Monthly cyphers

I don't know if i posted this in the right forum or not, if it was wrong, i apologise, now, i'm thinking, is there anyone that knows any monthly cyphers on youtube, that's fairly popular.

I'm getting into cyphering, but it's hard 'cause it's not really a battle against someone else, so it's much harder to write lyrics, but it's well fun.

But yeah, if you know any, please link me, even if it's more than one cypher, send me all monthly cyphers you know of that are on youtube, that'd be great.

Thanks in advance

Of course, being literate types here in the SWF, we know what cypher means in the King's English... but even after googling, I'm afraid I'm still a bit hazy about this context.

From what I gather, these cyphers are some form of rapping or free style competition which all use the same backtrack beat?

It sounds interesting. Can you tell us a little more?

(Not to worry, I stopped rapping for the most part in the 90s so we'll be spared that sorry sonic spectacle. )

well basically it's like a rap battle but you're competing in a group so it's not like person vs person thing like in detroit hip hop shop and stuff like that.

you can freestyle or write lyrics, whatever you feel like, when cyphering, i freestyle mostly, it's too hard writing lyrics when it's not about anything in particular

Sounds interesting. Maybe not right up the SWF's alley, but interesting to be sure. How is it different from 'battle raps' and that sort of thing?

And I guess the two dollar question is why do they call them cyphers? Is there some sort of code or puzzle aspect to it?

Having started listening to rap at the end of the 70s, I have to say that it strikes me as a genre whose exciting days are long gone, much like rock or other 'classic' genres. It's all been done. And, of course, when rappers stopped rapping about real life* and started rapping about how cool they were and how rich they were, it really accelerated the downhill slide into boring self obsession and endless, empty-headed self-promotion.

*Of course, even some of the old school guys turned out to be pretty empty-headed. l can't tell you how incredibly disappointed I was when I found out that Grandmaster Flash and the FF really didn't want to do "The Message" (which was actually written and performed by the Sugar Hill session musician Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher and Furious Five's MC Melle Mel... Flash and the rest of the group didn't want to have anything to do with it). Instead they wanted to do party raps. That would be like finding out "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" was written for Britney Spears (time machine issues not withstanding).

well it is a battle kinda 'cause you're obviously competing but in a group, it's like when you just kick them rhymes with your friends just for the fun of it, but this is a battle instead, not a 1 on 1 though like normal battle raps

you know what i mean?

i think it's sad the way hip hop is performed now, like the new era hip hop, lil wayne and stuff, why is it not like before, like eminem and big even back when big L was with us, and big proof

i wonder where it all went wrong

yeah i don't listen to that new era {censored}, doesn't matter what genre, i'd rather listen to em from infinite to relapse, big l, big proof, pac, biggie etc and jimi hendrix and pink floyd even

that's waaaaaay better than what the new era music is like

sorry if i'm not making any sense, i'm on my sleeping pills

Watch out. Many of sleeping pills have a long half-life in your blood, and can build up, even taking the prescribed dosage. I found out the hard way after a two month hospital stay after a nasty motorcycle wreck. After I got out I was having problems sleeping (turns out my leg was still broken but that's for another time). My doc prescribed a 'popular' sleeping pill and I would take one a few nights a week to help me sleep.

I noticed I wasn't exactly clear headed on waking, but I had other stuff on my mind. But then I got a call from my old boss asking me if everything was OK. I thought that was odd, so I asked him what was up. He said, well, earlier today when you were talking to our insurance administrator (who I knew pretty well) she said you sounded really slurred and drugged out. I said, "Really?" And he said, yeah, you sound kind of slurred right now, actually.

I stopped taking the sleeping pills.

Some time later I was reading a 'your prescription and you' type column in the newspaper and a guy wrote in saying his 60 year old father had been prescribed the same sleeping pill as I was -- and that he was starting to exhibit what seemed to be signs of early onset dementia (like Alzheimer's, yeah?)

And the columnist said, Well, yeah that med has a half-life in your blood of six days. That means if you even take it a few times a week, it builds up in your bloodstream.

Like a drunk, I hadn't even noticed my own impairment.

Anyhow, since I'd become addicted to opiates in the hospital and had a pretty rugged time with withdrawals (but nothing like that experienced by hard core addicts, of course -- after all I was only hooked for a couple months), I decided I'd be better off with no Big Pharm drugs polluting me.

yeah i know, after i'm done wiht the mixtape i'm going to a free rehab, fix my life, i do pills in case you didn't clock on haha

Be careful. And good luck. The drug that ended up sucking me in was our old pal, Ethyl Alcohol (aka, booze). I wasn't really attracted to it but, in my day, it seemed like all society wanted was for all us hippies to cut our hair and start drinking. It was weird, since many older folks had the (now utterly laughable) idea that people who drank wouldn't smoke... anything but carcinogenic tobacco. Which seemed to them preferable somehow. Anyhow, it was legal, it was utterly cheap and before long I knew my way in and out of the bottle like the back of my hand. (Mind you, it did not prevent me from experiencing many of the other temptations of the era, in contravention of the magical thinking of my elders.) Eventually, it was easier to just stay in the bottle. After 25 years of drinking, and 20 years of drinking virtually every day, I'd finally had enough. Sadly, all the time you spend loaded is time you don't spend growing up and getting that life one is always advised to get...

Getting yourself together sooner rather than later is pretty much always better.

yeah, as soon as my mixtape is up and all, then i'm going to rehab, i mean, i'm 18, i can't afford to {censored} my life up at this age, y'know what i mean

I have a good pal who was into some very serious drug trouble [like the kind you have to do crime to pay for] when he was young. He cleaned up when he was your age and he's been clean and sober since. He ended up having a pretty good music career and now he's a solid member of society with his own business. It's worked for him. A person has got to want to change.

A lot of folks have got sucked into serious drug trouble with both illegal and prescription drugs because they figured all drug warnings were as exaggerated as some of the anti-marijuana warnings have been. In reality, though, anything you do habitually can get you in trouble. And -- as too many people have found out -- some of the prescription drugs are among the most dangerous and most addictive. The docs used to hand out Valium like candy -- but it has some of the worst withdrawl symptoms around. I've known several people addicted to it and as their addiction progresses they develop a palsy-like constant shaking. It's really awful. But it gets WORSE when they try to kick. Which is why it's so insidious. Taking the drug chronically makes you shake. But stopping taking the drug makes you shake worse and adds other withdrawal symptoms. For that reason, it's best when kicking such drugs (most drugs, including alcohol, really) to have a rehab framework to monitor your progress at overcoming the drug and make sure you don't end up with life or health-threatening withdrawal symptoms. Of course, the sooner you quit, the sooner you can start healing and repairing your life.

no i wasn't paying for my drug problems before, it was for food, to afford a meal

i've changed though, a lot thanks to music