How to Write Cloud Rap Songs

Cloud rap is the sound of a late night text message from a dream. It floats between trap and ambient music. It sounds like someone rapped into a pillow and then fed the result through a memory of a VHS player. If you want songs that feel sad and floaty or spaced out and gorgeous you came to the right place. This guide gives you the writing tricks, production moves, and lyrical ideas you need to make cloud rap that hits without sounding like a copy.

Everything here is written for real artists who do not have time for vague theory. You will find practical workflows, mixing and vocal chains, micro prompts that produce lines, and clear before and after examples. You will learn how to make a beat that breathes, write lyrics that feel like late night confessionals, and sing or rap with a tone that sounds intimate and otherworldly. We will explain any slang and acronyms with real life scenarios so you never have to Google while in the middle of a session again.

What Is Cloud Rap

Cloud rap is a sub style of hip hop that leans into atmosphere and mood over aggressive punch. Imagine trap drums and 808s wearing a fog machine mask. The genre often uses washed out synth pads, reverb heavy samples, sparse drums, and vocal deliveries that are soft, melodic, or distant.

Origins and pioneers

• Early influencers include Lil B and producers around him who embraced minimalism and weird internet energy. Lil B’s freeform style was a seed for the vibe.
• Clams Casino is a major producer name associated with the sound due to his shimmering, cinematic instrumentals he made for artists like A$AP Rocky.
• Artists such as Main Attrakionz and Yung Lean expanded the aesthetic into melancholic and global directions.

Key idea: cloud rap is a mood first approach. You craft a sonic environment that pulls listeners into a feeling before the lyric explains anything. The production and vocal tone do heavy lifting for emotion.

Core Characteristics of Cloud Rap

• Atmospheric textures such as long pads, reversed samples, and soft tape noise.
• Breathy vocal delivery that feels like a conversation whispered across a pillow.
• Sparse drums that leave space for the atmosphere to glow. Kicks and 808s are often present but never crowded.
• Slow to mid tempos roughly between sixty and one hundred BPM. Many producers use double time feel to keep flows flexible.
• Melodic autotune usage not as a gimmick but as texture. Pitch correction is used to add color and a slightly unreal sheen.
• Dreamy lyricism that blends internet imagery, emotional honesty, and surreal metaphors.

Terminology and Tools Explained

Here are terms you will see in this guide with plain language definitions.

• DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation. This is the software you make beats and record in. Examples would be FL Studio, Ableton Live, or Logic Pro. Think of it like a digital studio room.
• 808 originally refers to the Roland TR 808 drum machine bass sound. Today 808 means a sub heavy bass that you can feel in your chest. It is the heartbeat of many trap and cloud rap tracks.
• Autotune is a brand name for pitch correction software. In cloud rap artists use it softly to make vocals sound slightly out of reality. It can be a subtle glossy sheen or an obvious melodic effect.
• Pad is a soft synth sound that fills space. Pads create the cloud part of cloud rap. They are the sonic fog that makes everything feel distant.
• Tape saturation means adding warmth and tiny distortion like old tape recorders did. It makes digital sounds feel lived in.
• Sidechain is a mixing trick where one sound reduces volume when another sound plays. Producers often sidechain pads to the kick so the bass hits clearly.
• FX stands for effects such as reverb and delay. These are the tools that make things float or echo in space.

Real life example

Picture you at three AM in an airport. The overhead lights hum like a synth pad. Someone is playing a tiny piano loop on their phone near gate six. You feel isolated but oddly calm. That feeling is what a cloud rap beat wants to make the listener feel.

Tempo, Rhythm, and Groove

Cloud rap often lives in slow to medium tempos. Aim for a range between sixty and one hundred BPM. You can count it in a relaxed pulse. If you want a faster vocal flow try doubling the tempo conceptually while keeping beats sparse.

