The Night of the G.O.O.D. Music Cypher
When Kanye West bridged multiple generations of rap to breathe life into his career
I didn’t realize, while watching the 2010 BET Hip Hop Awards’ G.O.O.D. Music Cypher, that I wouldn’t get to experience something like it ever again.
Not in that way.
As long as I’ve known about the BET Hip Hop Awards, the cyphers have been the most anticipated parts of the night. There are usually several spread across the span of the show, and it’s a simple setup. A DJ spinning one beat, while a mix of new artists and well-known rappers take their turns wowing the crowd with “freestyle” verses. You know someone has dropped an awe-inspiring bar when the audience roars—the applause is earned.
Over the years, there have been some memorable cyphers. Two that stick out in my mind are 2011’s Shady 2.0 Cypher (Yelawolf will surprise you) and 2013’s TDE Cypher (Kendrick, enough said). But none have planted themselves more firmly in my memory than when Kanye West gathered an all-star crew of rappers signed (or preparing to sign) to his G.O.O.D. Music label—Pusha T, Big Sean, CyHi da Prynce, and Common—and stepped to the camera donned in classic black and white suits to drop a dizzying string of quotables to the sounds of DJ Premiere.
To set up this moment, Kanye was five months out from dropping what many call his greatest album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Seven months prior to the cypher, Kanye risked a near end to his career as he rudely interrupted Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. This cypher kicked off a series of award show appearances on Kanye’s attempt at a redemption tour.
As for Kanye’s collaborators, future G.O.O.D. Music president Pusha T was coming off Clipse’s third and final album, Til The Casket Drops, which featured Kanye on the track “Kinda Like a Big Deal.” Push was embarking on a solo career without his brother Malice by his side.
Big Sean, who signed with G.O.O.D. Music in 2007, was right between his second and third mixtapes and still a year out from dropping his debut album, Finally Famous.
CyHi da Prynce, a relatively unknown rapper, was signed to Akon’s Konvict Music label a year prior under which he jumped on Yelawolf’s “I Wish (Remix),” a song that caught Kanye’s attention and opened his mind to how him and CyHi could work together in the future.
And lastly, Common, the elder statesman and one of G.O.O.D. Music’s original members, was eight albums in by this point and further settling into his position as a guiding light to younger artists, helping provide narration and a verse on fellow G.O.O.D. Music signee Kid Cudi’s debut album, Man On The Moon: The End of Day.
On the night of June 27, 2010, this generation-bridging collective, tinted with a grayscale hue in attire that represented a well-mannered departure from Kanye’s actions at the VMAs a year prior, set out to unveil the new G.O.O.D. Music—and maybe most importantly to aid in revitalizing their leader’s image.
As has been well-documented in regards to Kanye’s post-VMAs journey towards My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the greatest antidote to public outrage, which is much easier said than done, is often an undeniable artistic achievement. I would argue that this cypher played a significant role in helping build that case.
Extending his arm to the camera, Kanye starts the cypher by proclaiming:
G.O.O.D. Music, this our year
A self-fulfilling prophecy as nearly all of them went on to deliver career-defining performances on Kanye’s MBDTF, a decade-defining album.
Following Kanye’s intro, ushered in by the approval of his fellow emcees, Pusha T sets the tone early:
Came in the game, 8 years prior
8 years later, your man’s on fire
Since Pusha T’s first release in 2002 as a member of Clipse, Lord Willin’, he has delivered his ammunition-like flow with so much firepower that it feels like he’s trying to inflict harm with every line. At one point during Push’s verse, the camera zooms in on Common, who released his debut album a decade before Pusha T began his career. The rap legend looks on, grimacing, as Push methodically works through his verse.
Smooth criminal, no prior’s
Man in the mirror, check no liar
Still let that “butter fly” like Mariah
Show me the money, the black Jerry Maguire
Pusha T closes his verse with a toast, “To the good life, we G.O.O.D. music,” followed closely by the whole crew shouting out their set: “G.O.O.D. Music, G.O.O.D. Music, G.O.O.D. Music, G.O.O.D. Mus–!” Except that last chant sounds like “good news” as Detroit’s own Big Sean steps to the foreground, ready to deliver one of the most impressive verses of his career—bars that unfortunately feel like an unattainable feat for him at this current moment.
Big Sean does something that the best cypher verses often do—he seeks to grab the audience’s attention from the jump, packing some of his most captivating lines into the first few bars:
Man, I wake up to a wet dream
Every day’s a Friday and every night’s a sex scene
Every week is fashion week and every day I’m pressed clean
Detroit’s Angel, I even got red wings
The biggest moment of applause arrives a few lines later when Big Sean utilizes a double entrendre to state “he’s coming soon (cumming soon) like LeBron’s ring,” another prophecy as LeBron James would go on to win his first NBA Championship with the Miami Heat in the following 2011–12 season. However, I imagine the most meaningful moment to Big Sean is one that’s easy for the audience to overlook. As he starts to speed up his flow, Kanye lets out an audible laugh to express his amusement as Sean works through the following series of lines:
Oh that’s your girl?
She feelin’ on my “whoa there!”, right next to a couple boaters
And she tryna motorboat her
And I’m coming from the w-w-westside of the Motor
You might find banana clips ‘cause it’s guerrilla warfare
It was almost like, in that moment, Kanye remembered this no-name kid approaching him outside 102.7 FM’s radio station in 2005 and asking if he could rap for Kanye. This same kid, Big Sean, who, when Kanye told him he could have 16 bars to impress him, ended up rapping for his life for 10 minutes. It felt like that illusion of desperation, like he only had that one moment, reappeared during Big Sean’s cypher verse—and Kanye noticed.
