But they both take over every room they step up in. Priest’s rap is spontaneous, all eye-pop and finger-snap Sub-Zero’s is smooth, controlled, a volcano of energy coming from within. Their styles of rhyming couldn’t be further apart. Priest, a tall, golden-complected kid sporting a short temple-taper, and Sub-Zero, a slender dude with a gold nose ring and a flow that won’t quit.
As the beats roll on and the jokes keep coming, a few kids just sit there nodding their heads, thinking of the next phat line to drop. A few of the kids snap on each other’s clothes or grill-piece the guffaws become part of Kaffa’s backbeat.īut not everybody laughs. MC after MC steps up, running down his game, mantra, height, weight.Īfter introductions, Blackman takes the cipher through various exercisesa debate over Ebonics, alliteration for the sake of it, storytellingfreestyling all the while. Nobody steps up right away then a bald, heavy-set kid fills the void, introducing himself freestyle. “Introductions first,” announces Blackman. As soon as it comes in, the cipher is transformed from a circle of slouching spines and folded arms into a ring of fluctuating backbones and tapping feet. Not the most complex musical composition, but it registers a 10 on the head-nod scale, and pounds harder than 16 ounces. The beat slides in at her beckoning, a loose drum track sprinkled with a few keys. She starts by outlining the rules for the cipher: “No battling” “No hogging the floor.” Her voice turns to iron when she gets to the last rule: “The bitch-ho shit is out.” It begins and ends with Toni Blackman, founder and Queen Mother of Freestyle U. How a cipher will go is tough to predict you never know whoor whatis going to come together. Loosely translated from raponics, a cipher is a circle of MCs freestyling, or rapping off the top of their heads. Their attendance is required at Kaffa, for what they call a cipher. It’s the second Saturday of the month, a holy day for Freestyle Unionites. Kaffa practically brandishes a sign”Buppies Beware!”Īll the better for Freestyle Union, a motley assortment of hardheads, Howardites, and locals who’ve assembled here tonight to praise the one true rhyming Godhiphop. No pomp or flash, no pricey threads, just low lights and bean pies. It isn’t the first-choice spot for club junkies.
In the midst of all the glimmer it’s easy to miss the joint with the split personality: Kaffa Houseone part club, one part cafe.
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