Drum programming tips

• Keep the kick pocketed. The kick does not need to smash through the mix. Let it thump politely so the pad can breathe.
• Use simple hi hat patterns. Avoid overly busy rolls unless you want a trap leaning moment. When you do use rolls keep them soft and filtered.
• Claps and snares can sit behind reverb. A wet clap will sound like a clap in a big empty room.
• Try off grid timing on some percussion for human feel. Slight shifts make the groove feel like a half asleep head nod.

Creating the Beat Atmosphere

Atmosphere is the whole show. Make the pad or sample interesting and keep the drums supportive. Here is a practical workflow to build a cloud rap beat.

1. Choose a root chord. Pick a minor chord for melancholic vibe or a suspended chord for floating ambiguity.
2. Lay down a pad. Use a soft pad sound with slow attack and long release. Let it breathe for two to six seconds of decay.
3. Add a melodic motif. Keep it simple. A four note phrase with reverb and light chorus is enough.
4. Add gentle noise or vinyl crackle for texture. Low level is all you need so it never becomes annoying.
5. Bring in a kick and 808. Let the 808 sit under the pad. Use sidechain compression so the pad ducks on the kick.
6. Place sparse percussive details like a rim shot or a distant bell. Use reverb sends so they sit in the back of the sound field.

Tip about samples

Reversed or stretched samples are cloud rap gold. Take a short sample, time stretch it, then add slow attack and long reverb. You will get pads that feel familiar but strange. If you sample a Bible verse spoken eight bars in a movie you become the weird uncle at a dinner party in a helpful way.

Harmonic Choices and Chord Voicings

Keep chords simple but wide. Use open voicings that avoid mud in the low mids. Try these ideas.

• Spread chord tones across stereo field for width. Put the root in mono and the higher notes a little left and right.
• Add an ambient fourth or second. Sus2 and sus4 chords create unresolved feelings which suits cloud rap.
• Use modal interchange by borrowing one chord from the parallel key to shift color. In a minor key borrow a major chord for a hopeful flicker.

Vocal Delivery and Melody

Vocals in cloud rap are intimate and often fragile. You want the listener to feel like you spoke directly into their ear. Here is how to do that while keeping the melody catchy.

Tone and performance

Sing or rap softly. Push breath into consonants so the performance feels like a confession. Use more syllable space and a slower cadence than usual. When you need emphasis push harder on one or two words to create contrast.

Autotune as texture

Use pitch correction with care. Set the retune speed slower than trap pop settings to avoid cartoonish warble. You want subtle pitch nudges that make the vocal feel slightly unreal. If you like the obvious computer voice pick a fast retune speed on the chorus as an effect rather than default.

Doubling and harmonic layering

Record two takes and pan one left and one right slightly. Add a third take an octave above or a fifth below with heavy processing for a ghostly harmony. Use wide chorus on these layers to avoid a stock doubling sound.

Ad libs and textures

Few ad libs work better than soft oohs and ahhs filtered and pitched. Place them behind the chorus as echoing companions. They should feel like a supporting choir that is too shy to show its face.

Lyric Writing for Cloud Rap

Cloud rap lyrics are often dreamy, internet native, and emotionally direct. They rely on strong images and odd combinations that read like fragmented memory. Here are concrete rules and examples so your verses stop sounding like a diary entry from a public restroom stall.

Core themes

• Loneliness and isolation with polite acceptance.
• Digital relationships and strange small wins online.
• Luxury and sadness combined, like crying in a designer hoodie.
• Surreal images and unexpected metaphors.

Real life writing scenario

Imagine you are waiting for a coach bus that is late and your battery is at six percent. You could write about the bus. Or you can write this line: The charging port eats my thumb like a cranky cat and I scroll old stories like tarot. The second option gives texture and emotional motion without being explicit.

Before and after lyric edits

Before: I miss you at night.

After: My phone lights a ghost on my ceiling at two AM and I practice saying your name quiet enough to keep the neighbors asleep.

Before: I am sad and I buy things.

