Def Jam Rapstar Trophy Guide & Road Map

Def Jam Rapstar
Def Jam Rapstar Trophy Guide

Please Note: The servers for this game were shut down in 2011. If you are starting fresh, then the platinum trophy will not be attainable.

Overview:
Estimated Platinum Difficulty: 6/10? (Really depends on musical/rhythmic abilities)
Estimated Time To Platinum: No longer possible.
Offline Trophies: 44 (1 Platinum Trophy , 3 Gold Trophy , 5 Silver Trophy , 35 Bronze Trophy )
Online Trophies: 7 (All ’s)
Minimum Number Of Playthroughs Required: 1 (Plus some clean-up trophies)
Do Cheats Affect Trophies?: No Cheats Known
Does Difficulty Affect Trophies?: Yes, there are five difficulty-related trophies ('We Are The Best','Seal The Deal','All Eyez On Me','Perfection Is Perfected', & 'Unstoppable')
Glitched Trophies: None Reported
Missable Trophies: None. You may replay any song after they are unlocked.

NOTE: This game requires two microphones & a PS3 Eye to Platinum. Personally, I wouldn’t completely shy away from the game because of that fact, but it is a significant investment of money to Platinum unless you have some good friends or extra peripherals lying around.

Introduction:
Welcome to Def Jam Rapstar! To clarify, this game is not a fighting game (like the previous Def Jam titles on various consoles); it is basically a hip-hop/rap version of a Singstar or Guitar Hero/Rock Band type of game. Roughly half of the 45 songs included in the game have actual singing parts in it, but most singing parts are fairly short and easy. The main focus of the game is to keep up with the lyrics, timing, and pitch of several popular songs within the hip-hop genre. If you listen to a lot of hip-hop/rap and are decent at rapping or keeping up with the pace of the lyrics, this game will be a breeze to you. If you are not a fan of hip-hop or at least open to listening to a lot of hip-hop music, I wouldn’t recommend trying to play this game just for the platinum, since it does take a fair amount of practice and memorization of hip-hop/rap music to complete some of the trophy requirements. Overall, this game is nicely done, has a great soundtrack, and is a lot of fun to play with friends.

Step 1: Play Career Mode & Finish The Game
I would recommend starting out by playing all of the songs on Hard difficulty in Career Mode since it really isn’t that much more difficult than Easy, but you can choose to play them all on Easy. Either way, you will likely have to replay several songs along the way to get them to an “Off The Chain” rating (5-Mic performances), but playing on Hard in Career Mode will allow you will unlock the majority of the trophies in the game and get very close to the ‘Unstoppable’ trophy (50 “On Point”/3-Mic performances on Hard difficulty). The main goal here by playing Career Mode is to familiarize yourself with the game and try to work toward getting “Off The Chain/5-Mic” performances on every song for the ‘Microphone Fiend!’ trophy (305 Microphones in Career Mode). Along the way, try to pay attention to the songs you are best at performing and keep them in mind for later use in the other steps of the game.

Step 2: Clean-Up Career Mode, Challenge, Playlist, & Difficulty Trophies
As described above, this is where you will want to go back and get “Off The Chain” ratings for every song in the game in addition to completing all of the Challenges in the game with 5-Mic ratings to get the ‘Microphone Fiend!’ trophy. As long as you finished the game in Step 1, you will have unlocked Expert Difficulty which will allow you to attempt two additional trophies (‘Seal The Deal’ & ‘All Eyez On Me’) on the song you are the best at. You should finish up two other difficulty-related trophies in this step 'Unstoppable' & 'Perfection Is Perfected', which you may already have if you followed Step 1. Also during Step 2, you should go to Party Mode and line up playlists of 5 and 10 songs you are best at to get the solo playlist trophies (‘Get The Party Started Right’, ‘Chain Reaction’, & ‘Go The Distance’).

