CYPHER = WAR

    Anybody that has any connections to Hip-Hop has been "in" a "CYPHER" before. You may not have participated, but at least ONCE in your life you must have happened across a crowd of people in a circle... You wonder if it's a fight because they're yelling, "oooo" and there's a lot of excitement! You get closer and somebody's beatboxing and somebody else is coming off the top with some lyrics that make you go, "is he making that up as he goes along?" and you realize "F**K yeah!" becuz he's rhyming about what this other guy is wearing and dissing his mom or whatever. Bystanders are heckling but the dude he's talking about is just smiling, bobbing his head, and waiting... Now when HE gets the "mic" his retaliation is BRUTAL! One liners, punch lines, cliches; one after another... for like 10 minutes straight! (If you've never seen it happen LIVE you can always see a PERFECT example of what I'm talking about in Eminem's "8 Mile").

     Thoroughly entertained, brain cells sparked, you go back to whatever it is you were doing and wonder how many MC's get MURDERED on a daily basis in the "CYPHER" worldwide? I would like to see a statistic for that actually LOL! Muggings - When you're not even a rapper but you start laughing at somebody's diss and they start capping on YOU. Home Invasions -  Your opponent is using YOUR style and even hits you with a rhyme you SWEAR you JUST wrote LAST NIGHT! Rapes - When females battle males in the "CYPHER" the outcome is NEVER good... She's gonna talk about his little dick and Viagra use and he's gonna talk about her Funkbox and bad weave and it just goes down hill from there. There have been a few occasions that I witnessed a communal atmosphere in the "CYPHER" where everybody is supportive but that's far and in between. In my experience CYPHER = WAR! Even "Crews" battle within their ranks just for practice. I remember "The Insomniacs" Cypher used to be DEEP! My favorite was always KABAL. At some point when he was on the MIC freestyling he would get this blank look on his face, kinda stare off into space, and just start scorching the mic! I'm like where in the F**K did that come from? Do you even remember what you said? He's like, No... but then F.A.C.E. Infinity or one of the other members would say something even MORE clever, MORE bizarre...  It always came FULL CIRCLE.

    To me FULL CIRCLE is one of those beats that makes ME want to grab a mic! I just see 4 or more DOPE MCs getting a verse and killing it like WU TANG TRIUMPH or something like that! I'm of the opinion that my beats are good enough on a standalone basis but I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT when MCs write to my tracks! It's basically the GREATEST HONOR and feeling of FULFILLMENT that is hard to describe. There is a song called "FREE SPEECH" that Pico "SOUL MYSTIC" Martinez made to one of my tracks. I had just finished working on this beat along with a few other projects when my HARD DRIVE crashed. Needless to say I was SUPER bummed about that. That weekend I was hanging out at LYLE's house (BFF since 1st grade aka Homi1) and Pico showed up with this HUGE grin on his face and I was like "What?", He's like "you gotta hear this" and put on that beat (I forgot I gave him a copy last week) and spit the rhyme he made over it and it brought me to TEARS!  Not only was it like one of the DOPEST rhymes I EVER heard, but it was on MY BEAT! Like that s**t fit PERECTLY! The BEST part is that it was SUPER f**king POSITIVE!!!

    That was ALWAYS a HUGE issue with me SPIRITUALLY, ETHICALLY, SOCIALLY... Hip-Hop, because of it's use of SPOKEN WORD, has the power to deliver a POWERFUL message POWERFULLY! Indeed when words are repeated over and over their message enters your subconscious and becomes part of your psyche. When Hip-Hop originated, although many rappers boasted about money, cars, clothes, and hoes (classic example: Rapper's Delight) and in general "Rap" was a party/club type medium, there were many people who thought Rappers had a responsibility to deliver a MESSAGE to help "our" people. I was once challenged by my brother ALI with a question: If there is a "GOD" and an ultimate RIGHT OR WRONG, will entertainers ultimately be held accountable for swaying the masses to do wrong? (drinking, drugs, adultery, murder... not uncommon themes in rap lol) This still weighs on my conscience to this day but I have come to the conclusion that if there is a "GOD", MUSIC is indeed a GIFT and if you are blessed with any talent you should do everything in your power to FLOURISH IT! At some point you will hear the song I'm talking about, again it's called FREE SPEECH but for now it's under wraps for an upcoming SOUL MYSTIC RELEASE! (uh you didn't hear that from me)

    My WHOLE point was that I want SOMEONE to make some DOPE S**T to this beat! It doesn't have to be about a "FULL CIRCLE" or nothing. I just got on a mission at one point to put a name to all of my beats (instead of my existing naming system date/bpm/version... makes it kinda hard to find that "one beat" when you need it lol) and this reminded me of the "CYPHER" which made me thing of 360 degrees, a FULL CIRCLE. The cover kinda came together randomly... I found a picture of some dudes standing in a "CYPHER", it just happened to be an ECLIPSE that day and there you have it. PEACE Y'ALL!