« Adidas Earn Your Stripes Cypher #4 (Event Recap) »

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This past Sunday was the 4th Adidas Earn Your Stripes Cypher, at the Adidas store in Berkeley, and once again it proved to be a dope opportunity for MC’s of all styles, backgrounds, and career levels to come together, perform alongside each other, and start to build relationships with one another. Not to mention the fact that it was another opportunity to experience the ridiculous freestyling ability of Do D.A.T., and witness the talent of some of the Bay’s most exciting emerging artists in the featured artist portion.

This month’s show featured 2010 Bay Area Freshmen Nio The Gift, 2011 Bay Area Freshmen Symba, and BET Freestyle Friday Champion Priceless Da Roc. While Nio spit some fly, intelligent street raps and Pricless once again proved his battle raps are top of the line, I may have been most impressed by Symba. It seems like over the past month or two that every time I've heard something new from him, his verses are getting noticeably better. After a few rounds from the featured artists, Do D.A.T. started calling folks to the mic from the sign up list. Once again, I was genuinely impressed by the talent of the artists who graced the mic. These Earn Your Stripes Cyphers among other things are giving me the hope that Bay Area MC’s, including those who are still unknown, are graduating from the same old ABC flow that has been standard for far too long. The MC’s at the event also exhibited a visible hunger to be heard, and luckily it translated into inspired bars, rather than a bunch of perpetrating about doing big things that probably aren’t real. Unfortunately, I don’t remember nearly as many of the names of the performers this month, but hopefully the videos will come out soon and give proper due to the very legit rappers who rocked with us on Sunday. At the same time I can give credit to DJ Twelvz for handling the beat selection for the first half of the event, and DJ Aebledee for taking the reins during the second half. Also, enough can’t be said about Do D.A.T. as a host. Not only does he get the audience involved, and kill it every time he spits, but he makes managing a crowd of eager rappers who are anxious to grab the mic and never give it up look easy.  

Once again, this is a great event to go as both an artist who wants to gain some performance experience and build their name in the community, as well as a fan who enjoys seeing some of the Bay’s best lyricists perform in an approachable setting. Not to mention that there’s free Vitamin Water, and everything in the Adidas Store is 10% Off. So when the first Sunday of next month comes around, make sure to make it over Berkeley. It’ll definitely lift your spirits after most likely watching the 49ers and Raiders lose earlier that morning. 

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For the rest of the event pictures, go to SBDunksCarl.Blogspot.Com.