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Rap Writing Competition with Ken Masters

Read North East invites you to #Take10 and enter our Rap Writing Competition

Monday 10 October is World Mental Health Day and the return of our #Take10ToRead campaign. Our research shows that reading and writing for just 10 minutes each day can improve our mental health and boost our mood!

As well as our national Take 10 moment, which encourages everybody to drop everything and read for 10 minutes, every year Read North East works with schools, community partners and local artists to promote the benefits of reading and writing.

This year Read North East have teamed up with Newcastle-born rapper and MC, Ken Masters, who has joined us to share some of his work and speak about how reading, writing, and rapping can make you feel good!

In the video below, Ken explains how writing and performing boosts his own wellbeing, performs a short rap inspired by a much-loved book, and invites you to take part in our Take 10 Rap Writing Competition.

Watch Ken's video then read on for the competition details.


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How to enter the competition

If you were inspired by Ken's rap and would like to try writing a short rap of your own, enter our competition!

  • Select a book or piece of writing that you enjoy (this could also be a poem or film)
  • Think of the characters and key moments of the story and write your own short rap inspired by this, using Ken's top tips to guide you (we've summarised these below)
  • Once you've written your rap, we'd love you to either: film yourself performing your rap or take a photo of your written rap, then send it to readnortheast@literacytrust.org.uk along with your name, age and contact number
  • Closing date for entries is Monday 31 October
  • The winner will be announced early November and will be contacted to receive a bundle of books!


Keep your eyes peeled for more announcements on our Facebook page: Read North East

Ken's Top Tips for Rap Writing

  1. Write your rap to fit a beat count of 4: the beat goes 1, 2, 3, 4 then repeats
  2. Before you write your rap, do a brainstorm on a separate sheet of paper to collect ideas. Write down all of the words you can think of that relate to your chosen book e.g. 'Harry Potter' 'Hogwarts' 'Dumbledore' 'Magic' 'Wizards' 'Spells'
  3. Using the words you've brainstormed as starting points, write your rap using a pen and paper
  4. Work in rhyming couplets. This is where the word at the end of the first line rhymes with the word at the end of the second line.
  5. Use Google to help you find words that rhyme


Find out more about Ken and his work

Ken Masters is an MC, Rapper, Performer and business owner from Newcastle. As well as creating and performing his own personal work, he produces, DJs, and heads up his progressive arts company - Knowledge Movement.

For rap tuition, music production, beatbox, DJ sessions and HipHop education, contact:

kenmasters@knowledgemovement.co.uk

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