This month Studio710, and resident music director and producer Creed Taylor, welcomes Ital Blue, alongside Ekke, Brett Devloo, Manny Alcatraz, DTour, ReallJE The Beat Box MC, Oki Freshwater, Profiiit47, Trewth, Tee Krispil, and many more, live, into the booth, and off the floor.
If you’ve been going a little cuckoo lately from being cooped up at home, here are some fresh freestyle raps from the latest Studio 710 cypher session to help get you through this all.
Filmed shortly before social distancing became the new normal, Creed Taylor once again hosts a mix of new and returning firespitters recruited from the local Vancouver area to the downtown multimedia production space.
The session kicks off with Studio710 first-timer Ital Blue dropping some real raps about real love from a female’s perspective over a classic Fat Joe and Big Pun instrumental. That sense of community is real as I remember her performing back from my open mic days, as she rapped about connecting on a deeper level and the possibilities of passion with stuff like: “Can we kick it for a minute/ Cuz when you looked at me I saw into the infinite.”
Ekke was next, coming equipped with cool flows and big personality as he tackled the same beat, spitting knowledge about not being owned by anyone and monetizing your own vocals before being followed by Brett Devloo. Brett stepped to the mic with something in his hand, which at first glance I thought was his phone, which would’ve been disappointing because a cypher’s supposed to be off the top (or at least memorized!)- no teleprompters or phones! But a closer look revealed that he was in fact holding that white cane used by the visually impaired- which made his Instagram handle @BrettTheBlindKid make a lot more sense.
If you’ve seen in the previous Studio710 cyphers, you’ll remember Manny Alcatraz, and he came through once again to grace the mic. He’s got a big presence onstage with all the face and hand tats, his hand gestures that act out and emphasize his rhymes also add a dramatic flair to his ever-changing cadences, metaphors, and bilingual rhymes.
Manny Alcatraz dropped one of my favorite lines of the cypher later on when he says this clever one-liner, especially if you’re into golf and wordplay: “They tried to trap this tiger from the woods in the caddy shack”.
After getting a gracious intro from Oki Freshwater, it’s host Creed Taylor’s turn to freestyle and he drops a Slim Thug reference that will either make you think “who’s that?” or “damn I’m old”. He also makes a friendly challenge to Tee Krispil who steps up with a melodic response that shows everything is done in good vibes and fun
Trewth is another newcomer to Studio710 who spits over a triumphant jazzy beat with some hunger that you can relate to and feel, and he effortlessly adapts when the beat switches, which is a lot harder to do than he made it look. He’s a dope addition to the cypher with an almost New York flow and you’ll want to stay tuned for his second freestyle later on in the video.
The cypher continues back around as Oki Freshwater, Brett Devloo, and Ekke, and Tee Krispil all step up for their second round of the night. Realije the Beat Box MC rocks a legit freestyle before passing it off to Creed Taylor.
After bouncing around like a ball of energy throughout the cypher, Oki Freshwater gets down to business, puts his hoodie up, and lays down a grimy rap over an even grimier beat. Profiiit47 makes his Studiio710 debut next, and his vocal timbre reminded me a bit of the smoothness of Shock G with the way he played with his pitch and delivery.
The last few rappers to go up include Dtour, Rell, Brothers Atom, and Chronfused, who laid down some laid back rhymes before Xbluuez switched up the energy. All of them, with the exception of DTour, were at their first Studio710 cypher and I’d love to see them all back at the next event.
Studio710 is located in downtown Vancouver, and is the city's leading cannabis-friendly media recording studio. Studio710 is produced by JadeMaple. For more information, check out Studio710.ca.
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