4

“Solo Doe is my idol man, Cherry is the Street”

206/2k

THE debate about the connection between hip hop and violence in Seattle resurfaced in the fall of 2000. Early on the morning of Saturday, September 23, five people were shot outside the Bohemian Backstage nightclub, located in downtown Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. The club had recently begun playing hip-hop music on weekends, and Police Chief Gil Kerlikowski said his officers had responded to numerous incidents over the previous few months. “The issue is, quite frankly, hip-hop,” one neighborhood resident complained. “It has to do with the pathetic lack of emotional maturity of many hip-hop patrons.” The rhetoric escalated at a joint press conference with Chief Kerlikowski and Seattle Mayor Paul Schell. Although the police described the shootings as an isolated gang-related incident, Schell said hip hop “can make audiences excitable” and claimed: “It has to do with a recipe of alcohol, guns and the wrong kind of music.” ¹

The hip-hop community swiftly rallied to counter the mayor’s position. By the following weekend, local companies Darkside Productions, Jasiri Media Group, L Brothers Entertainment, and Pak Pros organized a peaceful protest at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle. “I’m not here to defend hip-hop,” said Jonathan “Wordsayer” Moore of Jasiri Media Group. “It speaks for itself. This is not about seeking any justification or to portray ourselves as being good or civilized. We already are those things.” Aware of the anger Schell’s comments caused, the protest organizers sought to cultivate connections among artists as well as promote discussion and relationships between the hip-hop community and local government.²

Schell’s handling of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests that rocked Seattle in 1999 had already doomed his chances at reelection, and in November 2001, Greg Nickels replaced Schell as mayor. Nickels and his administration brought an attitude toward hip hop that seemed to be the opposite of Schell’s, as reflected in the creation of the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Hip-Hop. Originally proposed to Nickels’s office by Tony B’s MUSICA organization, the award acknowledged and honored innovative performance, community service, and entrepreneurial achievement by local members of the hip-hop community whose work had significant impact in Seattle. The institution of this award in the early 2000s signaled the city administration’s newfound interest in embracing the cultural contributions of hip hop and more acceptance of hip-hop culture within the Seattle mainstream.³

Expanding the Variety of Seattle’s Hip-Hop Music

The first recipient of the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Hip-Hop in October 2002 was Benjamin “Mr. Benjamin” Smith for the breadth of his community service. As an artist Mr. Benjamin, who started Deuce 8 Records in 1997, called his regional hip-hop dialect “Northern Flow.” He said: “You know how everybody categorized their raps, Nelly had ‘Country Grammar,’ Master P had a down-South flow, Tupac had the East Coast–West Coast sound. My style I like to call the ‘Northern Flow.’” In addition to releasing music, Mr. Benjamin spent years in area schools and youth centers, giving pro-education and antidrug speeches.⁴

Mr. Benjamin and Deuce 8 Records were part of a larger group of local, independent record labels founded during the 1990s, which helped power Seattle hip hop into the new millennium. Among them were Seasick Records, which started off in 1990 as KL One Productions with Keek Loc and DJ DV One, and Dark Diamond Records, formed by Cedric Prim and Steven Johnson. Dark Diamond featured Step One Mobb, 2-Tyght, and Hustlers For Life, who combined to form the collective Mobb Tyght Hustlers and released a self-titled compilation album in 1997. Also that year, Edward Dumas launched Wet City Records; Street Level Records, founded by David “D-Sane” Severance III in 1996, which would produce such local artists as Full Time Soldiers and Byrdie; former Emerald Street Boy James Croone’s CD Raised Records, which released the 1994 single “Krakerbashin” by the group Darkset; and Just Cash Records led by Curtis Elerson. Leading into the 2000s, the diversity of styles and approaches within Seattle hip hop kept the scene from being defined strictly by the more “hardcore” standards of rap that had come to dominate the charts nationally. This variety included pushback against post-9/11 “patriotism,” a collaboration with funk legend Rick James, a local record company with an ear to the street, the rise of blue-collar rap and an accompanying record label, an out-of-town record company making a major play for local talent, the emergence of an independent white hip-hop culture, a spoken-word appearance on HBO, and a strong female influence.

Like others in the United States, hip-hop artists responded to the terrorist attacks that bought down the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, as well as the subsequent run-up to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with critical artistic responses. One of these came from Seattle in the form of 911 Amerika, a fifteen-track compilation released in 2002 that critiqued post-9/11 government policy, executive-produced by King Khazm and Gabriel Teodros. The album featured production by Vitamin D and vocalists including Teodros, E-Real Asim of Black Anger, Erika “Kylea” White, and Silas Blak. Thematically, two things stood out in The Stranger’s review of 911 Amerika. The first was that the events of September 11 were destined to happen “because of the U.S.’s ruthless political and economic policies toward foreign countries, especially Afghanistan,” wrote music critic Brian Goedde. The second theme was that these artists refused to go to war for America “because they do not pledge allegiance to what they see as a corrupt, racist, morally reproachful government.” The liner notes for the CD included “anti-military opinions and statistics” as well as contact information for groups like the Committee for Conscientious Objectors.⁵

The variety of rap music coming from Seattle during this period spanned the political to the popular, and the work of local hip-hop artists caught the attention of some larger-than-life musical figures. Following the release of their 2002 self-titled debut album, Seattle group Nocturnal Rage—made up of Caligula, PyroManiak, and Fo’Feva—scored a hit with their debut single “Miss Mary Jane.” After performing and promoting the track around the country, the group got the opportunity to record a remix of the song, based on legendary funk musician Rick James’s 1978 smash hit “Mary Jane” with James himself. Caligula said, “For Rick James to join us on our debut project is the total validation of our skills.” ⁶ The timing of the collaboration coincided with a resurgence in James’s popularity following his appearance in the skit “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories” on the Comedy Central network series Chappelle’s Show with Dave Chappelle.

Diversity of Sportn’ Life and Mass Line Records

The legacy of independent local record labels continued to inspire new generations of Seattle hip hop. DeVon Manier was a Southern California native and cousin of DJ Yella from NWA, who moved to the Northwest in junior high school. In the 1990s Manier was a part of Last Men Standing, along with Jamal Henderson, Emery “Slim” Buford, Bean One, and Jonathan “Fleeta” Partee, which Manier described as “a crew of friends that used to hustle together.” From this group Manier formed Sportn’ Life Records in 2002. “At the time, it seemed like nothing was coming out of the hood that was really worthy. We wanted to take off where Tribal [Productions and Vitamin D] took off,” Manier explained. “We wanted to produce quality Seattle shit, not the generic Bay Area–style shit that was goin’ on then. We wanted to be an independent force like so many black labels were becoming.”

The debut release on Sportn’ Life was a vinyl single by fourteen-year-old D. Black, who was known as Danger at the time, with “Last Men Standing” on the B side. As the son of both an Emerald Street Boy (Captain Crunch) and an Emerald Street Girl (Mia Black), D. Black was literally a product of the beginnings of hip hop in Seattle. Sportn’ Life followed this with a compilation album, The Sportn’ Life Compilation Vol. 1, released in 2003. The twenty-one track collection featured local artists D. Black, Fatal Lucciauno, Vitamin D, Calvin “Bean One” Stocker, Silent Lambs Project, and Big Partee. Over the next several years through acts such as Dyme Def, Spac3man, Larry Hawkins, and J.Pinder, Sportn’ Life Records “put its stamp on the town and put out some landmark Seattle hip-hop albums. Not only that, it has curated and exposed some of the best artists from here.” ⁷

The growing diversity of the local scene was illustrated by the artists themselves as well as by style and subject matter. Born in Long Beach, California, George “Geologic” Quibuyen spent his early years in Hawaii before moving to Bremerton, Washington, in 1991. Geo listened to fellow Filipino hip-hop lover “Nasty” Nes Rodriguez, host of Rap Attack on KCMU and fell into informal rhyming sessions with his friends in parties at Silverdale Community Center, the Bangor Lighthouse, and the basements of the Masonic Temple and Star of the Sea Church. Outside of Seattle city limits and the grips of the Teen Dance Ordinance, a thriving all-ages hip-hop scene in Bremerton grew from these smaller venues to much larger ones such as the Kitsap Pavilion and the ballroom at the Bay View Inn.⁸

After Geo graduated from Bremerton High School, he moved to Seattle, enrolled at the University of Washington, and immersed himself in the local hip-hop scene, going to shows at venues like RCKNDY and Sit & Spin. As a member of the Student Hip-Hop Organization of Washington (SHOW) at the University of Washington, Geo met Alexei Saba “Sabzi” Mohajerjasbi, an Iranian American with a background in music. Sabzi and Geo found common social and political ground and clicked artistically, forming Blue Scholars in 2002. The name was a play on the term “blue collar,” and Billboard described them as a “politically minded duo, marked by Geologic’s working-class calls for action and Sabzi’s jazzy backdrops.” In 2004 they independently released their self-titled debut, which was named Album of the Year by the Seattle Weekly, received airplay on radio station KEXP, and earned them a second-stage appearance at the 2005 Sasquatch! Festival.⁹

Blue Scholars approach of hands-on do-it-yourself activism led them to form Mass Line Records in 2006 with manager Dave Meinert, RA Scion of Common Market, and the duo Abyssinian Creole made up of Gabriel Teodros and Khingz. Journalist Charles Mudede compared changing regional demographics to the Mass Line collective. “Like Mass Line’s members,” Mudede wrote, “Seattle is becoming increasingly culturally mixed. In 1990, white Americans made up 75 percent of the population; now that figure is close to (or has even passed below) 65 percent.” From Everett to Tacoma, cities north and south of Seattle respectively, the numbers of East Africans and Latinos increased sharply, and the number of Asian Americans, African Americans, and Eastern Europeans in the region also continued to grow. “The metropolis’s cultural mix is mirrored by the ethnicities of the collective, whose DJs and MCs (Iranian American, East-African American, Asian American, white American) will soon begin piping hip-hop through Mass Line.” ¹⁰ In addition to Sexy Beast (2005) by Abyssinian Creole and Blue Scholars’ and Common Market’s self-titled debut albums from the Mass Line group were others such as This What I Do (2005) by Ballard rapper Grynch, records from Grayskul and Boom Bap Project, and Hello World (2005) by Framework. Of the material being produced, music critic Larry Mizell Jr. was cautious. “True, 206 rap fanatics have been treated to a series of dope albums from their own backyard,” he wrote; “let’s hope our scene and our city’s notoriously low self-esteem will improve accordingly.” ¹¹

Rhymesayers Entertainment and Jake One

The development of local talent can be gauged by the level of attention it draws from out-of-town interests. Like Seattle, Minneapolis has had a long and active underground hip-hop scene dating back to the 1980s. In the early 1990s a group of local DJs, MCs, b-boys and b-girls, graffiti artists, producers, entrepreneurs, and promoters formed a crew called Headshots. Although Headshots would eventually dissolve for a variety of reasons, that collective gave birth to Rhymesayers Entertainment in 1995. The independent record company was founded by Sean “Slug” Daley, Anthony “Ant” Davis, Musab (formerly “Beyond”) Saad, and Brent “Siddiq” Sayers and was soon the largest hip-hop label in Minnesota. Rhymesayers became known for its in-house retail outlet Fifth Element, which sold music, clothing, art supplies, DVDs, and specialty items.¹²

Rhymesayers signed several artists in 2004 from Seattle, including the groups Boom Bap Project and Greyskul, who released the albums Reprogram and Deadlivers, respectively, in 2005. Rhymesayers brought on Grieves, Vitamin D, and Jake One. A native of the Central District, Jacob “Jake One” Dutton made his name as a producer in the 1990s working with Conception Records. A disciple of Vitamin D, by the early 2000s Jake worked with some of the biggest names in hip hop, including De La Soul, Busta Rhymes, Gift of Gab, Mos Def, and many others. The trend continued in 2007, when Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson recruited Jake to produce for his third studio album Curtis. Jake’s contribution was the song “All of Me,” featuring the “queen of hip-hop soul” Mary J. Blige. The song and album became involved in the drama of 50 Cent’s publicity stunt declaration that since the two albums shared a release date, if Kanye West’s Graduation outsold Curtis in the first week, 50 Cent would retire from music. Though the publicity helped both albums post impressive sales numbers, Kanye West came out on top.¹³ Jake One released his debut solo album in 2008, and Grieves’s label debut Together/Apart came out on Rhymesayers in 2011.

