By Reagan Ssempijja
The first Talent Africa UG Cypher was released well over 10 years ago, and if you followed keenly, it was a line-up of the A-list rappers of the time. With Navio, The Mith, GNL Zamba, Keko and St. Nelly Sade, among others, you knew you were in for a rollercoaster of bars and punchlines.
It also had some up and coming rappers of that time like Ruyonga, Tucker HD and Flex D Paper, who undoubtedly proved their worth, 10 years later. It was a good cypher to watch and listen to.
Then, less than three years later, the UG Cypher 2 was released, featuring almost the same line-up, with a few more force-to-reckon-with rappers of the time, like Lyrical G, Mun-G, Enygma and Big Trill. The edition also introduced to us The Ninja C, a fresh female rapper who didn’t perform exceptionally well, but made her mark nonetheless. It was a good Cypher, too.
While the second edition took only under less than three years to be outed, cypher enthusiasts have had to wait for close to eight years for the third edition. Finally, it was launched on April 30, during the Jameson and Friends show at Design Hub, Bugolobi, a city suburb.
Unlike, the previous editions, the Ug Cypher 3 had a line-up of mostly the least known rappers of this generation. Apart from Tucker HD, who has featured in all three of the cyphers, Ninja C, who was appearing for the second time, and Atlas Da African, who has been around for a while, the rest of the rappers were rather unfamiliar to many. But that was besides the point, especially since all that mattered was weather or not they could pull off a punchy cypher.
Well, if you judge this edition against the previous two, your opinion will obviously be biased. Mostly because of how experience-filled, deep and mature the other two were. However, the third edition, despite being dubbed the G.O.A.T edition for unclear reasons, presented some young, passionate, energetic rappers, who might be the next ‘Big Three’, so to speak.
However, apart from Big Ben Sukuya and Triggah, who freestyle in their local dialects, the rest chose to do English, and when I say English, I mean American-like English, not your regular lame English that cannot even sustain a five-minute argument. While this defeats almost everyone’s understanding of why it’s called a UG Cypher, they did good.
Speaking about doing good on this edition, Tucker HD and Atlas Da African proved why they have been rapping for the longest time among the entire line-up. Timothy Code did the closure of the Cypher justice, as well.
For urban rap music consumers, you have yourselves a fairly good listen.