Step 3: Online & PS3 Eye Trophies
This step is actually quite easy, but can be very time consuming. The first thing you want to do is go to Community at the main screen and Register for a log-in to the Def Jam Community. Once you have that plug in your PS3 Eye and perform your best song on Easy with a 5-Mic performance. Save & Edit the video (which will save only 30-seconds of it) and then Upload it to the Community. This game is actually quite intuitive and it asks you questions every step of the way as long as you have your PS3 Eye plugged in. After getting the first video uploaded (which will give you the ‘World Premiere’ and ‘Immaculately Polished’ trophies), you can simply create and save 14 more “performances” in Freestyle mode (‘Scorch The Booth’, ‘Lyrical Player Pro’ & ‘Hyped Up’). Each of these “performances” can honestly be just 1-second long videos of whatever you want to record (I would avoid profanity though). Record a video of your ceiling fan or something creative and just make sure you Save each of them, add a Video Effect to one for a trophy, and then make sure to Upload 10 of them to the Community for the ‘Aint Scared To Share It’ trophy. Now comes the fun part. After a small gap of time (1-3 hours) from uploading your videos, they should now be viewable out on the Def Jam Community. At this point, you will want to create an XMB sub-account on your PS3 or have a friend load up the game, go out to the Def Jam Community, find your videos via Recent Videos, then rate one of them 200 times with either 4 or 5 stars. After that, you can just pull up your own profile and get your videos to 2000 views total and rate a random one out there for ‘Well Connected’ & ‘You Be The Judge’. Yes, this is extremely time consuming and boring step, but it is the fastest known way to get these trophies (‘Stuntin Is A Habit’ and ‘Presence Of Greatness’). The nice thing is that you don’t actually have to view the video, just pull one up with X Button , press Circle Button , then repeat until your fingers and your brain are both numb.

Step 4: Dual Microphone Trophies
These trophies are a little easier than they appear at first glance as well, since you do not need a 2nd player at all, just a 2nd microphone. For the trophies that require beating your “friend”, simply lay the 2nd microphone on the floor and rap your way to easy trophies (‘Playa President’, ‘Towering Over The Competition’, ‘Close Call’ & ‘No Competition’). For the ones where you need a good performance, simply rap into both microphones at the same time (‘We Are The Best’ & ‘Rhymes Are On Time’), but keep in mind you'll need it on Hard difficulty for 'We Are The Best'. Lastly, you’ll need to finish up ‘It Takes Two’ by simply getting to a total of 30 dual microphone performances.

Step 5: Clean-Up Any Leftover Trophies
If you have followed the Road Map up to this point you should really only have the ‘Livin Your Life’ trophy left to complete (300 performances across all game modes). For this step, you likely only have to just set up a huge playlist of the shortest songs in the game (“We Fly High” & “Rockwilder”) and surf the Internet for a couple of hours while hitting the X Button button on your PS3 controller. The nice thing about this game is that you cannot fail a song, so it will always continue to play and count as performances, even if you aren’t singing or rapping. Also, you may need to clean-up a few miscellaneous trophies if you didn’t get them along the way (‘Aint Nobody Dope As Me’, ‘Mic Check One Two One Two’, & ‘I Keep Blowin Up’).

[PS3T Would Like to Thank The-Captain-388 for this Road Map]

Platinum Trophy

Collect every trophy in the game
Mic Check One Two, One Two

Use an audio effect on any song in any game mode
Very easy. Simply assign an effect to before starting a song and press on the PS3 Controller during one of your performances. The trophy will pop right away.
It's Like Showbiz

Save a video with a visual effect
See ‘Hype’d Up’
Get the Party Started Right

Launch a playlist in Party mode
See ‘Go The Distance’
World Premiere

Upload a video to the Community
See ‘Ain’t Scared To Share It’
You Be The Judge

Rate a video on the Community
Simply log-in to the Def Jam Community and pick out a random video performance. Pull it up with , press and Rate it from 0-5 stars. The trophy will pop right away.
Cultivating Music

Unlock a song for the first time
See ‘Microphone Fiend!’ Simply play the Career mode and in Stage 1 if you scroll to the right you will have a song available for you to unlock, “Fight The Power” by Public Enemy. Now play the song and beat the specific points challenge to unlock. This can be done on Easy difficulty.
Scorch The Booth

Save your first Freestyle performance
See ‘Hype’d Up’
Fresh Out The Box

Complete your first Challenge in Career mode
See ‘On The Road To Riches’
Flawless Flow

Earn 5 microphones on any song in Career mode
See ‘Microphone Fiend!’
Seal the Deal

Earn the DEF JAM RAPSTAR Seal on a song
One of the most difficult trophies in the game, as you are required to play on Expert difficulty and achieve an “Off The Chain” or 5-Mic Performance. It is possible to combine this with ‘All Eyez On Me’. My suggestion is to pick your very best song. Personally, I used Method Man & Mary J. Blige’s “You’re All I Need” since the singing parts are so easy it’s like free points.
Worth Some Millions

Accumulate 10,000,000 total points across all game modes
This will come naturally while going for ‘Microphone Fiend!’. You’ll get anywhere from 100,000 to 400,000 points when you get 5-Mic performances. With 61 5-Mic performances required, you’ll easily get this before finishing the Platinum. This can all be done on Easy difficulty.
It Takes Two

