The lack of exposure opportunity for the rap community was brought to Hale Baskin’s attention a couple of years back at a music town hall. Wednesday was her first attempt at bridging the gap between rappers, band, and instrumentalist communities at Got Bars? – A Southpaw Cypher, an event hosted at Andy’s Bar that Baskin hopes to continue to hold once a month.

“I felt like I had a pretty easy solution to that problem…let’s have a cypher,” Baskin said. “It’s going to be fun…plus we’re always on the lookout for rappers that we want to collaborate with.”

Before the high-top chairs begin to fill, I spoke with Christopher Hill (commonly known as the coincidentally-accurate hybrid of his name, “Chill”), who regularly subs in to play drums with the Southpaw preachers.

“There’s not a lot of this going on in this area, so it [has] to start somewhere,” Chill said. “The vision is [here]…when you’re playing with the right people, it’s a language. Everyone can communicate without saying anything.”

Host for the night, Cameron McCloud, expresses a similar sentiment when explaining the importance of collaboration across all spheres of talent. “I literally wouldn’t be as successful as a musician had I not made the decision to start working with live instrumentalists instead of just being on stage having a DJ behind me playing my tracks,” McCloud said, before taking a pause to acknowledge the “Swang” by Rae Sremmurd remix that DJ Juicy the Emissary was crafting in the background.

The cypher commenced, and Baskin introduced the concept for the night, inviting anyone who was inspired by the music to make their desire to participate clear by coming to the front of the stage. Following, the Southpaw Preachers let the music assume the role of engagement facilitator, an ultimately successful effort and a lively experience –optimistically the first of many collaborative cyphers to come.

Stay tuned to events at Andy’s Bar for the the next Southpaw Cypher.