#LatePass. Grieves talks about growing up in “Lightspeed,” the first single from Together/Apart, the forthcoming album from the emcee and his partner behind the boards, Budo.
“Hit the corner store for the new Fleer packs.” Yup, I remember that.
STAY TUNED: The Celestine Prophecy – Brainstorm
Brain wants you to know this is finally dropping. Tomorrow. Stay tuned, rap fans.
VIDEO: “Vans Syndicate” – Flying Lotus feat. Shabazz Palaces
Probably the most artistic and well-conceived skate shoe commercial you’ll ever see. Thank the ethereal sounds of Flying Lotus, esoteric presence of SP’s Palaceer Lazaro, and visionary direction of Kahlil Joseph for that. I was never a skater, but this makes me wish I had been.
Has a black-and-white Seattle ever looked more striking?
(Via Potholes In My Blog)
DOWNLOAD & INTERVIEW: Cheap Heat (Beat Tape) – Def Dee
Click image to D/L.
Producer Def Dee is one half of the hive mind responsible for 2010’s Gravity (the other half is the emcee La), a 2-0-6 handbook for Golden Era revivalists if there ever was one. 206UP.COM has sung the praises of the album enough already so I’ll say no more here.
Def’s new beat tape, Cheap Heat (available for the price of three clicks, here), is inspired by beat-centric instrumental collections of the same ilk. Beat tapes by bedroom producers with grand aspirations flow in and out of the 206UP.COM Inbox like tributaries into Lake Washington, which is to say there are many in existence, but few worthy of spending much time navigating. Cheap Heat is most definitely one of the latter.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
Def is clearly inspired by complex layers of rhythm and sound. His beats on this compilation ride the same rail as the other great metronomic minds — J Dilla, Madlib, Premier, and Seattle’s own Jake One and Sabzi, to name a few — which places him in very lofty company.
When separating the real hip-hop producers from the fake, the devil is often in the details, which Def’s beats have in spades. Subtle inflections in tone, well-placed breaks in the rhythm, and the effective interspersion of sound effects so as to add and not distract from the track’s overall vibe, are key. We’re talking about “smart” beat-making here which, judging by Cheap Heat‘s 29 tracks, is what Def Dee does.
Unfortunately, Seattle doesn’t know a whole lot about the producer — though his beats are grade A quality, his name is generally absent from the production credits of The Town’s “major” releases. So after Def hit up 206UP.COM with a download link to Cheap Heat, I hit him back with a few journalistic shots of my own and he was generous enough to agree to a brief interview.
First off, tell the readers a little bit about yourself. How old are you? Where did you grow up? What part of the city do you now call home?
My name is Dom but most people call me Def or Dee…surprisingly. I’m 21 years of age and was born in Seattle. When I was two my fam and I moved to the eastside where I lived for about 12 years or so. My Mom and I then moved to Oahu and I got to live in paradise for about a year and a half. Then In my junior year I moved back to Seattle to live with my Padre and been here since.
As a toddler I was up around the Madison Park/Central area so that definitely feels like home even though I was just a little guy. I been up by UW for the past few years so I suppose I’d call that home. But I think Seattle in general is home for me, I feel like anywhere I go in the town is home for the most part.
How did it come about that you started making beats?
Well, I first started DJ’ing before I thought about making beats. I got my first set of tables in the summer of sixth grade and just got obsessed over the fact that I could control and play/alter the music I listened to on a daily basis. So at that point I knew this was something I was gonna be doing for a long time. I had been put on to a lot of classic hip-hop records when I got the tables as well as soul/jazz/funk records from my mom and dad. My boy Pat Obrien-Smith started me off with Heltah Skeltah and Lord Finesse. I mixed and beat-juggled those two joints for like the first year I had the tables, haha. But I think the tables with the combination of records ranging from hip-hop to jazz to soul helped shape the way I think about hip-hop music. I got to study for a long period of time to know what I liked and disliked in songs and how I might be able to contribute to the culture. That’s when I felt I had to take it a different direction and start making my own music.
Your sound is clearly influenced by NYC boom-bap of the Golden Era. I hear J. Dilla and Madlib influences in Cheap Heat, but name some other artists that you listen to and who inform your style. Name one or two musicians/producers that you dig that might surprise folks.
I mean, the Golden Era was the shit I was listening to growing up and apparently I never grew out of it. I feel like the overall vibe and feelings you get from music today is a lot different than that of the music back when. Not saying “Golden Era this, Golden Era that” — it’s just a certain emotion I think that the time provoked that’s missing today.