After: My cart still holds the denim I never wore. I buy dark jeans like currency for a better version of me.

Prosody and Flow

Prosody means matching the natural rhythm of words to the music. Cloud rap needs prosody because the beats are sparse and words stand naked. If your stressed syllables fall on weak beats the line will drag.

Practice this

1. Read your lines out loud slowly. Circle the syllables that feel strong when spoken.
2. Tap the beat with your foot. Place the circled syllables on the beats that feel like home.
3. Rewrite any line that forces a stress onto a weak beat. Swap words or change phrase length.

Hooks That Stay Soft but Sticky

Cloud rap hooks are not about belting. They are about repetition and texture. Keep the hook two to five short lines. Use a title phrase that is simple enough to hum and strange enough to be memorable.

1. Pick a two to three word title. Short is better.
2. Sing it on an easy vowel. Vowels like ah and oh are comfortable and singable.
3. Repeat the title with tiny variations. Change one word on the last repeat to create emotion.

Example

Title: Blue Night

Hook: Blue night. The city swallows my shoelaces. Blue night. I learn to breathe slower than the traffic.

Arrangement and Structure

Cloud rap often uses unusual structures because atmosphere matters more than traditional verse chorus verse shapes. Here are templates you can steal.

Template A: Slow Bloom

• Intro with pad and ambient sample for eight bars
• Verse one eight to sixteen bars with light percussion
• Hook eight bars with autotune layer and subtle ad libs
• Instrumental ambient break four bars
• Verse two sixteen bars with added percussion and vocal doubling
• Hook repeat with a new harmony layer
• Outro ambient fade with a vocal ghost

Template B: Minimal Loop

• Cold open with hook looped immediately
• Short verse eight bars
• Hook repeat twice
• Bridge idea with reversed sample then final hook

Mixing and Production Tricks

Good mixing makes cloud rap shine. You want depth without mud and shimmer without losing clarity. Use this checklist.

• High pass most instruments above forty to eighty Hertz except 808 and kick.
• Cut competing mid frequencies around two to five kilohertz for pads so vocals can sit forward.
• Send vocals to a long reverb with pre delay between twenty and sixty milliseconds so the vocal stays present before the reverb blooms.
• Use a stereo delay on ad libs set to dotted eighth or quarter note to create movement. Automate feedback so it drops before important lines.
• Saturate the master bus lightly to glue elements together. Too much and the atmosphere collapses into a messy stew.

Vocal Effect Chain Example

Here is a practical order for processing a vocal. You can copy this chain into your session and tweak parameters.

1. De noise or high pass to remove rumble.
2. Light corrective EQ to remove harsh peaks.
3. Compression with gentle ratio to control dynamics.
4. Pitch correction set to your scale with slow to medium retune speed for texture.
5. Doubling or subtle chorus for width on hooks.
6. Sends to a long plate or hall reverb with low wet amount for main vocal color.
7. Sends to a ping pong or stereo delay with low feedback for spacing on ad libs.
8. De-esser to tame sibilance if the reverb brings it forward.
9. Bus compression to glue stacked vocals.

Creative Vocal Effects to Try

• Formant shift up by a few cents for a thinner ghost layer.
• Pitch shift one voice down an octave with heavy filtering for weight behind the main vocal.
• Reverse a short vocal tail and place it before the chorus as an eerie lead in.
• Granular stutter on the last vowel of a phrase for a fragmented feeling.

Writing Exercises And Prompts

These micro drills create lyrics and melodies when you are staring at the blank screen like a sea slug in a studio chair.

Object in the Airport Drill

Pick an object near you. Write eight lines where the object acts like a person. Ten minutes.

Two Image Swap

Write a chorus that contains two images. Repeat each image twice. Change the second repeat of the second image to reveal the emotion. Five minutes.

Vowel Melody Pass

Sing nonsense vowels over the beat for two minutes. Mark melodies you want to repeat. Put a short phrase on the best melody. Keep the phrase under five words.

