The Cypher

His name is Jim but everyone in the circle knows him as "Cardboard." The collar on his lime-green oxford shirt is popped up and his dark jeans are tight and rolled up over his leather boat shoes. His clothes are a stark contrast to most everyone else's baggy urban attire, yet it is seldom acknowledged aside from the occasional good-natured jibing. The night air presses in around their huddled shoulders as they pitch and sway to the beat Cardboard generates. One voice rises above the approving hoots and exclamations of the others, his full alias is "Fantastical" but they mostly call him "Fan." The deep baritone that emanates from his corpulent mass brings images to mind of burning butter.

Fantastical gestures towards the middle of the circle with one dark hand as he speaks. His hand punctuates his rhymes like a piston driving an engine, "My style is casual. Compared to me, you niggas is just gradual. I smash through your defenses like a cannonball. I'm sayin. I reign supreme. The king of the cannibals. With a sting like a scorpion. Royal like the Tannenbaums. I'm sayin. I'm so classical, niggas read me like a manual to hood hustlin. The Hood's rumblin! I get more tail that Tiger Woods chasin' his own tail. I'm runnin shit'!"

The skinny white guy to his left jumps in cutting him off, but picking up on his rhyme scheme, "Let me carry the discussion, verbal percussion touchin you in places teachers say is disgusting. Ugly Ducklings. Whose feathers you think you're ruffling. It's Mother Goose I'm plucking. And I scramble golden eggs for the hungry." He spits his lyrics much faster than Fan and his frenetic movements match this new cadence. Cardboard picks up on the shift in style and alters his beatbox accordingly. He's good at this. His carefully timed breaths never interfere with the explosive rhythms he delivers using solely his lips and throat. Though he offers no lyrical content to the cypher, his contribution is significant and integral. It's why he decided to call himself "Cardboard;" he can't rap, he's just "The Box."

The rapping white kid goes by "Lucid." He stands sideways and leans into the circle so that the skateboard he clutches in one hand can hang on the outskirts. His T-shirt is two-sizes too big and waves like a sheet on a clothesline as he intensifies his flow into a double-time staccato, "Don't begrudge me for my lusting after nothing and flustered grunting stunting like Knievel jumpin.' Beetle Bailey struttin through the dungeon punchin' destruction!"

The man known as "Welfare" comes in next. His modest clothes, aside from the large tri-color Africa pendant swaying across his chest, match his straightforward delivery. He could be speaking to a class of first-graders, "From the top of the track, I'm sayin' ya'll are properly wack, like the property tax, we need to take our property back! Compose a plan to get the gold in hand. Don't ya'll know we livin' here on stolen land!? Taken from the natives and then taken for granted. Makin' ends but never trust who we shakin' our hands with. Proclamation is candid. The type the cameras captured till we were banished for droppin' all this science and mathematics. I'm mad thematic with the anthems I brandish. Too bad so many heads are vacant and distracted."

The cluster of their bodies if seen from a distance would almost appear as one entity, all their heads and shoulders bobbing in time to the beat, throbbing like a heart in the darkness of this anonymous park. Some people who wander by are drawn by this energy. They approach the outskirts of the circle, standing on their tip toes to see what's happening on the inside, craning their necks to hear the verses being thrown triumphantly into the center. Some cautiously snap a picture or two to validate this story when they recount it later in the quiet confines of their living rooms or the dank circus of some corner dive bar. This was not the rap that they had heard on the radio.

The next man in line has been standing haughtily throughout everyone else's verses. He has been listening intently but appears non-plused aside from the occasional snicker when one of the other MCs fell off rhyme or ran out of ideas prematurely. He doesn't come in immediately and Cardboard adds in a few rhythmic flourishes while this new character attempts to muster some gusto. The beady eyes that peak from under his low brim baseball cap match those stitched into the intricate pheonix on the back of his massive Avirex leather jacket. His voice is small for his otherwise imposing frame, "Yo. Yo. Yeah. Cheah!" He takes a deep breath and plunges into his verse, "I got a clip fulla hollow points. Quick to pull the trigger. Body any nigga tryna meddle with my figures." The other MCs listen intently but his voice fluctuates and trails off leaving them struggling to remain attentive. He continues, "And if I catch you snitchin, I'ma clap your nigga and be back in business soon as I smash your sistah. Kilo's got more kilos than Deebo. Gettin over on your team like unlimited free-throws. I'm so diezel. Full of.. Yo. Waitwaitwait... I'm diezel. Got a tank full of.. yo. Naw. Naw. Naw..." He backs out of the circle shaking his head. Some of the other MCs give him supportive fist-pounds and slaps on the back; they've all been there before.

With the interloper retreated, no time is wasted. "Jade Promise," the only female in the circle today swoops in confidently. Her red dreadlocks are pulled back to frame her freckled face so that her crystal blue eyes appear to glow above her modest tanktop. She begins her verse with a touch of melody, "I find myself in a divine circle full of giants and titans. A whirlpool of energy manifested to remedy the suffering of every spiritual entity." Her warm voice fills the space between them, and her fluid gestures add the slightest jingle as multiple colored bracelets clatter up her forearms, "There will be time to remember me. September to February we meditate to replicate majestic kinetic connections. Renovate these tattered frames to rebuild the empire we let go down in flames. We'll be the phoenix born as passion from the ashes. It's the magic we've mastered to counter the tragic disasters!" Welfare has been watching her intently and gives a strong nod of approval before reaching across the circle to slap her a low-five. Some of the others follow suite.

For Cardboard, this is church. As the MCs recite their verses, most of which are composed impromptu, it's the closes thing to hymns or praying that he experiences. The community of MCs come from backgrounds as diverse as their motives to rap in the first place, but in this circle they participate simply for the art of it, for the heat and the energy, and the immediate reactions and approval from their peers. As a beatboxer, he provides the soapbox for them to stand on, and they all appreciate his art as much as he does theirs. Before someone else can start rapping, Luicd shouts, "Yo Cardboard! Bust it!" and Cardboard launches into a beat breakdown. He throws in random tongue clicks and lip pops to an already intricate beat which he then morphs into a near perfect reproduction of a song they all had been hearing lately on the radio. Beneath the "Booms" and "clacks" he musters with his lips, he hums bass lines in the back of his throat like a Tibetian monk. The whole show is punctuated by his grand finale where he replicated record-scratch sounds of his name.

As Cardboard finishes and returns a little sheepishly to a more standard beat a new face has approached the circle. His dark Latin-American eyes flicker around the faces in the circle as he asks, "I can? I can?" Nods of approval pass around as room is made for him and he launches into a beatbox of his own. The surprised MCs cheer him on and Fantastical readies for another go saying, "Yo. Yo! I got this!" Finally, Cardboard thinks to himself, I can grab a drink of water.

((LEAVE YOUR VERSE FOR THE CYPHER IN THE COMMENTS SECTION!))