WS Chronicle

Aside from being the city’s oldest community newspaper, The Chronicle is also known for putting on several much-anticipated community events every year. The King Day Prayer Breakfast draws nearly 1,000 people every January. Hundreds attend the Lash/Chronicle JV Tournament in December, and some of the best gospel and jazz artists in the state perform at Gospel and Jazz Fest during October’s Carolina Classic Fair.. 

But for the past three years arguably the most popular event hosted by The Chronicle has been the Black History Month Cypher. 

The idea for the cypher came from marketing director Shayna Smith and office manager Deanna Taylor. Smith said she saw young poets from the local nonprofit Authoring Action perform and the next day she showed Taylor clips of the performance and talked about how she wanted to do something similar and it just took off from there. 

The beat for the cyphers was provided by Grammy award-winning producer and North Carolina’s own 9th Wonder. Each of the cyphers has been curated by videographer and director Gregg Penn, and shot by The Moonrunners. 

Artists performing in the cypher this year include Booly Money, IIVV, DeDe2Raw, Jimmy Street, and SQ Bush. To see the cypher visit the Winston-Salem Chronicle YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alGw6L-oHzE.