Next up: CyHi da Prynce. And while this cypher was G.O.O.D. Music’s coming-out party in a lot of ways, CyHi also had the responsibility of introducing himself to the world. Of all the artists’ verses, CyHi’s felt like it was written most specifically for this particular moment.
I’m Mr. Got bread like Quizno’s
Better known as MJ with the big nose
I swear your artist couldn’t see me on his tip toes
Only on TV I gotta take a quick pose
Let me stop I forgot this was a big show
It feels like CyHi snuck onto this cypher, especially since he doesn’t officially sign to G.O.O.D. Music until two months later — and also, at the time, when Kanye has a much more frequent collaborator on his label in Kid Cudi. But showing up in places you wouldn’t expect him to is sort of CyHi’s thing.
A few months later, Kanye fans would hear CyHi spit on the G.O.O.D. Friday release and eventual MBDTF track, “So Appalled”: “If God had an iPod, I’d be on his playlist.” However, that verse was never meant to make it on the song. While Kanye was asleep during the MBDTF recording sessions, instead of writing the hook Kanye asked him to work on, CyHi took it upon himself to record a whole verse and snuck it in the song. Later on, when Kanye was playing the track for some other musicians, everybody in the room went wild upon hearing CyHi’s verse, forcing Kanye to keep the section in.
If you’re going to show up unannounced, you better see to it that the folks there don’t regret your presence. And CyHi’s made-for-TV cypher verse is him beginning to make his presence known to the public and reserve his stay.
So I’m flexible, stretching out my decimals
Switching up the flow, got the crowd going testicles
Can’t bleep it out cuz there wasn’t nothing sexual
I’m blowing loud, somebody check the decibels
A veteran in the game, Common, steps to center next with the confidence of someone who’s been down this road before. He knows his limits, his strengths, and, within that, where his sweet spot is.
Leave requested from the years I’ve invested
As a Denver Nuggets fan, I’ve seen my fair share of storied veterans team up with a crop of young players who only seem to be a piece or two away from making their NBA Finals dreams a reality. For right now, let’s talk about Paul Millsap and Jeff Green. Millsap, a former Nugget, and Green, new to the team, entered the NBA respectively in 2006 and 2007. With over a decade under their belts, both have entered the stage of their careers where they’re not as fast, or as strong, as they used to be. They can’t jump as high. But what they lack in youthful athleticism, they make up for in understanding their individual skills and how to best play with others—no longer needing to be the team’s number one or two option, but still pulling tricks from their hats to surprise the crowd from time to time.
Common occupies a similar space within this cypher. He doesn’t try to adopt a faster flow like Big Sean, or pack a bunch of punchlines into his verse like CyHi or Kanye—he sticks to the percussive, poetic delivery he’s built a career on and ultimately gives what’s necessary for his team to win. Because as Common puts it, “I recognize game like the ESPYs.”
And as veterans do, Common clears the path for his team’s star player to close out the game in the final minute. And Kanye, being the superstar he is, locks in and delivers—his teammates looking on knowing what’s about to come.
The plan was to drink till the pain over
What’s worse, the pain or the hangover?
Fresh air rolling down the window
Too many Urkels on your team, that’s why your Winslow
It’s in that final minute when your superstar has the ball where it feels like everyone in the crowd is holding their breath—all the applause stops. As Kanye proceeds to rap his verse with what feels like either reckless abandon or an otherworldly possession, a lively Hip Hop Awards audience goes eerily silent except for a few murmurs as if they’re all sitting on the edge of their seats.
All eyes on Kanye as he transitions seamlessly from vulnerability into braggadocio and then back again:
This game you could never win
Cause they love you then they hate you then they love you again
Get away from me loneliness
Get away from me misery
Get away from me fake bitches, I can’t take the phoniness
Get away from me wack tracks
I can only make only hits
When Kanye finishes his verse, the screen shifts from black and white to color as the determined scowl Kanye had on his face while rapping turns to a smile and the air reenters the room—the crowd finally surrendering themselves to roaring applause.
The whole crew is smiling. Those in the game and those watching both realizing there’s no denying what they just did, and that it was monumental.
I watched from home in astonishment knowing I had just witnessed something special—an undeniable artistic achievement. One of many along Kanye’s road to absolution in the months leading up to MBDTF.
And when something’s that good, it lingers. You want another taste. So I warmly welcomed Kanye repurposing the first few lines of his cypher verse on MBDTF’s opening track, “Dark Fantasy.” And I nodded along when the rest of Kanye’s cypher verse showed up on Snoop Dogg’s song “Eyez Closed,” featuring John Legend. Or, nearly a year later, when Big Sean dropped a few lines from his cypher verse on “So Much More” to close out his debut album.
On the verse prior, Big Sean uses the last few lines to reflect on his girlfriend at the time:
Man, she almost cried when she seen me on TV on BET
Just making it seem easy! Standing next to Common Sense and Yeezy
When Big Sean jumps into his next verse after the chorus, sharing lines from his showing at the cypher, he follows those bars with:
Tell me that wasn’t the verse of the year
Man, that shit deserves a hearse and a tear
It becomes clear that Big Sean, just like so many of us who return to whatever YouTube video of the cypher we can find, want to relive this moment—to remember that it actually existed.
The G.O.O.D. in G.O.O.D. Music stands for “Getting Out Our Dreams,” and, on the night of the G.O.O.D. Music Cypher, Kanye and his crew blurred the line between dream and reality. Suited up, they disguised the imaginary barrier between Clark Kent and Superman—creating a moment I’ll never forget.