Perform 30 Battle or Duet performances in Party mode
I recommend doing this after completing all of the other trophies which require two microphones (‘Playa President’, ‘Towering Over The Competition’, ‘Close Call’, ‘No Competition’, ‘We Are The Best’ & ‘Rhymes Are On Time’). After completing those, you should have about 20 performances left to do. Simply plug in the second mic and set up a long playlist with a short song like “We Fly High” or “Rockwilder”. Just set the microphones down and let them play while pressing twice at the end of each song. You cannot fail a song, so no matter how bad you do it’ll still count as a performance. You can also check your progress towards this trophy in the Extras, Player Stats section at the main menu.
Microphone Fiend!

Accumulate 305 microphones in Career mode
This is one of the most difficult trophies in the game to get since it is basically the culmination of the entire Career Mode. The nice thing is that you can play on Easy for all of the songs, although I'd recommend trying them on Hard first so you can get enough performances for the 'Unstoppable' trophy. Basically, you need to get an “Off The Chain” (5-Mic) Performance on every single song and challenge in all 5 Stages of the Game. This is essentially 61, 5-Mic Performances (45 Songs and 16 Challenges).

Tips for 305 Mics:
Practice. Seriously. The only ones that really gave me trouble were Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It" and the 75 word in a row challenges (Twista, Children's Story). With "Push It", some of the timing with the "Ah, Push It" parts is a little screwy and the song doesn't have that many lyrics in general, which gives little room for error. With the "Ah, Push It" parts, just say it in a louder tone, rather than the almost whispering tone they do in the actual song. It simply takes practice and you'll eventually get it. With the 75-word challenges, this takes a lot of practice and a bit of luck as well. The Twista one can be intimidating, but just practice it enough for the timing and you can mumble a lot of your way through it if you can't keep up with all the words. Just make sure your mumbling is fast enough that it still registers on one of the gold circles. The nice thing about these challenges is that the lyrics and pitch do not matter, it's all about getting the gold circles by any means necessary.
Well Connected

Watch 50 videos on the Community
Simply log-in to the Def Jam Community and pick out a random video performance or one of your own. Pull it up with , then press and repeat 49 more times. The trophy will pop right away.
Hype'd Up

Save 15 recordings to My Videos
Once you have your PS3 Eye plugged in it will automatically record any performance that you do from that point forward. Plug in your PS3 Eye at the main menu, then go to Play, then Freestyle. Here you should pick a beat and it will start recording you. You really only need to record for one second, then press , keep the recording, then press twice, go to Save & Exit, type in a name “Test1” for example, then press . This will save the recording to your PS3 hard drive. As long as you have created an online account and you are signed into the PlayStation Network, it will ask you if you want to upload the video. You should do this since you will need 10 uploads for the ‘Ain’t Scared To Share It’ trophy anyway. Also, while saving any of the videos you will have the option to add Video Effects. Be sure to do this to one of your videos for the ‘It’s Like Showbiz’ trophy.
Lyrical Player Pro

Save 5 Freestyle videos
See ‘Hype’d Up’
Go The Distance

Finish a playlist containing 10 or more songs
From the main menu, go to Play, then Party mode. Simply create a playlist by pressing on a song, then select Add To Playlist from the menu. Add 10 songs that you know you can 5-Mic on Easy difficulty, then press to launch your playlist. The ‘Get The Party Started Right’ trophy will pop within seconds of the first song starting up. It’s best to combine this with the other playlist trophies (‘Chain Reaction’, & ‘Go The Distance’), so I’d recommend picking easy songs to get them all together.
Livin' Your Life

Play 300 performances across all game modes
I recommend saving this trophy for the very last. Throughout all the performances, 305 mics, etc. you should probably have around 100-150 performances. So, to get the rest of them, simply set up a long playlist with a short song like “We Fly High” or “Rockwilder”. Just set the microphone down and let them play while pressing twice at the end of each song. You cannot fail a song, so no matter how bad you do it’ll still count as a performance. You can check your progress towards this under Extras, Player Stats at the main menu.
Ain't Scared to Share It

Upload 10 videos to the community
Once you have your PS3 Eye plugged in it will record videos automatically. Simply Save 10 of your performances or freestyles (1-30 seconds worth) and upload them all to the Community. For ‘Immaculately Polished’, simply pick out your best song, make sure the PS3 Eye is plugged in, perform it, and then upload the video to the Community. It’s best to combine these trophies with the other PS3 Eye Trophies (‘Scorch The Booth’, ‘Lyrical Player Pro’ & ‘Hyped Up’).
Unstoppable