Macklemore’s Beginnings

Almost from the beginning, hip hop displayed multiracial characteristics. However, around the turn of the millennium, a trend emerged in the Seattle hip-hop scene—shows at predominantly white venues where the promoter, producer, crowd, and artist were all white. This active subculture of white hip hop in Seattle went through a lengthy incubation process. About this time, fifteen-year-old Ben “Macklemore” Haggerty made his live stage debut in 1999 at the Jonathan Moore– produced Sure Shot Sundays in the Sit & Spin as a member of a group called Elevated Elements. Macklemore eventually self-released a solo EP, Open Your Eyes, in 2000 and his debut full-length album, The Language of My World, in 2005. “My inspiration was honesty,” Macklemore said of his early work. “I wanted to capture every element of my life regardless of how I’d be perceived. Hip-hop—and just music in general—seems to be in a state where artists are afraid of being human . . . whether it’s fear, insecurity, ego, struggles, or happiness, I wanted to put it all out on the line. All of it. From addiction, to penis size, to white privilege, I chose subject matter that I feel people overlook in general.” ¹⁴

Macklemore met his musical partner, Ryan Lewis, in 2006 and grew his name by performing at local community events and music festivals such as Bumbershoot and the Sasquatch! Music Festival. Appearances like these gave Macklemore the opportunity to play larger national events like the Outside Lands Music Festival in San Francisco, Lollapalooza, Rock the Bells, Soundset, and the Bonaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. “Dude is one of my favorite cats in town with his sharp observations and keen sense of humor,” wrote Stranger journalist Larry Mizell Jr. “He never takes himself too seriously and is a master at the fine art of self-deprecation. My joint right now, ‘Claiming the City’ (which sports a choice appearance from Abyssinian Creole), is an insightful snapshot of Seattle’s quickly changing landscape. It cites racial politics and exponential growth as reasons you might not recognize Seattle in a few short years. Get up on this one, I’m telling you.” ¹⁵

As a descendent of the legacy of privilege, power, and oppression that helped lead to the creation of hip hop in the first place, the white MC has traditionally occupied a complex space in the culture. Journalist Charles Aaron described this complexity as coming from Black people’s suspicion of “whites who identify too closely with African-American culture, primarily because those same whites often want to boost the culture wholesale.” ¹⁶ Macklemore’s association with figures like Abyssinian Creole, Blue Scholars, Suntonio Bandanaz, and other credible musicians indicated his navigation not only of the preexisting Black network of local hip hop but a newer multicultural one as well. Within this context potential resistance against Macklemore was relatively minimal.

Expanding Gender Diversity in the Seattle Hip-Hop Scene

Differences in perspective and approach continued to drive Seattle hip hop forward. The group Beyond Reality remained active with the release of their 2007 album A Soul’s Journey. The bulk of production work was handled by well-known Seattle producer Bean One. “Kylea’s staccato lines are devoid of any verbosity,” music critic Rowald Pruyn wrote, “and her window to the world on A Souls Journey is strictly focused on the culture she has devoted so much time to. Songs like ‘Clap Your Hands,’ ‘The 1-2,’ and ‘B-Girls’ leave little to the imagination.” ¹⁷ In addition to recorded material, female-centric events were an important aspect of building a diverse local hip-hop community. One example was a 2005 installment of Power Bill, a monthly series presented by Vitamin D and The Pharmacy at the War Room, which featured several standout Seattle artists, including Kylea of Beyond Reality who Larry Mizell Jr. said possessed “deft lyricism” and “certified b-girl pedigree”; Felicia Loud whose “superb soul is as filthy as it comes”; Laura “Piece” Kelley, “jazzy, intelligent, and insightful, she delivers the goods every time”; and soul singer Choklate, a rising talent and veteran of numerous hip-hop appearances.¹⁸

In 2004 Kelley continued the trend of local artists appearing on national platforms to display their talent as she was on the HBO program Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam, which aired between 2002 and 2007. The show, hosted by New York rapper and actor Mos Def, primarily featured performances by both up-and-coming and well-known spoken-word poets. The program was hailed by some as groundbreaking and labeled exploitive of poetry by others. Kelley appeared in season four, episode six, and in her poem “Central District,” she dropped references to local history:

For me it started with block parties

And all night long gatherings

The standard greeting was

“Man, what’s happening?”

Back when Empire Way became MLK

Even after Kelley’s appearance on Def Poetry Jam, she continued to serve the local community. Among other things, Kelley taught poetry at Rainier Beach Community Center and was a program director for Powerful Voices, a Seattle nonprofit serving adolescent girls. She also presented a poem on stage at Key Arena in 2008 for the Dalai Lama, who was so impressed he requested a copy to take home.¹⁹

Kelley was an active part of Seattle’s spoken-word community, performing with national artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Saul Williams, Gwendolyn Brooks, Angela Davis, and Bobby Seale. However, Seattle’s spoken-word/hip-hop connection dated back to poetess and songstress Jazz Lee Alston, who released her self-titled debut EP on Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Rhyme Cartel Records and appeared on the 1993 compilation album Seattle . . . The Dark Side. Poet Melissa Noelle Green was awarded the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Hip-Hop in the Spoken Word category in 2005. As for Kelley, in 2004 and 2005 she was named Seattle’s Grand Slam Poetry Champion and became the youngest member of the Seattle Arts Commission. She continued her work with a one-woman show called Street Smarts: The Story of a True School B-Girl.²⁰ In addition to starring, Kelley produced the show, which had a two-week run at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center. The show positioned Piece as a “seeker of truth, keeper of peace and student of the street” who “performs her life work and calls for one people from her stage of life. As a poet, actor, and flow specialist, ‘Piece’ takes you running through her hood on a quest for urban enlightenment.” Each act was poetically performed, and each song was a “northwest coast hip-hop original.” Kelley’s message was designed to unshackle minds “out of the mainstream ghetto, as she unites the power of the pen with the power of one in this theatrical breakthrough. Her lyrics are freshly woven into northwest coast beats, composed and produced from this Seattle native of the grid-block.” ²¹

Seattle Breaking Takes on the World

In addition to rap and spoken word, Seattle’s breaking scene remained active, vibrant, and diverse around the turn of the century. One key example of this was the Lords of the Floor competition, first held in 2001. Sponsored by energy drink Red Bull, the competition was created by Bob “The Balance” of Circle of Fire. The Seattle-based crew earned international acclaim in 2000 by representing the United States in Germany at the Battle of the Year, the world’s premier competition. Lords of the Floor was held at the Sand Point Naval Station, now Magnuson Park, in northeast Seattle. In addition to several invited teams from different parts of the country, more than $5,500 in prize money lured entrants from around the world.

Sixty-four crews began NCAA basketball tournament bracketstyle two-on-two battles, with local products Massive Monkees and Circle of Fire among the invitees receiving automatic bids to the “Sweet 16” out of respect for their track record. The judges included Ken Swift, a founding member of New York City’s legendary Rock Steady Crew. The following year, Circle of Fire was named producers for Lords of the Floor 2002, again sponsored by Red Bull. The event was described as “light years ahead of its time with its event setup, competition format, design and even graphics.” It predated and served as a template for Red Bull BC One, which has become the energy drink maker’s signature breaking competition.²²

The level of breaking in Seattle helped push Circle of Fire to international heights with their appearance at the Battle of the Year, but the question became whether any of the local talent could bring home a trophy. That answer came in 2004, when the World B-Boy Championships were held at famed Wembley Arena in London. Thirty-two teams from numerous countries—Germany, France, Korea, New Zealand, Spain, Canada, and Japan—participated. Massive Monkees was one of several teams representing the United States. In what was “basically the World Cup of Break Dancing,” Massive’s lineup of Jeromeskee, Just Be, Juse Boogie, and J.D. Rainey took first place in the prestigious four-person battle category. “We were representing our crew at home, knowing that any of them could be in our position,” Jeromeskee said after the victory. “When we first won, I couldn’t comprehend it. It was different, it was unbelievable.” ²³

The accomplishments of Massive Monkees did not go unnoticed in their hometown. Mayor Nickels said, “Massive Monkees have shown that they’re the best in the world and they’re sharing it with their community,” and he declared April 26th as annual “Massive Monkees Day.” In 2007 the Seattle Arts Commission presented Massive with the Mayor’s Arts Award in honor of the group’s continued contributions to the local arts.²⁴ Massive continued strengthening community connections when crew members began dancing at Seattle Super-Sonics home games in 2004. For numerous dates at Seattle Center’s Key Arena, Massive members performed as part of the Sonics’ “Boom Squad” during time-outs and at halftime. The Boom Squad was a regular presence at Sonics games until the franchise moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.²⁵

Massive Monkees kept the spotlight on Seattle with high-profile events such as their eighth anniversary celebration in 2007. In addition to individual b-girl and popping battles, crews came from California, England, France, New York, and Texas to compete for the grand prize—a free trip to Freestyle Session ’07 in Seoul.²⁶ After the passing of “the Godfather of Soul,” Massive collaborated with Aaron Walker-Loud and Big World Breaks to host “4 the Love—A Tribute to James Brown” in 2007.²⁷ In 2008 the group sponsored Crash Test at the Paramount Theatre, which featured crews competing from Brazil, California, Finland, Florida, Korea, the Netherlands, and New York, along with Massive Monkees and fellow Seattle breakers Circle of Fire.²⁸

The dizzying heights of achievement by local breaking crews in the twenty-first century inspired a new generation of dancers, crews, and events not only in Seattle but also around the Northwest. Emerging groups included Fraggle Rock Crew, Dance Broomz, Misguided Steps, Art of Movement (AOM), and Beacon Hill–based b-girls Vivid Vixens. There were also events such as Invasion of the B-Girls sponsored by the nonprofit House of Dames, “The Rec” battles in the Seattle suburb Shoreline, and breaking contests at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. Another example was the Battle of Burien, a breaking competition held just south of Seattle. The event was originally conceived in 2007 by Burien Parks recreation leader Luke Cruise and volunteer Samuel Pasana. Over time the competition expanded to include more than fifty performers participating in one-on-one and two-on-two categories. These events served as breeding grounds for younger dancers. For example, the Vicious Puppies Crew (VPC), which formed at Denny Middle School in West Seattle and has had members compete in several Battles of Burien, was mentored by local legend and Burien native Jeromeskee of Massive Monkees who regularly came out to support the up-and-comers.²⁹ Local breakers continued to make their presence felt on multiple platforms. Colleen “B-Girl Bean” Ross won the 2008 “Mighty 4 International B-Girl Battle” held in France. Fever One and Jeromeskee were featured in the 2008 documentary film Way of the B-Boy. Fraggle Rock Crew took first place at the “Just for Laughs” competition in Montreal in 2013, and Fraggle Rock member Tim Chips won the Blaze Masters Championship one-on-one title in Greece.

Brainstorm Battle and Controversy

An impressive amount and variety of local hip-hop programming, both community and corporate in nature, functioned as a key ingredient in a vibrant scene. One grassroots effort was the first Brainstorm Battle in 2001, presented by the Student Hip-Hop Organization of Washington (SHOW) and MADK Productions (Khazma and Kazuo Oki). Brainstorm Battle was a freestyle rap competition that included some forty MCs from around the United States. The preliminary rounds were held at Sit & Spin in front of two hundred spectators. The top sixteen competitors advanced to the finals, which took place at the Paradox Theater, where an audience of nearly five hundred witnessed Bishop from the local group Old Dominion fall to local MC Khingz, who walked away with the $500 first prize.

