Get smart! How to upload your lyrics to Genius

A big part of artists connecting with their fans is the lyrics, and with his upcoming album Over:Time coming out in less than seven weeks, WordPlay T. Jay is adding his lyrics to one of the most popular lyric sites — www.genius.com.
Many artists use their phones to type lyrics out, or on a word processor on a computer, and others, like T. Jay, stick with the old school pen to paper method. To upload lyrics to Genius, the first thing you’ll have to do is get them in a digital format. If already typed on a phone, you can copy and paste, but if not, the easiest way is on a computer using a word processor like Microsoft Word or Apple’s TextEdit.
Once typed and ready to go, there are a number of guidelines Genius has to help you format lyrics correctly and include everything.
Information on how Genius works, like how to add songs, how to annotate, how to add metadata, etc., can be found at: www.genius.com/Genius-how-genius-works-annotated.
Some things that you need to be prepared for are:
• Making sure lyrics are accurate when it comes to spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.
• Transcribe lyrics as they are said, all of them, even if repeated (including ad libs)
• Transcribe the streaming versions of songs
• Formatting lyrics, with each part of the song, verses, chorus and bridge, labeled in brackets with the performer
During the upload process, you can add the album, song title, contributors, producers, etc. And, once uploaded, you can continue adding artwork, metadata and annotations.
Annotating lyrics is key because it helps fans understand where your inspiration for lyrics comes from.
In T. Jay’s case, a line from At The Top goes, “Making hits and I don’t battle cause I rather trunks rattle/Ain’t no cell in my future, not an enemy that matters.”
T. Jay annotated that line with this inside information: “This line refers to Dragonball Z. It is a double entendre. WordPlay T. Jay talks about how he rather not battle other rappers, but his focus is on making songs that people enjoy. He also talks about how he doesn’t make enemies to avoid conflict, violence, and jail time. This metaphor references the Cell saga in the Dragonball Z story. Trunks, son of Vegeta, comes from the future to warn the Z fighters of an enemy named Cell.”
For more about how to upload to Genius and a visual depiction of how to format lyrics, check out the video below!