DETROIT – You could hear the music pulsating through the streets of Southwest Detroit.
Little did a lot of people know, but that house on Vinewood Street was setting a world record.
“Man, it’s been crazy,” DeMaciio, a hip-hop artist from Southwest Detroit, said on Friday. “It’s been a lot of energy.”
DeMaciio is the head of this lyrical collective called “Nonstop Hip-Hop.” And on this 313 Day, they were in the midst of a 28-hour hip-hop cypher.
It started at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday afternoon and rolled until 7:30 p.m. Friday evening. The reason why?
“The World Record right now is 24,” DeMaciio said. “So, we just had to put an extra four on top of it.
“We could’ve stopped at 25, but 28 kinda sets that bar,” he added. “We’re 20 hours deep, so what’s eight more hours!?”
“True Hip-Hop heads, you feel me, it’s not too hard to find them if you put on the right function. So, just putting this together, telling our people, and really word of mouth -- and community.”
A cypher is when a group of rappers get together and spit freestyle. All you need is a DJ, a mic, and the rappers provide the endless rhymes.
Hip-hop, like Motown, punk rock, and house, is deep in the DNA of Detroit culture.
Whether it’s icons like Eminem, Royce da 5’9”, Esham, Trick Trick, Slum Village or the late J Dilla and Blade Icewood or more modern Detroit rap stars like Sada Baby, Kash Doll, Icewear Vezzo, and Tee Grizzley, Detroit rap has always had a distinctive edge.
“Detroit hip hop is just raw energy,” DeMaciio said. “I feel like it’s authentic, being authentic to ourselves and just telling our stories, you know, and not conforming to anything else.”
Fenix 2 is one of the dozens of rappers who cycled through the cypher. The 36-year-old rapper and artist was beaming after rapping nonstop for almost an hour
“Shout out to my brother, A.C., but we used to take a CD and put 20 beats on it, ride around the city, grab some Little Caesars and some Faygo and just freestyle,” he said.
“You come to events like this, and it just rejuvenates you, especially in the city of Detroit,” he said. “We have such a rich culture and such a deep roots in hip-hop, to see the culture still alive and putting on events like this is putting a battery in my back.”
The entire event streamed on YouTube with everyone from the rappers to the sound engineer, to the streamers, to the DJ taking shifts to keep it moving.
They saw the cypher as a chance to put on for a city that has given so much to the culture. And for DeMaciio, a chance to show how non-stop hip hop is.
“I was southwest, born and raised,” DeMaciio said. “Just growing up in Detroit taught me everything about life, and it just really showed me how I can move, you know, and be strong about it.