About Me
Cipha Sounds February 21st, 2007 | Category: Mikey Fresh
he Cipher was once a display of a true emcee’s lyrical abilities, showmanship, and a certain realness that can only be embraced when witnessed in person. Something that can be described as a testament to what makes you an emcee. This thing of ours, which we call Hip-Hop has recently been suffering from a plague of nursery style rhymes, funny dances, and worst of all, lack of mic skills. Ciphers have lost their place in Hip-Hop to iced out teeth, shiny cars, and fat asses. So it’s a pleasure and honor to witness “real†emcees doing, what they do best. Last night, Boston’s Termanology celebrated the release of his latest mixtape, 50 Bodies at New York City’s Novo lounge. A collection of the 50 best Termanology tracks to date, mixed and hosted by Statik Selektah and Tony Touch. Heads reppin’ such respected labels as Quiet Money and Duck Down Records were all in the building.
As the bottles started poppin’ and dutches lit, the spot full of emcees were helpless against their urge to gather around and flow like they did in 88’. With Statik holdin it down on the 1’s, and 2’s, Termanology, Bam, Rod Starz, Sin, Vexed one, Jae Nice, Lord Nez, and Tegano came with 16’s that even made the two oddly out of place middles aged white women at the bar say, ooooh. A beautiful thing, lyrical swordsmen from Beantown, Queens, Chi-town, and Flordia all rhyming together, sharing the energy, and showing each other love. There’s no other city in the world that can arrange to have qualified emcess like this come together on just a regular Tuesday night and celebrate real Hip-Hop music like this. I don’t care where you’re from. After Tegano murdered his 2nd verse, all rappers were quick to embrace him and give him pounds. That just shows the comradery that theses emcees shared that night. No bullshit egos, label politics, or jealousy, each emcee took his turn to spit whatever was on his mind at that time. I really want to stress this fact. A real cipher is never planned or practiced, it’s about doing YOU. Be yourself! This is how rappers exercise, point blank. Now, if we can just squeeze in a cipher here and there in between all the laffy taffy, chicken noodle soup and the soda on the side, Hip-Hop could be healthy again. Michael Yi
