolate my mam makes for me.

I feel…(could be emotions as well as textures)

Eg. I feel warm inside beneath my crispy clean bed sheets

I can smell…

Eg. I can smell my favourite dinner

Activity 5 - Rhyming Couplets

In Kema’s lyrics he uses rhyming couplets. Sometimes two lines will rhyme following a pattern AA BB.

In his song ‘Take That Away’, he uses an A B A B pattern where alternate lines rhyme:

A - When you hear my voice do you feel my pain

B - It’s not a mystery,

A - But when I use it I know it’s not in vain

B - I’m here to make history

We are going to try and rhyme with the last word of each of our sentences from Activity 3.

Step 1

Write down your first sentence from above and underline the last word.

I can see myself scoring a penalty

Write down as many words as you can think of which rhyme with this word. You can use a rhyming dictionary to help you if you like:

RhymeZone rhyming dictionary and thesaurus

Penalty – heavenly, recipe, jealousy, melody

Complete this for your 4 best metaphor ideas… You can continue to do even more if you like.

Step 2

Of your rhyming words, think about which word connects best with your sentence theme.

Try and write a sentence which connects with your sentence and ends with your rhyming word. Complete this for all your sentences.

I can see myself scoring a penalty

It makes me feel inside all heavenly

Activity 6 - Metre, Measure, Music

This activity is thinking about the rhythm of your words and how they fit against a beat.

We need to think about measure – how many beats in each line? Or in music we might say how many beats in a bar. In the song Take That Away, Kema uses 4 beats in a bar.

We need to make sure that each sentence or each line of lyrics fits against 4 beats.

We then need to think about metre – the amount of syllables in each line and how we stress each syllable.

I can see myself scoring a penalty – This line has 11 syllables

Depending on how quickly we say different words can affect the stress of each syllables.

Here’s a table to explain:

The rhyming line: it makes me feel inside all heavenly – has 10 syllables. Because there’s a similar number of syllables on each line they go together well. If you have two many syllables on one line it can create imbalance when you try and rap them against a beat. If this is the case try and find ways of reducing or increasing the number of syllables.

See if you can produce 4 rhyming couplets and then rap them against a beat.