About 200 Raleigh hip-hop artists and students met to freestyle, read poetry and beatbox at the fourth annual NC State Cypher Monday night at the Free Expression Tunnel.
Taha Arif, a sophomore in engineering, helped plan the event and has been regularly attending NC State cyphers for more than a year.
“A cypher is a congregation of people who gather together to express their thoughts and feelings through spoken word and hip-hop,” Arif said. “Everyone is encouraged to participate.”
The cypher movement, known as Cypher Univercity by regulars and online, began at NC State four years ago and has spread throughout the state.
Today, there are many different cyphers at universities across North Carolina. They are normally held on campuses, even if the group running the cypher isn’t students, Arif said.
“You see different people each week,” Arif said. “Some that are new to Raleigh, and others that are just exploring NC State’s campus will stumble upon it by accident and become amazed with the art we’re making.”
“It started with a group called God’s Cypher Divine, which was made up of Mike Live and Crème de la Crème,” said Eshod Howard, a Shaw University graduate who has been attending the NC State Cypher for more than three years.
“They were filming a music video at the Free Expression tunnel on campus, when they turned it into a freestyle type of thing, and the rest is history,” Howard said.
Howard said even though the crowd was much larger, only about 40 people actually performed at the event.
Monday’s cypher featured cyphers from other universities in the UNC-System. Groups from UNC-Asheville, East Carolina University and Appalachian State University all joined the crowd to rap and freestyle.
“We started out with less than ten people,” Howard said. “But over time, with people spreading the word about it and building up artists, we’ve grown. There are cyphers all over the state now.”
Howard said he originally heard about NC State’s cypher at Shaw University, where he graduated and performed as a hip-hop artist.
“We have a free speech policy during the cypher, but no one’s really offensive,” Arif said. “You’re not there to bash on other people.”
Sometimes participants will find themselves in conflict with other performers. When two people want to battle at the cypher, they must do it by freestyling, which makes the rest of the cypher more exciting, Arif said.
A smaller version of the NC State Cypher takes place every week at the Free Expression Tunnel, normally beginning at 11:30 p.m. on Monday nights. The weekly event brings out plenty of regulars, such as Owen Hammer, a junior in computer science who has been attending cyphers since his freshman year.
“It’s just like, a place to express yourself,” Hammer said. “It’s mostly rap, but a lot of people recite poetry or beatbox. I was just walking across campus one night and I ran into it.”
The cypher attracts a large regular audience, and people new to NC State can easily find the event due to its high foot-traffic location.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Sarah Novitt, a freshman in engineering and newcomer to the cypher. “I was just walking back from the library and here it was. It’s impressive.”
