by Tolu Edionwe
Hinge put me on the spot the other day and asked me to describe my ideal celebrity encounter. Without question, I would jump at the chance to gather my favorite emcees in a room for a cypher. André 3000, Queen Latifah, JAY-Z and Smino, to be specific. As a lover and occasional practitioner of freestyle rap myself, the pinnacle of praise is when my performance is used as a jumping off point for a peer’s creative exploration. So when that day comes, I want to cyph with them. To me, they are masters of the craft, and I hope to garner their respect in the same way, as peers in the workroom of rap. It is the cypher that presents a uniquely optimal environment for this type of peer-to-peer art-focused exchange, and in my opinion, is the most ideal performance space that we have today.
There are a few different theories as to how the term cypher came about; some believe it emerged from the language of the Islam-influenced Five Percent Nation, others believe the encoded meanings in rap lyrics point the origins towards cryptography and the practice of deciphering secret messages. Either way, the term has become intertwined with emceeing and breakdancing, and in today’s day and age is most popularly associated with hip-hop culture. And in B-Boying and Battling in a Global Context: The Discursive Life of Difference in Hip Hop Dance, Imani Kai Johnson describes the cypher as a competitive space that prompts performative duels between individuals or their crews.
So whether you’re describing rapping or dancing, a cypher in hip-hop is defined as a group of people in a circle improvising and interacting. This last tenet is crucial, with interactivity differentiating a cypher from a regular stage performance. When you go to a concert and watch musicians on an elevated stage, you spectate from a space that is purposely separated from the performers. No matter how close you get to them or how loud the music is, and despite the best of the best crowdwork maneuvers – like bringing an audience member onstage – your role as a concertgoer is ultimately static: you are there to receive the performance. In a cypher however, the existence of the entity itself relies on continuously evolving participation from attendees. The spectator is at once the audience and the performer, transitioning between the two roles throughout. This fluidity binds the spectators into a social contract with each other: they must actively follow the norms of the cypher, or risk complete dissolution of the space.
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Their tasks? To clock the amount of time a rapper gets to spit before someone else grabs the mic. Clock the way people transition from watching and listening to rapping, the volume and energy that commands attention. Clock the content of the lyrics – what is impressive to the crowd? (The mention of current news events, a topic mentioned by the previous speaker, the incorporation of real time details – the weather, the color of another rapper’s sweater, the surprise appearance of a dog in the circle.)
The cypher participant is made aware of these norms quickly, with the help of audible reinforcements that can be either ad-hoc from the crowd or deliberately structured into the cypher. From the crowd, reactions are instant and loud. Anti-authoritarian sentiments are cheered, interruptions by overintoxicated people who fail to adhere to rhyme or rhythm: booed.
Legendary Cyphers takes place every Friday night from May to November in Union Square Park in NYC. Each summer since 2013, orators have stepped forward to riff with pretty verbiage and exchange stories with their peers. And so tradition has emerged; whenever people creep too far into the center and space gets tight, a refrain rings out from the founding emcees:
TAKE TWO STEPS BACK AND OPEN UP THE CYPHER!
TAKE TWO STEPS BACK AND OPEN UP THE CYPHER!
Positive reinforcement exists within the LC structure as well, geared less towards the individual and more towards encouraging a spiritually united cypher with a call and response:
THIS IS HOW WE RAPPIN’ AND HOW WE GET IT HYPER//IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS IS, IT’S LEGENDARY CYPHERS
FROM, FRONT TO BACK IF YOU LOVIN’ WHERE YOU AT, SAY HELL YEAH (HELL YEAH)
SIDE TO SIDE IF YOU LOVIN THE VIBE, SAY HELL YEAH (HELL YEAH)
IF YOU LOVIN THE CYPHER, THEN THROW YO FISTS UP!
IF YOU LOVIN THE CYPHER, THEN THROW YO FISTS UP!
IF YOU LOVIN THE CYPHER, THEN THROW YO FISTS UP!
AND SAY HELL YEAH (HELL YEAH)
In these ways, cypher participants are called to actively contribute to the vibe, maintain the physical space, and keep the flow going, all within a cultural syntax specific to the cypher.
In contrast, proscenium viewing relies on one-way attention, which is distinct from participatory support and psychological safety. As a performer on a stage, one can hope for applause as a sign that the audience is receiving the performance positively, but there is no guarantee that the details in the execution are noted or appreciated. The physical circumstances of the space frame the performer as a spectacle to be marveled at, with a limited amount of feedback gauges available. This leaves a gap for the audience to receive the performance without critical thought or cultural immersion.
The rapper Aminé responded to the phenomenon of his predominantly white audiences rapping along too readily to his “Caroline” lyrics by substituting the n-word with a deliberate warning. Instead of “killa//... west side n***a”, he reminded the NPR Tiny Desk audience: “killa//...if you ain’t black don’t say it”. Noname has also expressed discomfort with her proscenium experience, famously tweeting her irritation with performing for mostly white crowds whom she strongly suspected didn’t align with her ideological beliefs. Many performing arts creatives have likely experienced similar unease, albeit on a smaller scale. Feedback just hits different when it's from people who see the nuances of the environment, whether it’s other dancers hyping you up at a class, or other musicians “Ow Ow!”-ing you at a jam session.
For the proscenium performer, there’s little controlling who is in the audience. But the interactivity embedded into the cypher dynamic gives the performer more flexibility. The cypher educates the audience on the appropriate cultural and ideological norms in real time, and encourages assimilation through call and response. This increased trust in the audience’s discernment is topped off by the best perk of all: a fellow rapper jumping in to catch your flow. It’s the highest of compliments, and the beauty of the cypher.
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