The second annual Brainstorm Battle in 2002, presented by SHOW and MAD Krew, ended with controversy. Preliminary rounds took place at the club I-Spy with approximately sixty total entrants and a crowd of three hundred. The top sixteen advanced to the finals at the Ballroom in the University of Washington’s Husky Union Building (HUB), where more than a thousand people watched Presence, a contestant from Chicago, take first place and the $2,500 prize. However, throughout the competition eyebrows were raised by the heavy use of homophobic and misogynistic language by numerous contestants during freestyle battles. Presence, who is white, created a stir by repeatedly using racial lines against Asian American and Pacific Islander opponents. In a post on Bay Area journalist and historian Davey D’s website, Blue Scholars MC George “Geologic” Quibuyen, a Filipino contestant in the Brainstorm Battle who reached the final eight, recalled that against LDubble, a Chinese American MC, Presence said:

The only thing missing from your outfit is a camera

Cook me some Mongolian beef

You can’t hold the mic right, let me get you some chopsticks

You’re a chink with a little dick

Your chances are slimmer than your eyes

And against Surge, a Puerto Rican American MC who Presence apparently thought was Filipino, he said:

Go back to the Philippines

Three lookalike references: you look like a Filipino [fill in the blank]

Quibuyen acknowledged that there are not necessarily rules, written or otherwise, regarding what can or can’t be said on onstage. However, “I’ve seen people get booed off stage for anti-black and anti-women remarks,” he said. “Presence’s lines did not surprise me. What deeply bothered me was the nearly 1,000 people who cheered on this overt racism, using hip-hop and the color-blind utopian all-about-the-skills-not-the-color mentality to justify it.” ³⁰

In 2003 more than fifty contestants participated in the preliminary rounds of Brainstorm Battle 3 that were held at the club Chop Suey on Capitol Hill before a crowd of three hundred. This time, the winner was an MC named Bo-Rat from the Bay Area. For many, the highlight of the contest came in the round of sixteen when the bracket had yielded a matchup between Geologic and the defending champion, Presence. With the previous year’s events in the air, Geologic eliminated Presence, and in the process he dropped several references to the racist lines Presence had used against Asian and Pacific Islander competitors. The fourth Brainstorm Battle in 2004 expanded beyond Seattle as regional preliminary rounds took place in Chicago, New York, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. All the regional winners received complimentary round-trip tickets to Seattle over Labor Day weekend to compete in the finals at the Bumbershoot Festival, where New York MC Iron Solomon won first prize.³¹

Local Events Large and Small Shape the Scene

The tenth anniversary of radio station KUBE 93’s Summer Jam, a milestone corporate hip-hop event, took place in 2002 at the twenty-seven-thousand-seat Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington, roughly 150 miles east of Seattle. The lineup included LL Cool J, Nelly, Jermaine Dupree, and Da Brat. Due to the distance of the venue in relation to Seattle and western Washington, large numbers of people stayed overnight at an adjacent campground operated by the amphitheater. It was there that Seattle entrepreneur Leonard Smaldino, who was selling food to hungry concert-goers returning to the campground, was shot and killed in the early morning hours.³² After the incident officials in Grant County, Washington, were intent on shutting down the festival altogether, but the economic viability of the event brought about a compromise that only closed the nearby campgrounds.³³

Another contribution to the variety of local, organic, underground performance venues in Seattle was Yo, Son!, a weekly Sunday night hip-hop event held at Chop Suey, started by entrepreneur Marcus Lalario in 2003. Yo, Son! was an attempt to combine rock and hip-hop sensibilities, which mainly drew neighborhood b-boys and b-girls without many similar alternatives. Another draw was that Yo, Son! “was clearly not going to be a corporate rap night, but an event affiliated with Seattle’s underground hip-hop collective Stuck Under the Needle,” Charles Mudede observed in The Stranger. “A press release that SUTN e-mailed out last year drew the line in the sand: Yo, Son!’s DJs would not play that ‘horrible mainstream, crossover shit with the blingy eight-bar rap and the R&B diva on the hook.’ ” ³⁴

The overlapping nature of the musical and cultural infrastructure of the local scene was laid out by connecting the dots between venues and opportunity. “As Jonathan Moore of Big Tune and Jasiri Media Group often points out,” Mudede wrote, “before Chop Suey and other Capitol Hill venues began regularly booking local rap shows in 2004, there was almost no place for local rappers to perform in this town. And this shortage not only meant no visibility but also no income. The community had little or no access to the financial infrastructure that’s needed to sustain a scene and its artists and businessmen.” Access to more and larger mainstream venues around Seattle opened the door to a new generation of local hip-hop performers, providing support that would help facilitate future opportunities. Following the success of Yo, Son!, Mudede concluded, came a series of important hip-hop shows such as Common Market at Neumos, Dyme Def at the Vera Project, and Blue Scholars at the Showbox that eventually “collapsed the wall between indie hip-hop and indie rock venues.” ³⁵

As demonstrated in Tacoma in the early 1980s, the overall health and vitality of the local hip-hop scene did not rely on Seattle-based activities alone. Consistent events in surrounding suburban cities played an important role in growing the culture. One example of these alternative locations took place during the mid-2000s in the Seattle suburb Redmond, the home of Microsoft’s main campus and headquarters. The regular hip-hop showcase 425-Get-Live, started in 2005 and named after the city’s area code, was held at a venue called the Old Firehouse and the monthly program featured various artists from around the region.³⁶

If diversity of location was important in expanding the reach of hip hop regionally, then so was recognizing the range of its participants. The multicultural nature of this environment was further underscored in an exhibit titled It’s Like That: APAs [Asian Pacific Americans] and the Seattle Hip-Hop Scene at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in 2003, curated by George “Geologic” Quibuyen. Among other things highlighted were the contributions of local Asian Pacific Americans (APAs) such as “Nasty” Nes Rodriguez, MC Karim Panni, King Khazm, DJs Kamikaze and E-Rok, and the Emerald City Breakers. Quibuyen pointed out that local Asians “have made a name for themselves, especially in the b-boy and DJ sectors. A lot of them relate to hip-hop, having experienced similar oppressive conditions as the working-class black and Latino communities which the culture was born out of.” ³⁷

The perspectives of APAs interviewed by Quibuyen helped illustrate the diversity of the hip-hop experience in Seattle. One example was local MC Paul “Eskatado” Javier of the group MSC. Javier grew up primarily in the West Seattle neighborhood of White Center, which he described as “mostly a Latino type community . . . a lot of black folks in there too . . . with more Southeast Asians that are middle class, lower class and blue collar workers,” including “some projects up in there also in the Highland area.” Aside from central sources of hip hop from radio programs like FreshTracks on KFOX, Javier recalled the action at neighborhood proving grounds such as Southgate Roller Rink in White Center, which regularly hosted breaking and rap battles.³⁸ Events such as the It’s Like That exhibit helped set the stage for the eventual arrival of the Asian Hip-Hop Summit Tour, which made its debut in Seattle at the University of Washington’s Ethnic Cultural Center in 2007. Initially formed in Los Angeles in 2002, the summit eventually visited twenty-seven cities across North America with the goal of using hip hop to fight prejudices and stereotypes of Asians and Pacific Islanders. While several artists from Southern California traveled with the tour, at each stop local talent was represented. For the second Seattle installment in August 2008, DJ B-Girl, DJ Soul One, Sonny Bonoho, and Orbitron filled the Northwest Coast portion of the bill.³⁹

Local hip-hop programming was a useful tool of expansion, having been present in Seattle nearly from the start. A variety of spaces created by and through the culture allowed individuals and organizations to engage the public and in many ways encouraged a hip-hop style of civic duty. The legacy of local artists engaging in communitydriven events powered the Seattle hip-hop scene throughout the 2000s. One case was Hip-Hop Appreciation Week in 2005, sponsored by locally based SCIONtific Records and New York MC KRS-One’s Temple of Hip-Hop. Beginning with a kickoff event hosted by Laura “Piece” Kelley at the Vera Project, a variety of performers included DJ B-Girl, Silent Lambs Project, dREDi, Nocturnal Rage, Cancer Rising, RA Scion, and Gabriel Teodros. In addition, the first Temple of Hip-Hop Festival for Kids was held at Rainier Beach Community Center with the purpose of allowing children to see “each element of hip-hop and how it can benefit their lives in a positive way.” The four-hour program included a variety of seminars and workshops on such topics as writing and marketing.⁴⁰

Another instance was Dope Emporium, founded in 2006 by tireless Seattle advocate Jamal “Jace ECAJ” Farr. Dope Emporium began as an all-age festival showcasing local MCs, poets, graffiti art, b-girls and b-boys, music video showcase, and producer battle. Educators, activists, artists, and independent media were included as participants. The result was a variety of free family-friendly exhibits and programs that showcased local talent while strengthening community ties. A community vendor marketplace showcased products and information from numerous local businesses.⁴¹

Big Tunes from Local to National

Occasionally a community-based event would develop into a corporate-sponsored affair. One example of this in Seattle was the inaugural Big Tunes challenge in 2005, a production/beat-making competition created and hosted by Vitamin D at the War Room. Vitamin theorized: “I figure, man, if I can just showcase the talent and bring the rappers and the producers in the same room, the scene’s gotta flourish from there. There’s gonna be relationships being made, and more shit’s gonna build up.” ⁴² Contestants included Specs One, DJ Topspin, the Trackheadz, and eventual winner Kuddie Mac. The spirit of Big Tunes and its ability to attract beat makers and MCs from around the region resonated enough for journalist Charles Mudede to call it “one of the most refreshing events to hit the scene in some time.”

Mudede linked the success of Big Tunes to four core spatial principles of hip hop. First was that hip hop needed a space, a place to happen such as a club, a house, or a warehouse. Second was the space in which hip hop happened must be “utopian in nature; it is a space of joy, or, as Tricia Rose once put it, a space of ‘black pleasure.’ This pleasure is not simply pleasure for pleasure’s sake, but a form of resistance. It is a happiness that goes against the imposed miseries of poverty, police corruption, and official and unofficial forms of exploitation. In short, hip-hop is a celebration.” Third was that this space was open to experimentation. “New ideas, new beats, new raps are welcomed into this celebration.” Lastly, the space of hip hop was democratic. The new sounds and ideas were not judged by one or a few but by all in this space. “Big Tune is faithful to these principles,” Mudede wrote. “It presents a space of pleasure, creativity, and popular participation. To win a Big Tune battle, a producer’s beats must generate the loudest approval from the audience.” ⁴³

Vitamin D combined with Jonathan Moore to grow Big Tunes enough to attract energy drink maker Red Bull as title sponsor. By 2009 the event was touring nationwide, eventually making appearances on television networks such as Black Entertainment Television (BET) and the music network Fuse. Events like Big Tunes, Dope Emporium, and the exhibit It’s Like That all served their purposes well. The willingness of numerous historians, artists, producers, and others to engage the community on a variety of levels had become the norm. This dynamic was an important aspect of strengthening local hip-hop infrastructure as it supported, and was supported by, its surroundings.