Night City Prompt

Write about a city at night but do not use the words night, lonely, or dark. Use specific objects and actions. Fifteen minutes.

Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them

• Too much busy percussion. If the beat feels crowded remove hi hats and let the pad carry emotion.
• Vocals too loud or too dry. Use reverb and doubling then bring the lead up to sit on top of the field like a whisper in a cathedral.
• Lyrics too generic. Add a physical detail or an odd verb. A specific image reduces generic sadness and raises authenticity.
• Overused autotune settings. Change scale or tuning to fit the song. Use autotune for texture not a crutch.
• Mix is muddy. Cut competing mids. Make room for the vocal and the 808 separately.

Release And Branding Tips For Cloud Rap Artists

Cloud rap is visual as well as sonic. Your cover art, font choices, and short videos will communicate mood faster than any press release. Think in colors and textures.

• Use pastel or washed out palettes for art. Or choose neon pastel clash if you want to lean weird.
• Create lo fi visuals that match sonic texture. Grain and VHS style aesthetics are classics for the genre.
• Short videos loop well. Make eight to fifteen second loops that emphasize a single visual motif from the song.
• Play with single line captions that feel like poetry. One strong line can become the track title and social copy.

How To Finish A Song Fast

1. Lock a four bar loop that contains your pad and main melody.
2. Record a first pass vocal idea on top. Do not fix anything. Save the messy take.
3. Build a second section by changing the drums or adding a subtle synth stab.
4. Create a chorus by repeating a short phrase. Keep it under five words if possible.
5. Mix for clarity quickly. Carve space around the vocal and finalize a reverb setting that becomes the song voice.
6. Export a demo and sit on it for twenty four hours before making big changes. Fresh ears will save you from deleting something that actually works.

Examples and Model Lines You Can Use

Here are usable lyric examples and edits to practice the voice and texture.

Theme: Missing someone you never met in real life.

Verse: The DM light is a slow candle. I practice a reply but the words sleep in drafts.

Hook: Pixel heart. Pixel heart. We love in low resolution.

Theme: Fame feeling unreal.

Verse: People say hello like they read me in a highlight reel. I smile and feel like a cameo in my own life.

Hook: Cameo life. Cameo life. I wave from behind glass that never warms.

Common Questions About Cloud Rap

Do I need a lot of expensive gear to make cloud rap

No. You need a decent pair of headphones or monitors, a DAW, and a microphone that captures warmth. Many cloud rap beats are built from simple pads and samples so creativity matters more than gear. You can get a demo sounding track from free plugins and careful mixing. Invest in learning reverb and delay and you will gain more than buying the latest synth preset pack.

Is cloud rap just sad rap

Not always. Cloud rap often explores introspection and melancholia but it can be playful, ironic, or aggressively dreamy. The common element is atmosphere. Sad songs are common because the sonic textures support vulnerability. You can write upbeat cloud rap by choosing major tonalities and brighter pad colors.

How important are vocal imperfections

Very. Small breath noises, off pitch moments, and raw consonants make performances feel human. Cloud rap relies on intimacy. Clean perfection can make the track feel plastic unless you intentionally use perfection as a color. Keep one raw take in your stack and use it to remind the song of life.

Action Plan You Can Use Today

1. Open your DAW. Set tempo between seventy and eighty five BPM.
2. Lay a minor pad with long release and slow attack. Let it play for eight bars.
3. Add a four note motif on a bell or tinted piano with heavy reverb.
4. Program a sparse kick and 808. Sidechain the pad to the kick.
5. Record a vowel melody for two minutes. Mark the best four bar idea.
6. Write one hook line of two to five words. Repeat it and change one word on the last repeat.
7. Layer a soft harmony and automate a high pass filter on the pad to open on the chorus.
8. Export a demo and send it to one person for feedback with a single question. Ask which line felt like a real thing.

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