The AI cat rap, starring your cat or dog

How to make a cat rap video yourself

You do not need this page to make one. This is how the video is put together, with the prompts for its one shot, so you can build it with any picture model and image-to-video model you like.

1. Step 1

   Write four short bars of your own

   Write a verse of about forty syllables, four lines that rhyme in pairs, about things any pet does: naps, treats, the sofa, the window. Keep it your own: no names, no lines from someone else's song, nothing rude, so the video can be posted without being muted.

2. Step 2

   Draw the still: the face first, then the mic

   Use a picture model that takes a reference photo. Say the framing in the first sentence, your pet filling the frame with its face large in the centre and its mouth slightly open, then hang the microphone on a cable that runs down from the top of the frame to just beside its mouth, then the plain wall behind.

3. Step 3

   Animate it with the words, the voice and the beat in one prompt

   Give the still to an image-to-video model that makes sound with the picture, and put everything in one prompt: the verse in quotes, male or female voice, a tight rap flow, boom-bap drums and an 808, and the mouth opening and closing with every syllable. Ask for one continuous take of about ten seconds and keep the sound it comes with.

The shot, second by second

The prompts

The whole video is one shot, made in two steps. Give its still prompt to a picture model with your pet's photo as the reference, then give the picture it draws to an image-to-video model with the motion prompt. Add these endings to both prompts: they set the look and keep your pet the same from the first frame to the last.

1. 0–10sOn the mic

   Still prompt

   Copy

   A close shot: the pet in the reference photo fills most of the vertical frame, sitting upright, its head and chest in the upper half, its face large and sharp in the centre, looking straight into the lens with a serious, focused stare, its mouth slightly open mid-word. A large silver studio microphone hangs on a black cable that runs straight down from the top edge of the frame, its round grille right beside the pet's cheek at the height of its mouth, just to one side so the mouth stays in full view. Behind it, a small recording studio with one seamless solid teal wall behind, evenly lit, nothing on it. No people anywhere in the frame.

   Motion prompt

   Copy

   The pet raps straight into the camera beside the hanging microphone: "Woke up from my nap and the sun hit the floor, paws on the mic and the crowd wants more, treats in the bowl and the bass on repeat, whole house nodding, I don't miss a beat." A confident male voice, a tight rhythmic male rap flow over hard boom-bap drums and a deep 808 bass. Its own animal mouth and jaw open and close in sync with every syllable, its whiskers twitching, its head bobbing on the beat; now and then one front paw lifts and taps the air in time. It does not smile: a serious, focused expression throughout. The camera holds with a slight handheld sway.

Where it goes wrong

• Hang the mic from the top of the frame

  Asked only for a microphone level with the pet's mouth, the picture model hung it above the head, where it looks like a lamp. Say that the cable runs straight down from the top edge of the frame and that the grille stops right beside the cheek, to one side, so the mouth stays in view.

• Do not name what should be out of frame

  Trying to keep the shot tight, we wrote that the paws and the floor were out of frame. The picture model drew both, the whole pet sitting small on a carpet, and an extra microphone floating by its mouth. Say what fills the frame instead: the head and chest, the face large in the centre.

• Ask for its own mouth, not lips

  Say the pet raps with its own animal mouth and jaw. Words like lips and teeth are what a person raps with, and a video model takes the hint. Written this way, the cat and the dog in our samples kept their own mouths and teeth, and the paw that tapped the beat stayed a paw.

• Keep it to one take

  The voice and the beat are made with each clip, so two clips cut together change rapper and tempo at the cut. Make the whole verse in one continuous take, and keep the verse short enough to fit it.

• Your own pet, or with the owner’s yes

  Use your own cat or dog, or a pet whose owner agreed. Do not use a celebrity’s pet or a famous animal account, and keep real rappers and their songs out of your prompt and your verse.

• Label it as AI-generated

  Switch on TikTok's AI-generated content label before you post. A realistic clip of a cat rapping is exactly the kind people ask about, and viewers trust a post that says so.