Expansion of Graffiti

As various local media grew and evolved around the music, another aspect of hip-hop culture, graffiti, continued to develop as well. An example of formal graffiti showings occurred in 2000 with Evidence, an exhibit at the gallery Consolidated Works in downtown Seattle. Curated by Meg Shiffler and local graffiti artist Cause B, Evidence featured work by Barry “Twist” McGee, whose work Charles Mudede described as a mixture of “tags, bottles with weary faces on them, pictures of streets, alleys, walls—things that float in and out of the urban mindset. The work is both funny and sad, lazy and rigorous, delicate and rough, simple and complex.” Also featured was San Francisco artist Amaze and local graffiti crews MAD Krew and By Any Means. Mudede noted the excitement around the exhibit and the work of these artists. “It is more fluid, more lyrical, more colorful than the graffiti writing of old,” he wrote. “This ‘late’ gallery is now exhibiting an art that is not only a product of late capitalism, but has reached its final stages as well.” ⁴⁴

An important part of graffiti, as in all forms of art, is access to materials. By the early 2000s a few retail outlets opened around the country that specifically carried graffiti-related supplies. Art Primo, established in 2003 by a group of friends who shared a passion for graffiti art, was originally launched by an all-volunteer staff as a website. It grew to hire several full-time employees and open a retail location in Capitol Hill. Aside from simply selling materials, Art Primo developed some of its own products. Staff worked in graphic design, organized community mural projects, and curated “open wall” spaces around the city. Art Primo’s retail location hosted a variety of monthly shows, ranging from fine art to graffiti.⁴⁵

While exhibitions like Evidence and stores such as Art Primo reflected legal aspects of street-inspired art, the shadow of illegal painting remained. Because of its blatant appropriation of public spaces, graffiti has always had an adversarial relationship with the general public, particularly when those painting openly embrace an outlaw identity. One example of this was local graffiti crew Big Time Mob (BTM)/American Aerosol Artists or All Against Authority (3A), formed by brothers Jesse “SEED” and Travis “TRED” Edwards.⁴⁶ BTM has long had members active in numerous cities around the world, and the crew commands respect with their attitude and global presence. Organizationally, BTM/3A operated under a constitution “loosely based” on the Mexican Mafia code of conduct: (1) never let the BTM/3A army down; (2) when disrespected by a stranger or group, all BTM/3As must unite to destroy the other person or group immediately; (3) always maintain a high level of integrity; (4) every member has the right to wear the tattoo of the 3 Aces or the BTM; (5) one must always do whatever one can to help a BTM/3A brother who has come on hard times; (6) every member has the right to express ideas, opinions, contradictions, and constructive criticisms; and (7) one must stay as physically fit as possible and continually strengthen their self-defense skills.⁴⁷

It was not until the mid-1990s that Seattle officials made an organized attempt to combat graffiti on city property. Seattle Public Utilities formed a six-member Graffiti Ranger team in 1994 to remove graffiti all over the city. Over time the Rangers painted, buffed, and blasted thousands of illegal markings at a cost of more than $1 million per year. This amount covered only city-owned property as private businesses by law were forced to clean up their own graffiti or face fines of $100 per day. The dance between graffiti writers and city crews like the Rangers was ongoing and repeated around the world. In Seattle the Rangers responded to roughly two hundred complaints each month, and the prevention versus perpetuation discussion was a constant. The argument that the “fresh coat of paint” solution of the Rangers simply offered a fresh canvas that invited more graffiti was frequently proven.

According to Seattle Public Utilities, 90 percent of complaints came from the University District, Capitol Hill, and Ballard neighborhoods, and less than 10 percent of overall graffiti was gang-related. Anthony Matlock, head of the Seattle Graffiti Rangers, said the majority of taggers were middle-class white kids between fourteen and twenty-five years old. He noted that graffiti was almost nowhere to be found in the Central District until it gentrified in the 1980s and 1990s. “When it was a minority community, it was never a problem,” Matlock said. “People like to say [graffiti] is a minority thing, but it’s not.” ⁴⁸ Indeed, police data from 2005 indicated that fully half the people arrested for graffiti offenses in Seattle actually lived in outlying areas such as Mercer Island, Kirkland, Bellevue, and Tacoma.⁴⁹ Meanwhile, the persistent use of graffiti as a subject of formal art showings continued. The exhibit The Visual Art of SPECSONE, featuring the work of the veteran local MC, producer, and street artist SPECSONE, was held in 2010 at the Throwbacks NW gallery on Capitol Hill.⁵⁰

Exit The Rocket, Enter The Stranger and Controversy

The 2000s brought significant shifts in the local media landscape of hip hop. The Rocket, which had premiered as a monthly in 1979, published its final issue in 2000. In its most widely read form as a bi-weekly in the mid-1990s, The Rocket’s distribution stretched north to Vancouver, BC; east to Missoula, Montana; and south to Eugene, Oregon. After multiple ownership changes beginning in 1995, The Rocket abruptly ceased publication without a farewell issue in 2000 amid rumors of shady dealings by the new owner and bounced paychecks. The importance of The Rocket to local hip hop in the 1980s cannot be overstated. Beginning in 1980, it was virtually the only local publication that devoted regular space to hip hop, both local and national. The story of Seattle hip hop in the 1980s would be largely oral in nature were it not for The Rocket. The Stranger would not be around until 1991, and the city’s two biggest newspapers—Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer—barely gave local hip hop the time of day until well into the 1990s. Journalist Brian Goedde wrote in The Stranger: “As for local hip-hop, The Rocket was much more of a rock rag than a rap one, but it sported Sir Mix-a-Lot on the cover years before ‘Baby Got Back,’ and put Source of Labor on the cover last summer in response to their years-and-years-long anticipated first LP.” Jace of the Silent Lambs Project added: “The city of S.E.A. has a chance to be the ‘new spot,’ and we’ll see if anybody else picks up the peel and runs with it, since now The Rocket has left the court.” ⁵¹

The demise of The Rocket left The Stranger as the predominant alternative/arts newspaper in Seattle. While The Stranger had covered hip hop sporadically since its launch in 1991, the paper did not carry a regular hip-hop column until 2003. After writing on hip hop for both the University of Washington student newspaper and the fledgling local arts and music magazine The Tablet, SHOW cofounder Sam Chesneau wrote about local and national hip hop for The Stranger. He named the weekly five-hundred-word column “The Truth.” Controversy erupted in 2004 when, after failing to meet a deadline, Chesneau was fired. Stranger editor Dan Savage, the wellknown queer white writer of the syndicated “Savage Love” column, caused uproar with a tongue-in-cheek but incendiary piece that demonstrated his ignorance of hip hop under the guise of seeking a more qualified columnist. Savage’s reference to fellow Stranger columnist Charles Mudede, who is Black, as “scholar nigger” further alienated and offended many, both locally and nationally, given the racially charged implications of using the term in mixed racial company and public discourse.

The term “scholar nigger” had originally been directed at Mudede before Savage’s column by local artist and producer Samson S, who also wrote about hip hop for The Tablet. Samson, who is Black, felt Mudede overintellectualized his analysis of hip hop. However, Savage’s use of the term drew attention from the national hip-hop community including Oakland writer and historian Davey D, who wrote: “Because now when folks start to object and point out how offended they are, the person using the term—in this case Stranger editor Dan Savage can smugly refer back to his colleague Charles Mudede who likes to call himself that.” After discussing the distinctions between the hip hop spelling of “N-I-G-G-A” and the slur “N-I-G-G-E-R,” Davey D concluded: “This guy Mudede refers to himself as NIGGER and the editor Dan Savage references him with that particular spelling. Hence no matter how you slice it and no matter how many mind games we play with using this word as a term of endearment and pointing out its dual meanings—Savage and The Stranger crossed the line. Shame on this Mudede cat who allows himself to be referred to as a ‘Scholar Nigger.’ ” ⁵²

In the aftermath of the column Mudede met with the local branch of the NAACP to discuss the situation. Another outcome was that in 2004 The Stranger hired as its new hip-hop columnist Larry Mizell Jr., who continued in this role until 2016. A native of Los Angeles who moved to Seattle in junior high school, Mizell came from musical roots. His father Larry Sr. and uncle Alphonso “Fonce” Mizell (1943–2011) were the Mizell Brothers, legendary jazz/funk/disco producers who worked with Blue Note and Motown Records in the 1970s. Mizell Jr. was also a distant cousin of Run DMC’s legendary DJ Jason “Jam Master Jay” Mizell, who died in 2002. Mizell renamed the column “My Philosophy,” a nod to the 1988 Boogie Down Productions song of the same name. In addition to his weekly contribution, Mizell wrote feature articles for The Stranger on different artists and events outside of hip hop.⁵³

Changes in Local Hip-Hop Radio and X104

While the circle of print-based publications in Seattle was shifting, hip hop’s original media vehicle seemed stagnant. By 2001 one small thing about Seattle radio had changed—KCMU 90.3 FM switched its call letters to KEXP. What had not changed was frustration with hip hop’s perceived lack of a meaningful relationship with local radio. “I have nothing new to say in this article,” vented Charles Mudede. “Indeed, I wrote one exactly like it just over a year ago, but because there has been no change or improvement at all in the matter, because we still don’t have a serious hip-hop show on the radio in this city, I must revive my frustration and re-bang my head against the same fucking wall. KUBE still plays the worst hip-hop ever made.” The two-hour Street Sounds program on KCMU represented Seattle’s only regular, dedicated hip-hop radio show. However, the fact that it aired on Sunday evenings put it at a competitive disadvantage. KCMU program director Don Yates cited this as one of the reasons the show was not doing well, admitting that it was on a bad night. “Sunday is just generally the lowest point for listenership,” he said. “That is a radio fact. I mean, even Monday night from 6:00 to 8:00 is better. So the point is that hip-hop is not being given the respect it deserves. Maybe that is a cultural thing; maybe it is an insensitivity thing. I don’t know.” ⁵⁴

Local startup Skratchkast.com was an early model of a hip-hop Internet radio station. By the early 2000s more Internet radio options were available, but many lacked a crucial local element. Mudede, although encouraged by opportunities for Seattle hip hop on the World Wide Web, noted that even if one was able to catch online hip-hop stations at home or in the office, they were usually streamed from other cities or unknown sources. “This not only means that local hip-hop is neglected, but the excitement of hearing a DJ mix and cut within the realm of your urban sphere is lost,” he explained. “Like rappers, hip-hop DJs are hyper-present; they are aware of their moment in space and time, and that intensity is lost in the zero-geography of cyberspace. In a word, nothing can replace hip-hop radio, and this city, this bizarre city, has brazenly, inexplicably deprived me of one of the greatest pleasures known to urban-kind.” ⁵⁵

For the most part, commercial stations like KUBE and public, nonprofit stations like KCMU/KEXP were the main sources for rap music over the FM airwaves. High school radio had played a smaller role in Seattle hip-hop since Nathan Hale High School station KNHC 89.5 FM (C-89) began to play rap music in 1981. However, an interesting marriage formed as Mercer Island High School station KMIH 104.5 FM, or X104, adopted a hip-hop and rhythm and blues format in 2002. Before this, KMIH had little to no reputation outside the Mercer Island community, primarily using the pop-music playlists of other local stations and broadcasting the school’s football and basketball games. Although only a couple of miles from the Central District, Mercer Island in many respects seemed worlds away. Geographically, Mercer Island is physically separated from Seattle by Lake Washington with the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, a 6,600-foot floating span of I-90, serving as the only direct connection between the two cities. Census data from 2010 indicated that Mercer Island had a total population of twenty-three thousand, with more than 70 percent of these people eighteen and older and a median household income of $120,000.⁵⁶

After coming on as a volunteer at X104 in 2002, radio veteran Patrick Lagreid soon was in charge of the station’s music, programming, and image. Relying heavily on student volunteers and community fundraising, X104 became a presence at local nightclubs and community events, in mixtapes, and online. Lagreid brought well-known local DJs such as Funk Daddy, DV One, Dilemma, and Krazy in studio to mix live on-air, strengthening the station’s grassroots connection with the hip-hop community. X104’s contributions were recognized in 2005 when the station received the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Hip-Hop for Broadcast Innovation. A press release from the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture highlighted several accomplishments: “For nearly three years X104, located at Mercer Island High School, has been dedicated to exposing Seattle to the hottest new Hip Hop and R&B. X104 is staffed mostly by student volunteers and those who sign up for the Media Broadcast Technology class receive high school credit. X104 has seen amazing growth and penetration into both the Seattle market and the global Hip Hop community.” The station was also highlighted in the May 2004 issue of VIBE magazine as the “Daily Choice” for radio in Seattle. “Since it began Web casting in January 2005,” the release said, “X104 has gained listeners across the country and all over the world. X104 has given the Puget Sound region a new outlet for Hip Hop and a fresh sound for their dynamic music and lifestyle.” ⁵⁷

