Red Bull Pull Up Bar Cypher at Gorilla: A Celebration Of Manchester's Rap Scene

The basement of Gorilla is filled up with people from wall to wall wearing a variety of garms that range from streetwear culture to stylishly cut dresses. The turnout is huge, and a reflection of Manchester as a City of culture.

Rap at its essence is competition and innovation, the ability to create words from the spot in real-time without a stutter. In America, emcees first performed on corners going to war against each other lyrically – carrying within themselves a distinct style. Birthed from the New York Bronx in the 70s, it quickly spread throughout the neighbouring boroughs before the rest of America, and then across the Atlantic.

Demonstrating its reach as a genre and art form over the decades since, and how in the UK we’ve adopted our own sound, Red Bull Raise The Bar shines a light on the sounds within the sound.

Last night Red Bull Raise The Bar ran the Manchester edition of their ever-growing cypher that aims to provide a space for the most talented emcees to express themselves in their chosen art form of rap, grime, drill and any other experimental style. It’s also a way to show that the music scene is bigger than just London.

Rapping in front of a live audience over a variety of beats eight artists were separated into 2 heats and the top two of each were voted to graze the final. The rappers of the night included P1 Caps, Comfy, True Aubz, Sleazy F Baby, MC Nelson, Chie Bad, Gilly MCR, Blind MIC.

Skrapz taken by Amy Heycock

 The night opened with the winner of the London edition Casper warming up the crowd before Skrapz to the joy of the crowd performed as a surprise guest, performing tracks such as ‘Marathon’ and ‘Intro’ off his newest album Reflections before signing off with UK classic ‘One More Chance Freestyle’.

The rappers are judged by the crowd on lyrical ability, flow, energy and being able to move a room filled with people who love the scene.

Gilly MCR and True Aubz, P1 Caps and Chie Bad all moved to the final but with only one winner, P1 Caps won after impressing with three consistent freestyles that resulted in wheel-ups demands and braps from the crowd.

P1 Caps taken by Amy Heycock