Get at least 'On Point' on 50 performances on HARD difficulty
If you followed the Road Map above, this should already be done or very close to done. Personally, I just tried every song during the Career on Hard first and if I didn’t get 5-Mics, I re-did the song on Easy. Another way to get this would be just to go to Party Mode, create a playlist and put on the shortest song you can 3-Mic on Hard difficulty over and over again.
Newcomer

Complete Stage 1
See ‘Microphone Fiend!’
Opener

Complete Stage 2
See ‘Microphone Fiend!’
Headliner

Complete Stage 3
See ‘Microphone Fiend!’
Star

Complete Stage 4
See ‘Microphone Fiend!’
RAPSTAR

Complete Stage 5
See ‘Microphone Fiend!’
Fly High, No Lie

Complete all High Score challenges
See ‘On The Road To Riches’
Always On Time

Complete all Timing Challenges
See ‘On The Road To Riches’
It Ain't Trickin' If You Got It

Complete all Multiplier Challenges
See ‘On The Road To Riches’
Too Hot for T.V.

Complete all Platinum Power Challenges
See ‘On The Road To Riches’
Steady Chasin'

Complete all Endurance Challenges
See ‘On The Road To Riches’
On The Road To Riches

Complete all Career Mode Challenges
The challenge trophies will happen naturally while working towards the ‘Microphone Fiend!’ trophy above. All the challenges are basically variations of the songs with a different specific criteria required to finish the song (points, multipliers, timing, multiple songs, etc.).

With the 75-word challenges, they just take a lot of practice and a bit of luck as well. The Twista one can be intimidating but just practice it enough for the timing and you can mumble a lot of your way through it if you can't keep up with all the words. Just make sure your mumbling is fast enough that it still registers on one of the gold circles. The nice thing about these challenges is that the lyrics and pitch do not matter, it's all about getting the gold circles by any means necessary.
Perfection is Perfected

Get 90% or above on pitch, timing, and lyrics while playing any song on HARD difficulty
This was one of the most difficult trophies for me because you have to pick a song that has some sort of singing in it. I ended up getting it with “Juicy” by The Notorious B.I.G. because there is minimal singing and I could rap that song in my sleep. It is just a matter of time, practice and patience to get it on a song you are good at. I almost got it with Method Man & Mary J. Blige’s “You’re All I Need” since the singing parts are so easy it’s like free points.
Immaculately Polished

Upload an 'Off The Chain' performance to the Community
See ‘Ain’t Scared To Share It’
We Are The Best

Complete a Duet earning an 'Off The Chain' rating with both players on HARD difficulty
Make sure 2 microphones are plugged in, go to Party mode, then pick out your best song, select DUET, select Hard difficulty, and rap into BOTH microphones at the same time. You are trying to get an “Off The Chain” or 5-Mic performance for the trophy.
All Eyez On Me

Get at least 'On Point' on a Solo on EXPERT difficulty with the original vocals turned off
Another one of the most difficult trophies in the game, as you are required to play on Expert difficulty with NO LYRICS in front of you. You only have to achieve an “On Point” or 3-Mic Performance though. It is possible to combine this with ‘Seal the Deal’. My recommendation here is to pull up the lyrics on the Internet or Youtube and just rap/sing along. Personally, I used Method Man & Mary J. Blige’s “You’re All I Need” since the singing parts are so easy it’s like free points.
Stuntin' is a Habit

Get a combined 2,000 views for all your uploaded videos
This is time consuming, but can be self-boosted very easily on your own account just by clicking on your video in the My Videos section of the Community, by pulling up your video with and backing out with over and over again. You do not actually have to view the video; you just have to pull it up and it counts as a view. You will see the view count increase real-time and it will take you about 2 hours of doing this non-stop to get to 2,000 views. The trophy will pop within seconds of getting to 2,000 views.
Presence of Greatness

Get an average rating of 4 stars on any video with over 200 ratings
This can be self-boosted by creating a sub-account in your XMB. Basically, you have to make sure you have a recent video uploaded with your main account then you need to log into your second account and try to find that video in the Recent Videos section of the Community. There is no search function currently in the Community so you have to just scroll through the Recent Videos section until you find it. They should be in time/date order of when you uploaded it, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find. This gave me a lot of trouble because you have to wait enough time for it to make it out to the community after you've uploaded it, then when I was pulling up the Recent Videos it kept kicking me out of the game and back into the XMB. I'm not sure if it was a traffic issue on the Community or what, but just plan to have a lot of time and patience when attempting this. After about 20 tries/restarts to get to my video, I was finally able to get to it and rate it. Rating it takes a solid 30-45 minutes of pulling up the video with , then pressing , scrolling to the right so it's 4-5 stars, then pressing again, back out with , then repeat. You will get the trophy when you log back into your main account, load up the game, sign into PSN, and go into the Community.
Playa President

