As A3C winds down, we all get a chance to look back on this year’s lineup and realize how truly incredible it is. From top to bottom, we’ve been given great events that not only highlight important parts of Hip-Hop’s culture, but also get to experience unique activities that showcase the art that remains in it. A shining example of this is the “24 Hour Cypher”, an event hosted by Soul Food Cypher and Savage Fam Pro.
Soul Food Cypher is a collective of emcees and artists from Atlanta who come together twice a month to freestyle and network. They typically host their cyphers at various locations throughout the city, but for this event they decided to partner with A3C and Savage Fam to do something that had never been done before. Starting at 3:00 PM on Saturday, they set out to break the Guinness World Record for the longest cypher ever.
Taking place in Space 2, the event kicked off with a group of emcees, several brand representatives, and a cameraman capturing every moment. The way the cypher works, every emcee must completely freestyle lyrics off the top of their head that match a word or subject selected at random. They are required to go for a specified time, then switch off to the next emcee in line. This cypher began in similar fashion.
As the cypher continued, it was interesting to see how the artists found ways to continue creating rhymes through exhaustion. After a period of time, it obviously becomes extremely hard to continue coming up with rhyming words, especially with cameras and eyes on you. The emcees persevered though, and were able to officially break the record at 12 hours, 3 minutes and 21 seconds in. They refused to stop there, and continued to rhyme throughout the night.
The cypher was able to blend some interesting topics into their show, speaking on social issues, politics and even love. That's always been one of the best features of the cypher, as it blends both creativity and awareness into rap in ways that the genre lacks currently. The cypher continued until 3:00 PM on Sunday, the last day of the festival.