Lagreid took a full-time position at another Seattle radio station in 2006, and X104’s programming moved away from hip hop. The same year, a larger commercial station from Oregon that wanted 104.5’s spot on the local dial took advantage of Federal Communications Commission rules and petitioned to displace X104, a “Class D” station, meaning it broadcast limited hours daily at lower power. After some legal wrangling, a settlement was reached, and KMIH relocated to 88.9 FM. While a relatively young station like X104 was able to make connections with the local community, longtime ratings king KUBE 93 was still struggling. That began to change in 2005 when KUBE asked Jonathan “Wordsayer” Moore to join its on-air staff. Moore’s extensive work with Source of Labor, Jasiri Media Group, and numerous other community entities had earned him the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Hip-Hop in 2003. Mayor Greg Nickels said: “Jonathan Moore and Jasiri Media Group demonstrated a remarkable track record of giving back to the community along with entrepreneurial achievement and business acumen.” ⁵⁸

The historically rocky relationship between KUBE and Seattle’s hip-hop scene reached a peak with protests in front of KUBE’s building by members of the the local hip-hop community in 1997. Although station owner Barry Ackerley had since sold KUBE to national media conglomerate Clear Channel, little had changed. For Moore, a non-negotiable condition of his acceptance was control over the songs he played, which included local music. Larry Mizell Jr. noticed: “They showcase local talent on the regular, along with the straight-up hip-hop that you may not be used to hearing from Clear Channel radio.” ⁵⁹

Along with cohost DJ Hyphen, Sunday Night Sound Session made a point to play a minimum of three local artists on each show, helping boost awareness of the scene. The outlook seemed hopeful yet uncertain about the changes in local radio. “The scene in the town is a little tainted. There’s way less avenues for getting the real hip-hop out there. Back in the day, you had [radio stations] KFOX and KRIZ—they were putting together the showcases, Nasty Nes was on there playin’ local music, you had your Sir Mix-A-Lot and your Emerald Street Boys on the radio,” explained local veteran Vitamin D. “Jon [Jonathan Moore of Jasiri Management Group] is trying to bring it back, and play local stuff on the radio—but it’s not quite the same. Don’t nobody even wanna hear it. But back then we were excited to hear it. Like, ‘Man, we wanna hear what’s goin on, that’s ours! ’ ”⁶⁰

The Rise of Hip-Hop Blogs

The jockeying for media exposure and radio play between local and national hip-hop artists continued through the decade. New generations of performers and promoters hoped to ride the wave of mainstream perception that the Seattle scene was full of potential break-out artists. Charles Mudede theorized in The Stranger that within the local scene, a distinction would have to be made between the crews that continued the mainstream approach to hip hop from its national level to a local one. “These groups tend to be black and receive almost no press in this and other publications unless, of course, someone is shot at their shows or parties. The recent explosion of press about the local scene does not include artists and promoters like Ghetto Prez, Gameboy, Funk Daddy, and Skuntdunanna,” Mudede noted. “They have their own network of venues (like Vito’s—where a man was recently shot) and publicity nodes (Seaspot.com). They want nothing to do with KEXP and have placed their eggs all in one basket, KUBE. These commercially oriented crews exist alongside but very much apart from Seattle’s currently successful second wave.” ⁶¹

Meanwhile Larry Mizell Jr. weighed in on the potentially harmful effects of so many local artists trying to be the next “king.” “It’s long been a consensus that the drive to be ‘that guy’—the next rapper to blow up Seattle—has held us back as a community, and I’d tend to agree. Deeper than that, I say that hip-hop’s ‘king’ mentality—ever since Biggie was crowned King of NY—has been a straight cancer to hip-hop’s creativity,” Mizell argued. “Instead of coming up with original concepts, individuals are only out to be the HNIC by following formulas, always to the detriment of the art form.” ⁶² Traditionally, artists striving to become the next “king” had limited channels within which to operate. However, the creation of opportunities for artists to get valuable publicity and exposure soon had another platform to work with. The growth of twenty-first-century technology represented an increasing challenge to print media and record companies. The spread of digital music, mp3 files, and Napster (the free peer-to-peer online file-sharing service) shook the record industry in the early 2000s.

Another Internet-related trend reflected the ways in which music journalism could achieve independence from the box of traditional publications like newspapers and magazines. In 2006 Raindrop Hustla became the first blog dedicated to Seattle hip hop. Launched by Stranger columnist Larry Mizell Jr. and Seattle Times music writer Andrew Matson, the blog vastly expanded opportunities to post new material about Seattle and beyond. “Really though: It’s great to see this kind of knowledgeable and playful coverage of hip-hop local and national. These guys are working on several levels at once, which is what makes Raindrop Hustla more fun and more entertaining than your average blog,” wrote music journalist Jonathan Zwickel. “It’s hard to have a scene without someone talking about it, and thoughtful commentary can be both validation and inspiration to any active creative community.” ⁶³

Local blogs served a dual purpose: they helped provide translation for outsiders while also acting as a resource for insiders. However, once local insider conversations made the jump to social media, the external dialogue seemed to become less of a priority.⁶⁴ As the technology became more popular, the number of regional blogs, websites, discussion forums, and message boards increased. Some of these included Tha Northwest, Blogs Is Watching, Seattle Hip-Hop, We Out Here Magazine, The Audacity of Dope, 253rd Street Tacoma, The Sermon’s Domain, Hip-Hop Vancouver (BC), and Hip-Hop Heads Northwest. The rise of the Internet made it possible for a blog to cover a scene even if the blog author didn’t live locally. Chul Gugich grew up in Seattle on local hip hop before moving in 2007 to take a job in New York City. After publishing several music critique pieces online, he started the Seattle hip-hop blog 206UP in 2009. The site offered audio, video, features, interviews, album reviews, and coverage of live shows. With 206UP, Gugich became a local insider who lived thousands of miles away.⁶⁵ Already active in the local music and entertainment scene, Casey Carter launched MissCaseyCarter.com as a one-woman operation in 2011, which focused on local independent artists and events. The site hired staff the following year while developing such content as cooking lessons and street style pieces as well as the “What’s in your purse?” and “My date with” interview series.⁶⁶

Local Hip Hop on the Rise

The online presence of local hip-hop media reflected the growth and development of places like Seattle while increasing exposure for artists and shows. The use of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others allowed customized content to be accessed and shared on tablets and smartphones. The Internet had increased opportunities not only for artists but for various media members who discussed them. Whether online or in print, while local hip-hop columnists and observers generally served as supporters of the scene they cover, they rarely agreed on much. However, the general consensus among Seattle music journalists who covered hip hop seemed to indicate big things were on the horizon. It all had to begin, wrote Charles Mudede, with local people believing in their scene. “Sooner or later, Seattle has to realize that it doesn’t have to look elsewhere for quality hip-hop. If you live in this city,” he wrote, “you can relegate the rest of the nation to secondary status. All the hip-hop you need is right here, right now.” ⁶⁷

Seattle Times music writer Andrew Matson, in a column titled “Right Now, Seattle Is Making Hip-Hop History,” agreed. “Seattle’s current hip-hop renaissance is deeper than any one blog post, article, concept, or list of artists. Signs abound. Improved stage shows, a heightened sense of community, and unprecedented stylistic variety are the healthiest ones right now is a special time.” Matson noted the temptation to assign a singular, tidy cause to the effect of all this “excellent, wildly diverse hip-hop.” In reality, it was a result of “something deeper than, say, Marxist aesthetics—‘This recession is Darwinism for art’—and deeper than a host of post-prefixes—‘the new hip-hop is post-rap, post-race, post-tradition.’ It’s a whole lot deeper than more people using the Internet more effectively. But the sum of those parts points to a central truth: All possible worlds—economic, values-based, online—are radically different for today’s artists than yesterday’s, and the artists are adapting.”⁶⁸ Larry Mizell Jr., who added host of Street Sounds on KEXP FM to his local hip-hop media resume in 2009, agreed. “Now I don’t doubt that there are plenty of other pockets of brilliance in the U.S. just seething under the radar,” he wrote, “but if you can’t recognize the gravity and—I’m gonna quote the Chef right here—mad styles and crazy dangerous, I mean, bust ya shit open beats native to our region . . . well, you’re just another hapless victim of that classic Seattle Self-Esteem Syndrome.” ⁶⁹

Untangling Hip Hop from Violence

The consensus seemed to indicate an optimism that something significant was on the horizon. Journalistic opinion encouraged local people to trust and believe in local hip hop, perhaps in ways they had not before. Yet despite all the positive vibes surrounding Seattle hip hop, the specter of violence cast a shadow. The January 2009 shooting at a show at Chop Suey revived this long-standing discussion. Three people were shot and one person, local artist Joseph “29-E” Ryan, was killed. The incident drew a column from Charles Mudede arguing that Chop Suey should not blackball hip-hop shows. Citing a 2008 fatal shooting at Vito’s Madison Grill, a popular venue for rap and R&B nights, Mudede noted that the incident at Vito’s was not only part of a recent wave of gang-related shootings but also the long history of violent disruptions inside or outside local clubs that regularly hosted hip-hop or R&B nights. “There was the shooting at Sugar nightclub in November 2007,” he wrote, “the shooting outside of Tabella Restaurant & Lounge in July 2007, the shooting outside of Tommy’s on the Ave in June 2007, the stabbings and shootings inside and outside of Larry’s Nightclub in December 2005, the shooting outside Mr. Lucky’s in April 2004, the shootings outside of I-Spy in 2002, and so on and so on.” ⁷⁰

A distinction was made between clubs that featured hip-hop nights and live hip-hop shows. “Because the shooting at Chop Suey happened during a hip-hop show, it will be impossible for the public to separate the music from the murder. But hip-hop is still just music; a rapper does not go onstage and start shooting people. He may rap about smoking a nigga, but that is not the same as doing it,” Mudede lamented. “In fact, the last thing a gangster rapper wants is a real gangster disrupting his show, his career, his mic dreams. The gangster rapper wants none of it. Indeed, the incident at Chop Suey is extraordinary in the sense that—unlike rap/R&B club nights (which feature only DJs)—rap shows (which feature live performers) rarely end in bullets.” Because the show at Chop Suey that night featured so-called gangsta rappers, including Fatal Lucciauno, Mudede pointed out that it was a matter of what type of crowd a “particular type of hip-hop attracts. Mass Line’s Gabriel Teodros, for example, is scheduled to perform at Chop Suey this Friday. Because Teodros’s hip-hop is all about love, unity, the socialization of health care, and the empowerment of women,” there was an expectation that the type of crowd attracted to a more hardcore bill would not be present.

“Thugs go where thug life is celebrated,” Mudede wrote. His position was specific to Chop Suey but generalizable to all Seattle-area venues that attempted to support local talent. “This is why it is important not to close Chop Suey. Chop Suey is a venue for different types of music, and, specifically, different types of hip-hop.” He argued that hip hop is about diversity—it has its “dusty philosophers, dirty jokers, dreamy lovers, mad riddlers, sensitive hippies, and even intelligent hoodlums. When all is going well,” Mudede explained, “hip-hop is one big and lively family, and a venue that can one weekend host Fatal Lucciauno and the next Gabriel Teodros captures the spirit of this diversity—a spirit, furthermore, that has been displaced from hip-hop by a commercial monster resulting from the cancerous growth of thug hop (rap) and the diminution of all other forms.” Mudede concluded: “In fact, on February 1, 2008, Sportn’ Life [Records] had a show at Chop Suey that featured D. Black, Grayskul, the Physics, Action Buddie, and Bean One (street hop, geek hop, gothic hop, and black rock). Any space that supports that kind of diversity should keep its doors wide open.” ⁷¹ Moving forward, Chop Suey continued to host some live hip-hop shows.

