Yung Truth, D.A., Hoodzee and L. Salv – “The Cypher” (video)

Bare-boned and elegantly dark, “The Cypher” unravels with economy and style the turntablist aestheticisms of old-school hip-hop. Four of the UK’s hardest-working indie rappers trade rhyme and verse atop a ringing horn sample, exploring all dimensions of flow. Unapologetically British and defiantly proud of it, Yung Truth, D.A., Hoodzee, and L. Salv exercise a tension noirishly filmic and wickedly grand. Nowhere near a big-budget production, it’s a small-time effort that captures a certain energy brewing in the circles of the UK’s underground hip-hop scenes.

In an exchange of words edged with the grit of London streets, each rapper here makes a bid for prize mic, finding nuance and cadence in the deep grooves of their homegrown hip-hop. Keep your eye on the second rapper, D.A., (self-confessed “bomb-threat”) who administers a lyrical blast of braggadocio up the jacksie of any rival MC fancying to take a swing. Managing an equally magnetic and lethal delivery of rough-hewn poeticisms, he dispenses his rhymes with an almost booming plangency.