Nicki was a known quantity at this point, but we were still collectively trying to figure out whether all her weird voices and accents were cool or annoying. But in a week with no real big rap stories - I’d planned to write about the Swet Shop Boys album, but I couldn’t think of much to say beyond “it’s good, you should hear it” - I instead spent my Tuesday afternoon digging through the history of the Cypher, picking the 10 performances that left the deepest impression on me.
I can never tell how they decided to group these people together, what they might have to do with one another, who might’ve said no. The first BET Cypher, 10 years ago, featured Lupe Fiasco pretending to claw at Styles P’s face and Papoose rapping, “When we say ‘BET,’ we ain’t tryna spell ‘bet’ / Black Entertainment, Papoose is the best.” For a while, they made sure to include people rapping in foreign languages, which was always weird. But as an institution, it’s always been consistently entertaining even when it’s been terrible. The 2016 Cyphers were nothing much to write home about, even though the Lil Wayne/Kevin Hart bit was fun.
#Raury all we need flop series
The BET Hip-Hop Awards are a fairly meaningless annual event, except for one thing: They’re where we get to see the Cyphers, the video series where a random assortment of rappers - some stars, some has-beens, some up-and-comers, some legacy figures, some complete unknowns - go in over the same rickety old-school beats.