Def-i enters 73-hour cypher in Guinness World Records bid

DÁ’DEESTŁ’IN HÓTSAA

Shiprock-raised rapper Def-i spent years looking up to freestyle MCs such as MC Supernatural while finding his own voice through rap. Later this month, he expects to stand in the same cypher with the artist he once admired as part of a 73-hour nonstop Hip-Hop event seeking a Guinness World Record.

Christopher Mike-Bidtah, the Diné Hip-Hop artist known as Def-i, was invited to participate in the Infinite Cypher, scheduled Sept. 25-28 in Tionesta, Pennsylvania.

Def-i said the event will bring MCs, beatboxers, DJs and beat makers together for a continuous cypher intended to run for 73 hours. He expects to rap, provide beats, cypher and beatbox during the event.

“I think this is really an interesting and special event to be part of because I’ve always wanted to try to break a Guinness World Record,” Def-i said.

He had considered pursuing a Guinness record during the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s NoDAPL movement but did not have enough time to work through the process. The Infinite Cypher gives him another opportunity, this time alongside other artists.

“This is kind of like my chance to do it alongside many others too,” he said.

Def-i described a rap cypher as a collective part of Hip-Hop where artists take turns rapping or telling stories through music. Participants in Pennsylvania will work together to keep the cypher going nonstop, a format that reaches back to the kind of events Def-i attended while becoming immersed in Hip-Hop.

MC Supernatural was among the freestyle MCs he looked up to while beginning to rap in Shiprock, making the chance to join him in the same event especially meaningful.

“I’ve just looked up to him as a legend and over the decades, even since I was a high school––barely starting out rapping in Shiprock, New Mexico,” Def-i said. “And now it’s like a chance for me to share the same stage and platform with him and many others too.”

The invitation connects Def-i’s early years in Northern Navajo with a career that has taken him into Hip-Hop communities well beyond New Mexico.

Def-i credits his mother, Pandora Mike, with introducing him to reading and writing at a young age. He also played drums before finding in rap a form that brought rhythm and words together.

“I think the one that I fell in love with the most was rap music because, you know, it fundamentally just kind of combines like the drums and poetry together or rhythms and music with the words,” he said.

His older brother, the late Laurence Shane Bidtah, also influenced him, along with the late Andrew Wake Self Martinez, one of Def-i’s best friends whom he toured with over the years. Def-i recalled going with Wake Self and others to rap battles, poetry slams, break-dance battles and DJ competitions as he became more immersed in Hip-Hop.

“It’s been a positive force in my life,” he said. “So I’m really thankful for having a way to kind of work with this creative energy.”

Freestyle remains part of Def-i’s work, and he said MC Supernatural continues to influence the way he approaches improvisation and creativity.

Beyond the Pennsylvania event, Def-i said he has been touring frequently and has received invitations to visit schools. He is considering a school tour through Navajo Nation communities as his schedule allows.

He also plans to participate in Indigenous Peoples Day in New York City at Randall’s Island and has been invited to co-teach a class at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He plans to continue releasing music while touring.

Def-i describes the artist name as an extension of himself through rap, music, visual art and storytelling. The name reaches back to Shiprock, where he remembers visiting the library at Mesa Elementary as a third grader and finding a book about Hip-Hop. As he often did with books, he turned to the back looking for new words and found one that stayed with him.

“Anyway, the first word I found was “def,” D-E-F. And that means you’re synonymous with being good or dope,” he said. “So I was just like striving to always be good at what I do and just the I is who I am.”

Years later, the name he found partly through a childhood library book will travel with him into a cypher scheduled to keep going for 73 hours.

Find Def-i on TikTok and Instagram at @def_i and on Facebook at @defrapper.

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