Slaughterhouse’s Hot 97 Cypher is 2011’s Classic Hip-Hop (Listen & Download) Posted by Nathan S. on 12/22/11 | Filed under Top Stories, Refined Picks, Joe Budden, Freestyles, Slaughterhouse, Joell Ortiz, Crooked I, Royce da 5 9

Whether it was "The Illest". unquestionably the best BET Cypher or anything else they even considered rhyming on, in many ways 2011 was the Year of Slaughterhouse. No one's bringing back that classic hip-hop "just rhyming as dopely as possible' feel than Budden, Crooked, Royce and Ortiz. The best rapper is the one who raps the best. Imagine that.

So I've kept the quartets Hot 97 freestyle cypher on repeat for the last 24 hours. As always I could do without the Funk Flex bombs, but with the addition of some classic beats this shit really takes me back to the Stretch and Bobbito days of real radio freestyles.

"Infections, if I have it your girl have it / this verse is Irv Magic." - Royce da 5'9"
"A few resent me but I'm cool with it / they handed me the city before I knew what to do with it." - Joe Budden
"Unless it's an old Biggie verse you shouldn't have faith in your raps." - Ortiz
"I'm the real west coast savior / why you think they holler "church!" when the verse is done?" - Crooked

Bonus points to fellow Rap Nerds who can name that instrumental. I'll get things started: Crooked first verse is Mobb Deep's "Shook Ones Pt. 2". What else you got?

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