Seattle Police and the Trial of DV One

Fueled by racism and incidents of violence, the tension between hip hop and law enforcement was also present locally. In September 2006 prominent local DJ and Rock Steady Crew member Toby “DV One” Campbell was at the Seattle Center to pick up his teenage daughter after a high school football game. After witnessing and attempting to intervene in an altercation between his daughter and a Seattle police officer, Campbell was arrested and charged with third-degree assault on an officer. Campbell claimed the police used excessive force by tasing him repeatedly and made racist remarks as they arrested him. Campbell’s charge was reviewed by the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA), which investigated citizen complaints against the Seattle Police Department, and four officers were subsequently cleared of any improper conduct in Campbell’s arrest.

Like other urban communities around the country, this situation was informed by a long legacy of previous allegations of excessive force by Seattle police against unarmed African Americans. Back in 1938, twenty-seven-year-old waiter Berry Lawson was killed at a downtown hotel by three officers who were fired, indicted, tried, convicted on manslaughter charges, and sentenced to twenty years each before all three were pardoned by the governor.⁷² In 1998 thirty-five-year-old Michael Ealy Sr. died after being pepper-sprayed and restrained by police and paramedics downtown.⁷³ In 2001 police fatally shot Aaron Roberts during a traffic stop at Twenty-third Avenue and Union Street in the Central District. The two officers on the scene claimed they feared for their lives when Roberts attempted to flee in his car after being pulled over. In assessing whether charges would be brought against the officer who shot Roberts, the Seattle Weekly noted: “The cops have little reason to believe they’ll be proved wrong. In 33 police-related shootings since the early 1980s, coroner’s inquest juries found every killing justified. That includes shooting a black man with a toy squirt gun, killing a black man as he was surrendering, and shooting another black man in his home as he held a TV remote. Five of the last eight police shootings in Seattle involved black victims.” ⁷⁴

The trend of the police version of the story being recognized continued with the case of DV One. He was eventually found guilty of assaulting an officer and sentenced to 240 hours of community service, thirty-two days in jail (suspended), and a $500 fine. DV One received strong support from numerous community members who attended the trial as well as unexpected backing from the jurors that rendered the verdict—ten of them were present for the sentencing. Matt Roach, a juror present at the sentencing, spoke on Campbell’s behalf saying that the jury had issues with the definition they were given for assault. “Legally they were obligated to convict [Campbell] based on the conditions they gave us,” Roach said. “But I did not feel justice has been served.” Campbell was just happy for the case to be over. “It’s like having to pay for something you didn’t actually get,” he said. Campbell’s attorney announced plans to appeal the case.⁷⁵

dead prez and the Valentine’s Day Riot

The debate around hip hop, violence, and law enforcement continued in 2008, following what became known as the “Valentine’s Day Riot” at Evergreen State College in Olympia. Evergreen had hosted the incident-free Phunky Phat ’95. The evening of February 14 began with a show at Evergreen by New York–based dead prez, made up of stic.man and M-1. The critically acclaimed duo, known for their confrontational style and commitment to social justice, described their music as “Revolutionary Hip-Hop with a Gangsta Lean.” The show attracted some nine hundred people, roughly half of whom were Evergreen students, and was going well until just after midnight when organizers attempted to eject a man for smoking marijuana and groping women. In the process punches were thrown and a fight broke out. Campus security was called, but the lone officer on duty that night did not arrive until after the original suspect had already left.

Once on the scene, the officer handcuffed a suspect that witnesses had identified as having been involved in the fight. When word reached the stage about what was happening outside, a report in the Seattle Times stated dead prez initially said, “Oh yeah? . . . Say ‘[Expletive] the police! [Expletive] the police! ’ ” This drew a chanted response from the crowd. However, the group changed its tone, saying, “Hold up, hold up, it’s not just ‘[Expletive] the police.’ That’s great. But now you’ve got to organize behind this here. Make sure you find out that man’s name and after we organize and have some justice, right?” As the handcuffed suspect was being led to the car, a growing crowd followed the officer, claiming racial bias because the man was African American. As she tried to drive away, a crowd of nearly two hundred blocked the road. Although several Thurston County sheriff deputies arrived on the scene, officers felt overwhelmed and let the suspect go. Despite this, the situation escalated, and police retreated from a hail of rocks, bottles, trash cans, and tree branches. A police cruiser was overturned and looted. Although there were only a few minor injuries, several arrests were made and more than $50,000 in damage was reported in a situation that the responding officer called “Lord of the Flies-esque.” ⁷⁶ Though different circumstances, both the DV One trial and the disturbance at Evergreen State College highlighted the complexities in the relationship between hip hop and law enforcement.

Community-Based Hip Hop and 206 Zulu

Because hip hop began as youth culture in underserved urban neighborhoods, an important aspect has been community outreach. Over time the methodology of this outreach grew as hip hop expanded and matured. Career expos, additional designated physical spaces for hip hop, the rise of hip hop in college classrooms, and an active promotional infrastructure all emerged alongside traditional nonprofit organizations. One of these organizations was the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HHSAN), cofounded in 2001 by hip-hop pioneer and mogul Russell Simmons and civil rights veteran Dr. Benjamin Chavis in New York City. Targeting youth, young adults, and urban professionals roughly ages eighteen to forty-five, HHSAN functioned as a nonprofit 501c(4), nonpartisan collective of hip-hop artists and industry executives that convened more than seventy town hall–style meetings around the United States, Canada, and South Africa on topics such as voting rights, sound financial practices, and the home foreclosure crisis.⁷⁷

Community builder Wyking Garrett led the effort to establish a local HHSAN chapter, and in 2002 the Seattle Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (SHHSAN) was born. Serving as a vehicle for leadership development and youth empowerment, SHHSAN worked to engage the hip-hop community and build coalitions with others in the search for social, political, and economic justice. Another important aspect of SHHSAN was the Hip-Hop CommUniversity, housed at the UmojaFest PEACE Center in the Central District. The project was created by a group of youth and supporters and used technology and digital media as primary teaching tools. CommUniversity offerings included “Seattle Hip-Hop Youth Council,” “Young Stars Studio,” “DJ 101,” “Audio Production 101,” “Music Biz & Artist/Label Development,” “Graphic Design,” “Digital Media 101,” “Fashion Design & Merchandising 101,” “Boxing & Fitness Club,” and “Open Studio 101.” ⁷⁸

The use of hip hop as a tool of teaching and learning for young people was catching on in other places around the city as well. One example was “Community Through Communication,” a class at the Garfield Teen Life Center next door to Garfield High School. The class was sponsored by Arts Corps, a nonprofit, independent education program, which funded numerous after-school programs around the city. The class featured writing workshops, recitations of rap and spoken word pieces, and critical discussions about mainstream rap music.⁷⁹ Another well-known hip-hop community group established local roots. Kevin “Afrika Bambaataa” Donovan grew up in the Bronx River Projects and joined the Black Spades, New York City’s largest Black street gang, in 1969. After a trip to Africa in 1973, he took the title Bambaataa from a nineteenth-century Zulu leader whose name translated to “Chief Affection.” The name of his organization, the Mighty Zulu Nation (later Universal Zulu Nation, or UZN), came after seeing Zulu warriors defend their land against the British Army in the 1964 film Zulu.

As his DJ reputation grew, Bambaataa leveraged his popularity and influence to build the ranks of the Zulu Nation, purposefully redirecting the energy of young people from gang life to hip hop. Although the organization’s credo was “Peace, Unity, Love & Having Fun,” there was an activist component to the Zulu Nation as members led mediations between gangs, sponsored mentorship programs, and held benefits. With the release of his iconic song “Planet Rock” in 1982 and his eclectic sampling habits from nearly every genre of music, Bambaataa led the first international hip-hop tours across Europe in 1983. In 1984 he visited Seattle to play the Gorilla Gardens. His lasting influence and tireless devotion to the culture earned Afrika Bambaataa the title “Godfather of Hip-Hop.” This legacy grew as Zulu Nation chapters appeared not only in different cities throughout the United States but also in more than twenty countries around the world.⁸⁰

The Seattle chapter of the Universal Zulu Nation, known as 206 Zulu, was formed in 2004 by King Khazm. From the start 206 Zulu focused on working with and empowering local communities, specifically youth, low income, and people of color “through creative and innovative means, including but not limited to programs and projects involving music, art and culture.” A mission statement explained that 206 Zulu was “an independent, nonprofit corporation” that utilized culture, arts, and entertainment “to inspire youth involvement in social action, civic service, cultural creativity, and self-education.” It ran youth programs, projects, and resources “to provide necessary tools to pursue future careers.” The group sought out financial support “through private foundation and government grants, individual and corporate donations, corporations and contracts with public or nonprofit entities” and empowered “underrepresented, low-income members of the community as a means of building relationships, resources and activities that yield sustainable community empowerment and action.” ⁸¹ 206 Zulu employed a multilayered approach in its work, focusing on four primary themes. A media justice component offered alternatives to corporate programming and platforms for emerging artists and activists. The youth outreach element collaborated with local schools and nonprofits to provide various youthcentered activities. Informational forums and workshops that covered relevant topics provided the foundation for 206 Zulu’s education and leadership development, and the research and documentation of local hip hop continued with “Our Story,” an ongoing comprehensive project on the history of hip hop in the Pacific Northwest.

The grassroots, community-based work of 206 Zulu led to the group being recognized locally, nationally, and internationally. Afrika Bambaataa, along with the UZN Supreme World Council, presented Khazm with the Zulu Kingship Award in 2005. When the fifth annual Awards for Excellence in Hip-Hop were presented in 2006, Khazm was recognized by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels as “Unsung Hero (Community Leadership/Activism).” Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn endorsed the 206 Zulu–led efforts to officially proclaim November as Hip-Hop History Month in 2010. Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent also recognized 206 Zulu with a Hip-Hop History Month Proclamation in 2012 as well as honoring the group’s ten-year anniversary in 2014. Massive Monkees presented 206 Zulu with an appreciation award in 2012, and the UZN Supreme World Council honored 206 Zulu codirector Kitty Wu with the Zulu Queenship Award in 2014.⁸² Zulu Radio, a weekly show hosted by King Khazm, Gabriel Teodros, and WD4D, premiered on community radio station KBCS 91.3 FM in 2005. The playlist included independent, local, and international artists. Initially placed in a timeslot on Thursday mornings from 3:00 to 5:00, Zulu Radio received enough positive feedback that the show was eventually moved to Saturday nights from 10:00 to 12:00 midnight.⁸³

Building on the work of other earlier local grassroots organizers such as DVS and DJ DV One, newer generations of Seattle hip hop continued the tradition of making community work a part of their art. D. Black of Sportn’ Life Records was involved with middle school and high school after-school programs at local nonprofit Union Gospel Mission. Mass Line Records artist Gabriel Teodros mentored teen artists in schools and through such programs as Youth Speaks, while Blue Scholars MC Geologic was active in Bayan USA, a collective of socially progressive Filipino organizations. Members of Massive Monkees taught classes at the Vera Project, Velocity Dance Center, and Mercer and Denny Middle Schools and celebrated the mayor-declared Massive Monkees Day with a citywide b-girl and b-boy event that was also a benefit and canned-food drive in support of nonprofit food assistance program Northwest Harvest.⁸⁴

Events such as the first annual Northwest Hip-Hop Leadership Conference in 2009 served as community forums for critical discussion of relevant issues. Oganized by Wyking Garrett and held at Seattle Central Community College, the conference had panel discussions that included “Hip-Hop 101,” “The N-Word,” “Women in Hip-Hop,” “Hip-Hop Politics and Community,” “Hip-Hop and the Green Economy,” “Youth Activism and Social Entrepreneurship,” “Getting Your Business Tight,” “Fashion Biz 101,” and “From the Hood to the Club: Violence in Hip-Hop and the Black Community.” ⁸⁵ Teodoros remarked: “There’re so many active artist-teachers out here. I would say Seattle probably has to be number two at least with all the hip-hop cats here that are involved in teaching and community building.” ⁸⁶

