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Originally Posted by Kiwi Peewee
The cypher section has always been a place for people to drop disses against people that won't respond to them, or just bars they've written that they want to get off their chest. From looking back at LB's history there's been some cyphers that are more topical (check out War Tank/Warren Peece's "Stay in School" cypher) but there's typically been stronger interest in battle-type verses (like DaDDiO's "Rumble in the Jungle" and "Thrilla in Manilla" cyphers). The reason for that is, as Esso says, that this is a rap battling site. There are lots of sites out there for people who want to focus on topicals, but LB isn't one of them, so there'll only a minority of our userbase that cares about regular battling and topicals. That was fine when the userbase was very large, in the past, but with a smaller userbase the critical mass to support a strong topical/cypher section isn't there. If you want to carry on doing it for the sake of doing it that's awesome and the few people on here that are into that stuff will keep following you, but if you're after feedback and engagement from a larger group honestly this is not the right website at the right time.
I disagree with this. Firstly, Eminem can and does tell captivating stories, he just doesn't do it as a 3rd person narrative like IT does. Stan, Kim and '97 Bonnie & Clyde are fantastic examples of this, where Em tells enthralling and dark stories in unconventional ways. Sure Dance With The Devil is one of the greatest rap tracks of all time, but the storytelling is very direct through an omniscient 3rd person narrator – IT is just telling you what's going on the whole time. Contrast that with Stan, where the story is told in first-person through an increasingly unreliable narrator in the form of letter correspondence, then switches perspectives at the end. Or take Kim, which is entirely dialogue; or '97 B&C, which is a monologue in baby-speak and euphemisms. The point of this is not me saying "eMiNeM iS tHa GoAt", because if you look through any of rap's true greats they can do the same. Equally, Technique has phenomenal scheme-work and is capable of great wordplay and punchlines (such as at the hidden track at the end of Dance with the Devil).
Topical battles have specific designated people who can vote on them that know what they're doing if you're concerned about that.
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Well personally I ain't finding anything for text cyphers, but if you see any sites lmk. As for Eminem's storytelling? It's nothing compared to IT'S. There's no set-up to Kim, it's just violence and shock factor, with a bare-bones basic story. Stan was little different, and better story-wise, and you're right with the unreliable narrator factor, but as a storywriter it's already been done time and time again, and I even used it in a previous cypher I dropped a year ago. As for Dance with The Devil? It actually uses more advanced techniques than Stan. It has foils, parallel plots etc. The story truly revolves around someone's environment influencing them to slowly become more and more greedy, while feeding into things said by the people they hate (Wanting to become rich while hating the rich). Its really so complex it would take me a few paragraphs and a lot of time to fully breakdown. Stan is just about how you should make your own life instead of obsessing over anothers.