Dilla, Madlib, Preemo, Pete, RZA, Supa Dave West, Jake One, Vita, Nottz, 9th, Alchemist, are definitely the usual suspects for me and a lot of other producers out there and I definitely take inspiration from them on a daily basis. I can’t forget my mans Damu the Fudgemunk out of D.C.!
As for something that might surprise folks? I mean, Boney James got hits…haha!
What type of equipment or software do you primarily use to make your beats?
The equip I use is my MPC 2000xl, mixing board/hard disk recorder, Technics, a synth that I bought for 50 bucks off ebay and a few old Casio keyboards, not to mention the records. That’s it for now.
How did you connect with Language Arts (now known as, La) for Gravity? How’d the creation of that album come about exactly?
I connected with La (pronounced Lah for those who still call him L.A.) through the dude Ronnie, aka One-Eighty. I was trying to put together a mixtape with artists from the town to get on my beats and La was the first dude I stepped to. I heard him on a DJ Premier beat and a Dilla beat and I was like, “Yo…this is the emcee I been looking for.” So I got his number from Ron, if I remember correctly. I gave him a CD with 24 joints on it, and he just told me, “Lets make an album.” That’s when Gravity took its first baby steps back in ’07.
What’s your general take on the SEA hip-hop scene? In your opinion, does it have a particular sound or style and if so, how do you think your sound fits into that? What specific SEA groups or crews are you feeling?
In my opinion, Seattle definitely has its own sound and style. If you go from Blue Scholars to Macklemore to Grynch to Sol to other local heads I do feel like there’s a reccurring theme/sound that a lot of people can relate to, which is dope because there has been a big following in the past few years, locally, which I feel is necessary first before we expect to blow up nationally as a city with dope music. As far as my music fitting in with that sound, I do feel my stuff takes a different direction but I hope I’m still recognized as a Seattle head with Seattle music.
What upcoming projects can folks look forward to?
You can definitely expect a lot more releases from me soon. I’m trying to put out as much material as possible before the world ends in 2012…just joking. But seriously though…Gravity 2 is something I’m trying to get rolling with La, and a 96 (Pickup) tape with the people I consider my fam. Few know what 96 is about and what we plan to do for the town but hopefully it’s something that will be recognized in the coming year. (And) a few more beat tapes I’m planning on releasing before 2012.
PEACE to 206UP.COM for taking the time to do this interview! Keep supporting that good music!
DOWNLOAD: “Alive” – State Of The Artist
Click image for D/L link.
You’ve never heard State Of The Artist (SOTA) quite like this before. The second leak from the group’s upcoming EP, Altered State (scheduled for a May 10 release), “Alive” finds Young TH, Hyphen8d and Parker Joe spitting rap-life lessons learned over heavily processed industrialized hip-hop. Shaprece Renee lends impassioned vocals on the anthemic hook. This is grand arena rap, more suited for venues like the Key than the Showbox.
(Click here to continue reading at SSG Music.)
READ THIS: Jay-Z Launches “Life + Times,” a Lifestyle Blog
Click image to view Life + Times.
Life + Times is a new lifestyle blog, curated supposedly by one Mr. Shawn Carter. Launched yesterday afternoon, it looks like the emcee might finally be taking a cue from 206UP.COM and expanding his presence into the World Wide Web. Go on young ‘un, someday all that hustle might just pay off.
DOWNLOAD: ViperLust – Viper Creek Club
Click album cover to D/L.
Friday’s album release party for Viper Creek Club’s ViperLust went down with great success, I hear. Your loyal blogger wasn’t on the scene (for a number of reasons, the main one being I live over 2,500 miles away), but I’m positive Mat Wisner and Co. left it all on the stage (or turntables — whatever the case may be) like he always does. Metal Chocolates did their new thing with great style and a nose to the future.
The FREE album download for ViperLust has gone live. Get with that below. For 206UP.COM’s previous thoughts on VCC’s remixes, click here.
DOWNLOAD: “Bring It In” – Dyme Def
Click image to D/L.
In need of some levity after that last post. Whew. Thank goodness for Dyme Def’s bi-weeky Pay Day drops. Understated rhyming by the Three Bad Brothas on this club track, “Bring It In.”
DOWNLOAD & COMMENTARY: Danny Darko (Mixtape) – Avatar Young Blaze
Click album cover for D/L link.