Perform a Duet where you score 50,000 points more than your friend
Very easy. Make sure 2 microphones are plugged in, go into Party mode, then pick out your best song, select DUET, and rap into ONLY the 1st Player’s microphone. Set the 2nd Player’s microphone on the floor or somewhere further away from where you are. Make sure it is the 1st Player’s microphone you are using because this will not work if you outscore the 1st Player with the 2nd Player’s microphone. You must beat your opponent by 50,000 points, which should be very easy since the 2nd Player should get 0 points.
Towering Over The Competition

Perform a Battle where you score 50,000 points more than your opponent
Similar to ‘Playa President’ above. Make sure 2 microphones are plugged in, go into Party mode, then pick out your best song, select BATTLE, and rap into ONLY the 1st Player’s microphone. Set the 2nd Player’s microphone on the floor or somewhere further away from where you are. Make sure it is the 1st Player’s microphone you are using because this will not work if you outscore the 1st Player with the 2nd Player’s microphone. You must beat your opponent by 50,000 points, which should be very easy since the 2nd Player should get 0 points.
Close Call

Win a Battle by less than 1,000 points
Make sure 2 microphones are plugged in, go into Party mode, then pick out your best song, select BATTLE, and rap into ONLY the 1st Player’s microphone for just the first few words. Set the 2nd Player’s microphone on the floor or somewhere further away from where you are. Make sure it is the 1st Player’s microphone you are using because this will not work if you outscore the 1st Player with the 2nd Player’s microphone.
Chain Reaction

Get 'Off The Chain' rating on all songs in a playlist containing 5 or more songs
See ‘Go The Distance’
The Voice Of A Generation

Get 'Off The Chain' on the Solo version of Gold Digger
This will come naturally while going for ‘Microphone Fiend!’. Simply get a 5-mic performance on Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”. This can be done on Easy difficulty.
Rhymes Are On Time

Perform a Battle where both players hit 25 rap targets in a row, at the same time
Make sure 2 microphones are plugged in, go to Party mode, then pick out your best song, select BATTLE, and rap into BOTH microphones at the same time. You are trying to hit 25 rap targets in a row (the gold bubbles at the bottom and top of the screen). You can do this on Easy difficulty.
No Competition

Win all songs in a Battle playlist containing 5 or more songs
Make sure 2 microphones are plugged in, go into Party mode, then pick out your 5 best songs, select BATTLE, and rap into ONLY the 1st Player’s microphone for just the first few words of each song and then you can set the mic down. Set the 2nd Player’s microphone on the floor or somewhere further away from where you are. Make sure it is the 1st Player’s microphone you are using because this will not work if you outscore the 1st Player with the 2nd Player’s microphone.
I Keep Blowin' Up

Activate Platinum Power 4 times in one song
Fairly simple to get and you will get it while going for the 305 Mics. You just need to activate the 8x Multiplier during a song 4 different times. This is easiest on a longer song, like “Fight The Power”.
Ain't Nobody Dope as Me

Get a 'DOPE' lyric rating on every phrase in a song
This can be done on Easy and you may get it on the way to the 305 Mics. Pick your best song in either Career mode or Party mode and do the best performance you can. You can view the details of the song after you are finished to see where you may have missed any Dope lyrics.
I Make This Look 'Eezy

Get at least 'On Point' on one song from Lil Wayne and one from Kanye West
This will come naturally while going for ‘Microphone Fiend!’. Stage 3 has both a Lil’ Wayne song and a Kanye West song. Simply get a 3-mic performance or better on both songs. This can be done on Easy difficulty.
Throwback Flow

Get at least 'On Point' on 5 different songs released before 1990
This will come naturally while going for ‘Microphone Fiend!’. Simply get a 3-mic performance or better on 5 old school songs. This can be done on Easy difficulty.
Rep Your City

Get at least 'On Point' on 5 different songs that mention a city by name
This will come naturally while going for ‘Microphone Fiend!’. Simply get a 3-mic performance or better on 5 songs that mention a city. This can be done on Easy difficulty.
Off The Chain

Unlock all locked content in Career mode
You will get this naturally while going for the ‘Microphone Fiend!’ trophy. There are a total of 85 unlockables in the game and you can check your progress toward them under the Extras, Player Stats section on the main menu.