GMK’s positive mental attitude is infallible. After a weekend of bad news and a Monday of somber processing, a collection of instrumentals is probably the only adequate way of getting back to the grind. Sweat Shorts and Slushies appeared on SoundCloud today, the Golden Mic King’s birthday. Be good out there, family.
The upwardly mobile Sam Lachow goes in over some familiar (and not so familiar) beats.
Gabby goes H.A.M. over Biggie’s classic. Not many Town rappers I would trust to hold it down over this touchstone, but Gift is one.
Tacoma’s Rockwell Powers and DJ Phinisey are gearing up to release a new record called Build this October. “Two Sides” is the first drop and with it comes this video, a compilation of photographs taken by Scott Haydon around the duo’s beloved city.
Tip of the hat to Lake House Entertainment‘s RoofDogg who passed along the crew’s latest video, “Steve Jobz”, a tribute to the man of the song’s title and a lament over the loss of the LHE’s famed Lake Washington home — damn you, reverse mortages! Here’s hoping the idiosyncratic collective finds some new digs soon.
The latest self-directed video from Avatar Darko, “Kalashnikov Pt. 2”, was filmed in the rapper’s Russian homeland.
Jay-Z
Magna Carta… Holy Grail
Roc-A-Fella / Universal; 2013
Score (Potholes In My Blog scale): 3.5 / 5.0
Click over to Potholes In My Blog — the god of online indie rap criticism — to read my take on Jay’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail.
The underground origins of Seattle’s hip hop movement are fairly difficult to trace back on the internet, but that just means the rewards in uncovering buried local rap treasure are even greater because of it. If you have a vested interest in what happened in the days pre-Macklemore, I recommend these precious resources.
Down Since Day One is a group that was active in the mid- to late-90s, and they just released a tape called Melanogenesis which compiles songs dating back to 1994. More information on the crew and their extended collective, Original Northwest Eclectics, can be found at the Bandcamp link here. Crew member Jeremiah Williams shared all of this with me, so shout-out to him.
Also included in the press kit was the Seattle hip hop relic seen below: a scanned image of the Phunky Phat hip hop festival program held at Evergreen State College in June of ’95. That was the year I graduated high school, when my knowledge of Seattle rap didn’t extend beyond Sir Mix-a-Lot and Kid Sensation. There are some familiar names on the bill, but most remain anonymous to me. If anyone in the world wide ether has preserved digital copies of material from the groups listed, please shoot me an email.
Celebrate the country today by questioning the status quo that clouds our collective vision. “Why Denzel have to be crooked before he took it?” is merely emblematic of a greater poison goin’ on. Word to Jadakiss and PE.
And on that note, go eat your damn hot dog.
This is likely to be the blog’s final post before the long Independence Day weekend. My company “floats” an annual day off between the various nationally recognized respites, and this year it just happens to fall on the Friday between the 4th and the impending weekend. So, while a grip of you dear readers will inevitably be following up your barbecues and hot late night sparkler action by donning dress slacks and making change for glib-ass customers, I will (hopefully) be doing like The Physics are doing in their new clip for “Take a Win” — living the easy life. One.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 