Avatar Young Blaze is probably the most polarizing figure in Seattle hip-hop and not because he tries to be. By all accounts, he’s a hard-working young cat who grew up hard in the Central District with a love and knack for gangsta rap (though he doesn’t describe his music as such). He reps his ethnic roots proudly, just like anyone should (dude is Russian), and rarely makes a big deal out of the fact he’s a scrawny white kid playing quite successfully in a game dominated by blacks and Latinos.
The expectations and preconceived notions about the emcee are all bestowed by those bearing witness to Avatar’s hustle. When the general populace hears a white kid spitting hard over trap music, the immediate reaction is to reject and question validity. The obvious f-cked up thing about this is the implication that whites could never be gangsters, but blacks and Latinos always are (thank you, Institutionalized Racism).
I hesitated to even make an issue out of this since these truths have all been posited before and by folks with far greater eloquence and expertise. But admittedly I’m still getting comfortable with Avatar’s ever-increasing presence in Seattle rap’s landscape and certainly with his voice inside this particular sub-genre. My experience with hip-hop continues to be intensely personal at times, so consider this post part of my own awkward form of racial reconciliation therapy.
Thankfully my ace-in-the-sleeve in instances like this remains the fact that I’m not white. As a Korean-American it’s much easier for me to dissect the stereotypes and imposed perceptions of the power structure (read: White America) on people of color, simply because I suffer from them personally. I know that fear as a result of racism occurs in degrees. The level of false menace that America detects from people of color is hierarchical, with black and brown folks hovering somewhere near the top of the scale and yellow people coming in a distant third. Asians are the model minority, after all. We don’t tote guns and knives, we pack calculators and smartphones. We aren’t a threat to steal your car or your jewels, but we will snatch all the good computer jobs.
We don’t make gangsta rap music, but we will play every got-damn stringed instrument better than you.
Now here’s a false standard that hip-hop music (especially as it exists in Seattle) can help solve. Local emcees like Logics and Language Arts (aka. La), and non-Town artists like Bambu and of course Jin, buck the assumed trend of Asian men as emasculated, non-threatening figures. It’s likely they have to work twice as hard to garner affirmation from those that determine the status quo (white and otherwise), but their presence in the rap game is an assist to the greater cause of diverse representation. Whether they acknowledge it or not, they are torchbearers for every one of us who suffer marginalization as a result of being Asian. Not to say we should be proud there are Asian gangsters committing the same atrocities as other races, but the ironic twist is that the acknowledgment of their existence is itself an indication of progress.
The problem with America accepting the term “white gangsta rapper” as anything but an oxymoron is that the philosophical chasm necessary to cross for acceptance is a far greater trek than the one associated with “Latino gangsta rapper” or even “Asian gangsta rapper.” In the end, White is Alright continues to be the accepted maxim and that is often unfortunately the case even with people of color (hello, Internalized Racism).
Of course, personal experience has much to do with our perception of the world. People whose only exposure to minorities is through television and other forms of media will formulate their standards based on such. I grew up in an incredibly rural setting with very little racial diversity and subsequently have had to learn virtually everything about non-white races (including my own) later in life. That process has been a perpetual un-matriculation of everything I came to accept as truth.
Fortunate to my cause is the fact that I don’t possess white skin, a physical essence of being that I’ve ironically come to refer to as a “handicap” in conversations about this subject. In the often frustrating and stagnant process of racial reconciliation, I’ve taken solace in the fact that it is indeed a handicap for most white folks, one that prevents them from seeing beyond their false reality. By this definition, people of color will most assuredly always be more philosophically advanced, and I find some amount of petulant satisfaction in that.
As far as Avatar goes, I appreciate his hustle in the rap game. I’ll always believe that, fundamentally, we all deserve the fruits of our hard labor and struggle, regardless of the color of our skin. I’m also perversely satisfied, however, that a white rapper finds it much harder to gain acceptance within some realms of hip-hop, regardless of his or her personal experience. It’s a complicated and perhaps unfair stance to take, I know, but Avatar and other rappers like him shouldn’t take it personally. In the end, the consequences of racism aren’t about one or two people, they’re about everyone.
VIDEO: “Proud 2 Be” – Logics
From the Problematic EP (get it for FREE here) “Proud 2 Be” is Logics’ rallying cry for his music and, apparently, his life in general. This clip has an appealingly grimy DIY feel to it. Watch the Tacoma emcee go ham with a sledgehammer on a helpless television and felled tree, and then casually hang out with his homies on some old army tanks and heavy construction machinery. The dichotomy between existence in nature and artificiality is definitively Northwest (that is probably too heavy an analysis for this video, but whatever). As far as Logics’ flow, it’s still growing on me.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 