In 2010 the Seattle Hip-Hop Career and Business Expo was held at the Seattle Center. With events beginning at 10:00 a.m. and culminating with a concert at 8:00 p.m., activities included performances, workshops, and panel discussions covering such topics as “Music and the Media Landscape” and “Start and Grow Your Business.” ⁸⁷ The expo was hosted by the all-ages Vera Project located on the Seattle Center campus. The Teen Dance Ordinance of 1985 had essentially put a chokehold on all-age music events and venues for nearly twenty years. In response to this, James Keblas, Shannon Stewart, and Kate Becker created the nonprofit Vera Project in 2001 as an all-age music and arts organization. Initially, Vera was staffed by volunteers and funded by the music industry, the City of Seattle, and local foundations. Vera’s early years were dedicated primarily to throwing all-age shows and events in rented venues until 2007, when it moved into its full-time home at the Seattle Center. This new space allowed the Vera Project to expand from simply putting on shows to offering audio engineering training, visual art exhibits, live and studio recording, silkscreen printing and classes, event production and leadership training, youth-driven governance, and internships.⁸⁸

Specific non-nightclub hip-hop locations were rare in Seattle, but this trend was reversed somewhat when sisters Asmeret and Rahwa Habte purchased Hidmo restaurant from its founder Amanuel Yohannes in 2007. Hidmo specialized in Eritrean food and décor, served primarily the local East African community, and featured live African music on Sunday nights. It also became a center for underground hip hop in Seattle when Hidmo expanded its offerings such as the free Friday summer concert series called “Live @ Hidmo” which featured local artists Laura “Piece” Kelley, J.Pinder, and Orbitron. Although national artists also performed at Hidmo, the focus on Seattle was intentional, as co-owner Rahwa Habte stated: “We want to make local talent accessible to the local community.” In addition to hip hop, “Live @ Hidmo” spotlighted soul, funk, rock, pop, and spoken word. Hidmo also hosted events such as the Hip-Hop Congress National Convention, a meeting of grassroots hip-hop artists and entrepreneurs from around the world.⁸⁹ This wide range of hip hop–related activities at Hidmo was similar to the Mecca International, a coffee shop/gathering place opened in the mid-1990s by Mansa and Nebra Square Musa on the corner of Twenty-third and Union. The community-centric presence of such venues, in addition to conferences and expositions, increased valuable opportunities for multiple age groups to experience and participate in local hip hop.

Hip-Hop Education

Grassroots organizations and events often operated within an educational context when framing goals and outcomes. This connection was furthered by events that took place on campuses as well as skill development opportunities at venues like the Vera Project. Because of hip hop’s multidisciplinary nature, it has long occupied various formal and informal spaces in education. Community organizations like SHHSAN, 206 Zulu, and the Vera Project regularly presented various examples of hip hop–related classes and workshops. By the turn of the century, hip hop had made its way into the curricula of course offerings at colleges and universities across the United States. Students have taken hip hop–based classes at schools like Stanford, Northeastern University, Ithaca College, Ohio State, UCLA, Syracuse, and the Berklee College of Music in Boston.⁹⁰ Seattle reflected this trend with new classes at the University of Washington, Seattle Central College, and Bellevue College, where the power of these classes to attract students was on display early with full classes and lengthy waitlists.

Seattle-area college students and campus clubs played a role in the development of local hip hop in the twenty-first century. Following in the footsteps of the Student Hip-Hop Organization of Washington (SHOW) in 1999, the University of Washington Hip-Hop Student Association (UWHHSA) was formed in 2007. Founding members included Alex Chauhan, Jack Leonard, Gordon Tsai, Chris Lam, and Michael Huang, the group’s first president. The UW Hip-Hop Student Association sponsored weekly dance sessions at the Ethnic Cultural Center on campus and special events such as its Fresh Fit Fashion Show, which featured up-and-coming local brands and designers exhibiting live on a runway.⁹¹

Ante Up was the name of the hip-hop dance club at Seattle Pacific University, organized by students Chris Jellum, Connor Pierce, and Carolyn Lara.⁹² The club created its own constitution, and the preamble explained the club’s name:

ANTE UP (HIP HOP CLUB) CONSTITUTION

Preamble

In the game of poker, the phrase “ante up” is the increased “stake” that each player must put into the pool before receiving new cards. We named our club after this phrase because we want to incorporate the idea of putting things on the line. In other words, with whatever cards you are dealt with, you will pull through and do your best. That’s the atmosphere and mentality we hope to spread amongst our members.

ARTICLE I. PURPOSE

Dance is built on inspiration, movement, and blessings from God. Dance is more than just a performance, applause from an audience or an expression of admiration from a side liner. Dance is a journey. Spiritual, mental, and physical growth is met through the many different genres of dance. We hope that this club will provide our student body with place for inspiration, creativity, and release. We hope for every member, officer and bystander to gain some form of inspiration from the art and praise that will take place in our meetings.

We seek to provide free hip-hop dance classes from volunteer dance teachers in the Seattle community. Student members who are interested in teaching will be encouraged as well. We are providing a safe place for dancers of all levels to grow and connect with other students who have the passion for dance. We also hope to help students stay updated on dance events going on in Seattle, including, performances, workshops and auditions.⁹³

Management and Promotions

Individuals and companies that focused on promoting and presenting shows and activities played an important, and necessary, part in growing Seattle hip hop during the 2000s. One example was Soul Gorilla, founded by Josh Berman, BBoy, ‘Preme, Benito, and Chern in 2004.⁹⁴ Soul Gorilla worked on various levels within the industry, from managing artists such as Sportn’ Life Records trio Dyme Def to copresenting the Seattle Hip-Hop Career and Business Expo with the SHHSAN.

Melissa “Meli” Darby was one of several former members of the Student Hip-Hop Organization of Washington who remained active in the local scene after college. In 2004 she launched Obese Productions (the company became ReignCity in 2008), which booked shows and formed a partnership with the Vera Project. While promoting shows with national artists, she focused on developing hometown talent by producing such events as the Make It or Break It series, quarterly exhibitions of local artists who were selected on the basis of word-of-mouth promotion and ticket presales. The goal of these competitive methods was to spur an attitude shift. “There are a number of very lazy artists in this town that feel entitled to shows and privileges, and that bothers me when there are so many talented artists starving for the same opportunities,” Darby explained. “I want to help train artists to be self-sufficient, show them how to hustle like I do. I want Obese and its resources to be a kind of focal point for artist support. We have a very big responsibility in Seattle to make sure that the music is available to our youth, to strengthen our community.” ⁹⁵ The promotional/managerial groundwork that developed served both to support and challenge local artists. This combined with events and physical spaces to form the vital fabric of infrastructure necessary to nurture the still maturing hip-hop scene in Seattle.

Multitude of Styles

An eclectic variety of artists was creating more and new buzz around Seattle’s hip-hop scene. An incredible stylistic range included street, blue collar, abstract, a celebration of home, and other approaches all combined to inform this resurgence. Still, due to a variety of factors, some found the going harder than others. The five-year anniversary of Sportn’ Life Records in 2007 illustrated some of the complexities that lay in marketing different types of local rap music. Sportn’ Life emerged from the Central District and represented the Black experience in America, Charles Mudede argued. “In fact, the very reason for Sportn’ Life’s existence was to rebuild and recenter hip hop in a neighborhood that was devastated by crack, gangs, and violent crime.” ⁹⁶

Sportn’ Life had a reputation for aggressive promotion, developing relationships with venues, and cultivating contacts with local media. However, “despite Sportn’ Life’s strong work ethic and commitment to high standards, the label still struggles to obtain the brilliant recognition that [Blue Scholars label] Mass Line basks in. Why?” Mudede concluded, “Because many of its acts are from the streets, they rap about thug life and gang realities.” Sportn’ Life founder Devon Manier agreed. “The Seattle market is harder for us than the national market. When you do a gangsta record that’s about shit happening in your own backyard, the buyers here tend to freak out and stay away from it. But a gangsta record from out of town, like G-Unit or Jay-Z, they’ll buy it. Seattle wants a safe distance from hardcore rap. But we do not only do gangsta shit,” Manier said. “We also have J.Pinder, who is much more in the Common/Kanye West school of hip-hop. So our label is really about the diversity of the streets.” ⁹⁷

D. Black, who served as CEO of Sportn’ Life Records, released his debut album The Cause & Effect in 2006. His second album, Ali’Yah, released in 2009, was well received, and he performed at music festivals around the country. But D. Black gradually withdrew from the scene. His initial refusal to perform shows on Fridays eventually grew into a two-year hiatus and a conversion to Orthodox Judaism. He subsequently changed his name to Nissim and continued to steadily release music.

Controversy came in 2007 when Sportn’ Life artist Fatal Lucciauno was arrested after a shooting outside the Tabella nightclub. Lucciauno was convicted on firearms charges and served an eighteen-month prison term. With his album The Only Forgotten Son released on Sportn’ Life Records the same year, the line between art and life within hip hop seemed to blur. Was it possible to differentiate the two? “Indeed, the theme that dominates Fatal’s hip-hop is not the worship of the gangsta lifestyle but the documentation of the poverty that leads a man into that way of life,” Mudede contended. “Track after track, he describes the grim realities of being dirt-poor in one of the richest cities of the world. And when he performs, the most powerful moments are when he is expressing these harsh realities directly. He wants you to feel and see it.” ⁹⁸

The variety of styles being put out by local record companies was significant. Blue Scholars’ second full studio album, Bayani (2007), was released on their own label, Mass Line Media, in association with New York hip-hop label Rawkus Records. Loosely translated, “bayani” in Tagalog means “hero” or “person who offers free service in a cooperative endeavor.” The song and video “Joe Metro” offered a unique take on the Seattle experience. The Emerald City has had a long relationship with its rap MCs making reference to their hometown. Since Sir Mix-A-Lot’s song and video “Posse on Broadway,” successive generations have expressed their local perspective through the lens of hip hop. In this case, the song’s title was a reference to a nickname for King County Metro, the public transit authority that operates bus service in the greater Seattle area. In contrast to Sir Mix-A-Lot riding through town in a Mercedes Benz limousine, Geologic’s narrative centered on riding the Route 48 bus, which connected the South End to the University District and the northern part of the city via the Central District. The video focused on the diversity of characters that exit and enter the bus throughout the city, from college kids to a Native American elder.

