Eminem Shouts Out Beastie Boys in BET Awards 2011 Cypher

[3stooges]

Originally Posted by Micodin

It's really not that hard of a concept to understand.

A Freestyle is kicking rhymes off the top of your head, not rehearsed or previously written.

A Cypher contains people kicking rhymes. They can be previously written, freestyle, or using parts of other peoples rhymes. It's just everyone participating rhyming for fun.

I'm not sure how you can't understand it...

For me what's missing in that tv segment is the core experience of being in a cypher, which is having a conversation. Spoken or rhymed or whatever, there's dialogue, interaction. The next person to speak or rhyme picks up on what the last person was saying and builds off it. It doesn't mean people aren't doing writtens but there's usually some feedback going back and forth beyond just a pound or a head nod.