Following their subsequent tour in support of Bayani, Blue Scholars organized an event to further build community. What emerged was a five-night extravaganza celebrating the best of local hip hop. In planning a homecoming after the completion of their tour, Sabzi and Geologic borrowed an idea from the Mighty Bosstones. In the late 1990s that band, from Boston, put on a series of five-night stands they called the Hometown Throwdown, where they headlined each night and had their favorite groups from the scene perform. “The Program is the Northwest hip-hop version of the Hometown Throwdown cooked up by Steven Severin, owner and promoter at Neumo’s,” wrote Charles Mudede. “The Blue Scholars’ five-night run has turned into a NW hip-hop festival that brings in many elements from the scene and puts them back out to the world. It’s less a show about the Blue Scholars and more about the present, past, and future of regional hip-hop.” ⁹⁹

Although “The Program” may not have been solely about them, Blue Scholars continued to gain momentum when Playboy magazine named the group among its “Ten to Watch in 2008,” adding that “Seattle is slowly becoming a hip-hop epicenter.” This comment by Playboy was an indication of how Seattle hip hop had over time built a reputation outside of the immediate region. It was an especially relevant point, given the fact that Billboard magazine two decades before had openly mocked Seattle as a “hip-hop hotbed.” ¹⁰⁰

Maturation and Expansion of the Local Scene and New Business Models

While national publications were just beginning to recognize developments within Seattle hip hop, local writers had sensed a change. “Seattle hip-hop is blossoming. Blue Scholars, after teaming up with Seattle rappers Common Market and Gabriel Teodros to form the Mass Line collective, got picked up by a nationally recognized New York label, Rawkus Records. Unheralded rapper Unexpected Arrival last month revealed he had sold 10,000 CDs and promptly got signed by Koch Records for a distribution deal,” wrote Andrew Matson in the Seattle Times. “D. Black, 20-year-old co-CEO of Sportn’ Life Records, sold more than 4,000 copies of his album hand-to-hand,” he continued. “Local jokers the Saturday Knights just signed with Seattle-based national tastemaker Light in the Attic Records. And Dyme Def, according to its manager, is being courted by major labels.” The change, Matson theorized, came from a combination of time and experience: “Over the years, Seattle’s rap scene has grown from a disorganized, grass-roots endeavor to a navigable marketplace. Now, artists are behaving like businesses, outsourcing labor to managerial teams, and club and concert promoters are savvier too, building formidable street teams.” ¹⁰¹

Jake One noted that ten years ago “the guys behind the scenes were the same age as the artists. They had no experience. No real connections. There weren’t any elders to help us.” Marcus Lalario, owner of the hip-hop club the War Room on Capitol Hill, agreed that one hip-hop generation later, things had changed: “Now, the roads have been paved and the business side is catching.”¹⁰² Blue Scholars embodied this as they found innovative ways to market themselves. In 2009 they ended their distribution deal with Rawkus and re-released their album Bayani by instead partnering with iconic New York hip-hop label Duck Down Records as well as local coffee roaster Cafe Vita. A press release by the group spoke to this trend of artist empowerment. “With the record industry in flux, conditions are ripe for an alternative. One where the artist, rather than becoming an employee of a label or sponsor, contracts the label and sponsors to do work for them. Everybody still gets a check. But it’s a relationship where the artists (and their handpicked ‘team’) not only have creative freedom but economic power. Or we can keep chasing the big record-deal unicorn.”¹⁰³

Larry Mizell Jr. agreed with the new business model. “Now pay attention, kids, ’cause I know a whole lot of y’all are still out there in full force with your nets and horn guards, hoping to land a big-bank deal like [New Orleans–based label] Cash Money did with Universal [Records] 10 years ago,” he wrote. “If you don’t recognize that those old ways don’t work anymore (in any sense), then as the poet laureate E-40 once said, you’re ‘playin’ football with basketball rules.’ Quit grindin’ backward.” ¹⁰⁴

Local love for Blue Scholars was at an all-time high in 2010 when Geo and Sabzi headlined three consecutive nights of sold-out shows at the 1,100-seat Showbox in downtown Seattle. With opening acts that included Vitamin D and Macklemore, lines of people stretching around the corner and up the next block formed outside the venue hours before the doors opened. A review of the show in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Humberto Martinez remarked about Blue Scholars: “The crowd was almost literally at their command, drawing outreached hands that seemed to be tireless.” The rise of Blue Scholars continued a few months later when they became the first local rap act to headline a bill at the Paramount Theatre.¹⁰⁵ The multiethnic nature of a show featuring a Filipino and Iranian American duo, along with African American and white performers, highlighted the variety found in local hip hop.

The multiple perspectives of life in the Pacific Northwest continued to make themselves heard. One voice was Komplex Kai, performer at the 2008 Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center, who hailed from the Tulalip Tribe whose reservation is roughly thirty miles north of Seattle. While expressing pride in being a Tulalip, Kai’s music addressed very real issues that Native Americans face on a daily basis: drug use, chronic alcoholism, poverty, suicide, teen pregnancy, and “the support/negligence/harm that comes from a fractured, chronically underestimated people.” Komplex Kai provided important social depth from a perspective not often heard in contemporary hip hop.¹⁰⁶

Veterans of the Scene Continue

As newer, lesser known contributors added to the growing pool of local hip hop, an older, more well-known voice remained visible. Although no longer regularly recording music, Sir Mix-A-Lot attracted attention in 2005 when he was awarded the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Hip-Hop and in 2007 when he collaborated with New York hip-hop icon Nas. As one of the premier rap artists in the world, Nasir “Nas” Jones provoked controversy and discussion when he named his 2006 album Hip-Hop Is Dead. Nas’s reflections on the state of hip hop included the song “Where Are They Now,” a tribute to his favorite rappers from his younger days. Subsequent remixes included 1980s and 1990s versions featuring popular artists from each decade. For a 2007 West Coast remix of the song, Nas invited Los Angeles artists Ice-T, Breeze, Candyman, Deadly Threat, King Tee, and Kam as well as the Bay Area–based Conscious Daughters. The only non-California participant was Sir Mix-A-Lot, who discussed his publishing library, the continued use of his material on television and in movies, “seven figure years,” the fountain in his yard, and the cars in his garage.¹⁰⁷

This discussion of financial security represented the business evolution of Sir Mix-A-Lot, who left NastyMix Records in 1990 under a cloud of unpaid publishing monies owed him. The expression of affection for one’s hometown, a part of the culture from the beginning, helped establish Sir Mix-A-Lot’s early reputation. It continued to play an important role in Seattle hip hop with the 2009 single and video “Home” off of Jake One’s debut album White Van Music (2008). The album was described by Andrew Matson in the Seattle Times as “Jake One doing vignettes. He’s a producer, a scene-setter, a director of movies for rappers to act on. ‘Home’ is the ‘I love Seattle’ vignette.” ¹⁰⁸ The song featured verses from Vitamin D, C-Note, Maineak B, and Ishmael Butler, each reflecting on various aspects of life in Seattle. Larry Mizell Jr. added: “ ‘Home’ was already the gorgeous Seattle-pride anthem off of White Van Music, and now it’s the single greatest 206 rap video to date. That gorgeous tone, that muted color, is Seattle to a perfect T; the landmarks and lyrical references resonate like tuning forks in visual form.” ¹⁰⁹

Speaking specifically of Butler’s participation in a Seattle-centric production, Mizell added: “But it really had to be some kind of cathartic for Seattle native Ishmael Butler, to close the track out with his Central District–heavy verse—rapwise, it was no less than a homecoming for an MC who most heads for years thought was from Brooklyn.” ¹¹⁰ As well-known as Butler had become nationally, and internationally, for people who did not know the backstory, his affiliation with Seattle may have seemed almost nonexistent. Charles Mudede went in search of a local opinion on this issue from Merciful of the group dRedi. “I got to give the brother a break,” Merciful said. “He had the same dilemma that many rappers have when they start here: They can’t get their kick off, so they go somewhere else and claim they are from there. Even Jimi Hendrix had to do that. But me, I’m going to claim S.E.A., the 206, until the wheels fall off.” ¹¹¹

“Home” was directed by Zia Mohajerjasbi, brother of Sabzi of Blue Scholars. Matson labeled it as “best Seattle hip-hop video ever,” complimenting its depth and texture and noting that the video introduces another character: Seattle itself. “Sir Mix-A-Lot’s there, still hanging out in front of Dick’s on Capitol Hill after all these years— but the ‘Posse on Broadway’ car is now an orange Lamborghini—and a few Central District spots make appearances. There’s just something special about elevating Catfish Corner on MLK [Boulevard] & Cherry [Street] and especially the Grocery Outlet on MLK & Union [Street] to landmark status.” ¹¹²

In addition to producing locally, Jake One attracted the attention of some of music’s biggest names, including hip-hop legend Rakim, for whom Jake produced the song “Won’t Be Long” in 2009 on the album The Seventh Seal, released on Rakim’s Ra Records and distributed through Universal Music Group. As part of a New York–based duo with his DJ Eric B., Rakim released classic music in the mid-1980s and had since assumed status as one of the greatest MCs of all time.

Macklemore Rising and Shabazz Palaces Mystery

Jake One wasn’t the only local artist praising Seattle. After Macklemore’s parents checked him into a substance rehab facility in 2008, he emerged ready to produce his own illustration of civic pride. In “The Town” (2009), Macklemore made numerous local references to KFOX, Rap Attack, and Sportn’ Life Records among others while displaying the diverse nature of the Seattle scene. “Just peep Macklemore’s sentimental ode to the Seattle hip-hop experience, ‘The Town,’ off of The Unplanned Mixtape, which shouts-out this very column,” Larry Mizell Jr. remarked in The Stranger. “The song definitely captures a perspective that’s damn familiar to anybody who’s been loving this shit for 10 years plus (you know, Sit & Spin, RKCNDY, and so forth), which I guess just means ‘old people’ to all you New Boyz fans.” ¹¹³ In 2010 Macklemore and Ryan Lewis released The VS. Redux EP, which contained the hit single “Otherside.” Macklemore solidified his local status with the 2010 single “My Oh My,” a tribute to beloved Seattle Mariners baseball broadcaster Dave Niehaus, who had announced games since the team’s inception in 1977 until he passed away in November 2010. Macklemore performed the song in front of a sold-out opening day crowd for the Mariners at Safeco Field in 2011.

In the midst of such activity, there was yet another unique approach that expanded the local scene. Straying off the beaten hip-hop path was something that helped push Digable Planets to the top of the rap world in 1994. In 2009, Ishmael “Palaceer Lazaro” Butler and Tendai “Baba” Maraire of Shabazz Palaces announced their presence with two EPs. The group, described by the New York Times as an “eccentric experimental hip-hop act,” anonymously released Shabazz Palaces and Of Light.¹¹⁴ Although the initial anonymity added an air of mystery to the music, eventually the identity of the group was revealed, and they were hailed by critics as among the most creative artists of the year. After receiving Shabazz Palaces’ debut in his mailbox, Larry Mizell Jr. wrote: “Surrounded by mystery, this project is short on frills (like writing/production credits) but very long on the boom. Egyptology, dancehall, future-beats, patois, slick talk—this is simply some of the heaviest shit out that could arguably be called Seattle hip-hop.” ¹¹⁵ Andrew Matson agreed, offering commentary about the song “Capital 5.” “It quickly turns into dead-serious raps about gunplay in the Central District,” he wrote. “One unshakable image has the narrator and a buddy driving through town ‘like ghosts,’ high on cocaine, possibly possessing a weapon. Let it be known ‘boho-gangster’ is not an established hip-hop genre. Shabazz Palaces is in new territory with its gun talk and atmospheric rain sticks.” ¹¹⁶

The number of artists releasing music increased as the 2000s came to a close. These included the Saturday Knights, Mad Rad, Helladope, Fresh Espresso, Black Stax (MCs Jace ECAJ and Silas Blak, and vocalist Felicia Loud), OCnotes, Yuk, 10.4 Rog, Saba Seven, Kung Foo Grip, They Live!, Champagne Champagne, and Grynch. Known as the “King of Ballard,” Grynch was interviewed by Billboard magazine in 2009 about the release of his album Chemistry 1.5. Among other things, Grynch discussed attending Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, releasing his music independently, playing traditionally rock-centric local venues, and the strength of the hip-hop scene in Seattle.¹¹⁷ The journey of Billboard, which had mocked Seattle hip hop in the 1980s, showing up to interview Grynch a couple of decades later, spoke to the long and slow process of local hip hop earning national respect.

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Variety and the continued willingness to try new things and go against the grain was a recipe that had already proven successful for Seattle hip hop. Moving forward, the theory of the Pacific Northwest’s geographic isolation being linked to creative freedom stood front and center in the face of mainstream norms and expectations. Taking artistic risk would pay off in the form of even more Grammy Awards, another world title for breaking, and diverse styles and approaches that ensured Seattle’s uniqueness. In addition to outside recognition, hip hop in Seattle would finally receive some long overdue credit and acknowledgment from established local mainstream cultural events and institutions.