206UP PREMIER: “SuperSonic Keyboard” – Neema (feat. Grynch & Prometheus Brown)

Neema - The Cigar Room

“Highly anticipated” is a hyperbolic phrase that gets thrown around too often, much like “hottest rapper in the game” and “New England Patriots dynasty.”

The Cigar Room, Neema’s (ahem) highly anticipated album with producer Keyboard Kid, has simmered somewhere on a hard drive for a long enough stretch of time that the street’s anticipation for the conspicuously missing album has come in, out and back in fashion like a pair of acid washed jeans. So the phrase is still apropos, especially on the proverbial eve of the record actually hitting pavement via an appropriately provincial debut at The Jet Bar & Grill in Mill Creek tonight (which also serves as the kick-off of a regional mini-tour). The online release via iTunes is set to happen in a week.

Score one for the slow rap movement*.

We’re especially happy over here at 206UP because Mr. 10K himself has graciously allowed us to premier the latest single from The Cigar Room: “SuperSonic Keyboard” which features guest shots from fellow Seattle rap populists Grynch and Prometheus Brown. This track finds the three posted up in the backroom, preferred carnal delights being enjoyed by the respective rappers: a surprise striptease for Neema, open flask for Pro Brown, and bitch-slaps for subpar MCs trading in his style for the King of Ballard. It’s all adorned with additional vocals by Latin Rose and J Landis, and Keyboard Kid’s reclined production, which vaguely references the best R&B stylings of the mid-’90s. Smoke one, as they say.

UPDATE (11:21 AM PST): Catch Neema answering questions on the Hip-Hop Heads Northwest Reddit board #AMA today at 4 PM PST.

“SuperSonic Keyboard” – Neema (feat. Grynch & Prometheus Brown; prod. by Keyboard Kid):

Neema - The Cigar Room Tour

*I may or may not have just coined this phrase. Shout-out to the slow food movement for the inspiration.

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28HUNDRED PRESENTS: Gabriel Teodros

206UP and Jae Change have collaborated to form 28Hundred, a new media company dedicated to producing original video content and in-depth, personality-driven interviews with some of your favorite artists. Stay tuned here for the latest 28Hundred productions.


Gabriel Teodros’ music and family may take him to different cities across the globe, but he is without a doubt a Town rap fixture. 28Hundred caught up with GT in Bushwick, Brooklyn this past summer to chop it up about his music, his Ethiopian Heritage and the time 2Pac visited him in a dream. We’re also thrilled to have this video featured on the Monarch Review and Okay Africa — many thanks to the good folks at those outstanding websites!

206UP Exclusives 28Hundred Interviews

THE SIX: Araless

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Photo courtesy of the artist.


THE SIX is a regular Q&A feature on 206UP with a simple format: One member of the local hip-hop community and six questions. For past editions click here.


Araless and his Black Magic Noize collective fly relatively under the radar in the Town. That might change however with the release of the rapper’s new album Symbiosis, a salute to hip-hop’s traditionalist value system of straight-forward beats and rhymes. That type of descriptor can often be a death knell for an MC who’s not up to the task of waving the heavy Golden Era revivalist flag, but this MC — and this crew — lean head-on into the challenge. Ara and BMN are responsible for the monthly hip-hop showcase and cypher Spitfire Saturdays at Dante’s in the U-District. BMN’s de facto team leader hopped on the latest edition of The Six to discuss his hustle and flow.

206UP Exclusives Interviews The Six

28HUNDRED & PASSION OF THE WEISS PRESENT: Adrian Younge

206UP and Jae Change have collaborated to form 28Hundred, a new media company dedicated to producing original video content and in-depth, personality-driven interviews with some of your favorite artists. Stay tuned here for the latest 28Hundred productions.


For 28Hundred’s latest trick, Jae and I managed to talk our way into interviewing producer/composer Adrian Younge — favored R&B, soul and hip-hop renaissance man — for Passion of the Weiss, one of my absolute favorite hip-hop sites in the world. Owner, editor and journalist Jeff Weiss even let me write a few words and you can read all of those, here. As far as Adrian Younge goes, he was cool as a cucumber and his new collaboration with seminal Bay Area outfit Souls of Mischief is more than worth your time. Check out their There Is Only Now, here.

 

206UP Exclusives 28Hundred Interviews Passion of the Weiss Cross-Post

206UP FIVE YEAR (2009-14) – “Dispatch From the Summer Music Journal of Hollis” by Hollis Wong-Wear

FIVE clear206UP continues its run of special features in celebration of the blog’s five-year anniversary.

Today, we’re super pumped to be handing the keys to the blog over to the uber-creative Hollis Wong-Wear. Hers is the third entry in 206UP’s series of guest posts written by different members of the Seattle hip-hop community.

I met Hollis for the first time back in 2010 at Bowery Poetry Club in New York City, where she performed, along with fellow MC/singer MADlines, as one half of the duo Canary Sing. Since then, Hollis’ various musical projects have led her back to NY a grip of times, most notably with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis during their three night Madison Square Garden run last winter, and for a handful of shows with her own band, The Flavr Blue. Hollis wrote this essay in early July, on the eve of the electro-pop trio’s third and fourth shows in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Like many people — myself included — she has an intensely romantic relationship with New York. I’m always struck by how easily the ethos of the relatively low-key Seattle music community vibes with the perpetual turnt-up-ness of Gotham. Blue Scholars, THEESatisfaction, Shabazz Palaces, The Flavr Blue, and, of course, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis have all experienced success here, which is a testament to the Town’s hustle and universality of its music. NYC can be a shark to those brave enough to swim in its entertainment waters, but none of those Seattle cats have ever gotten eaten.

Read more from Hollis below the jump.

206UP 5 Year Anniversary 206UP Exclusive 206UP Exclusives Features Guest Posts

206UP FIVE YEAR (2009-14): “Five Seattle Producers Pushing it Forward” by Spekulation

FIVE clear

206UP continues its run of special features in celebration of the blog’s five-year anniversary.

Today’s post is the second in a series of guest contributions from different members of the Seattle hip-hop community. Yesterday, Ricky Pharoe provided insight into what it meant to be a rapper drifting in that nebulous realm of up-and-coming yet down-and-out in the Seattle scene circa 2007.

Today, producer/MC Spekulation lists his top five favorite Town hip-hop producers. 206UP thinks you should pay special attention to what he has to say because of his own particular pedigree as an artist: a well-tuned ear and attention to the intricacies of musical composition as opposed to rudimentary pad pushing on a drum machine. The five artists Spek lists embody the very definition of the term “producer” because they stretch beyond the simple beatmaker maxim.

Hit the jump to read more.

206UP 5 Year Anniversary 206UP Exclusive 206UP Exclusives Features Guest Posts

206UP FIVE YEAR (2009-14): “Monday Nights at the Chop” by Ricky Pharoe

FIVE clear

206UP continues its run of special features in celebration of the blog’s five-year anniversary.

Today’s post is fairly significant because it marks the very first time the site has welcomed a piece by a guest contributor. Better still, the author of this post is one Ricky Pharoe, the MC from left-of-center groups Art Vandelay and Ricky and Mark.

You could call this piece a sort of coming-of-age Seattle hip-hop tale, blessed with the sort of acerbic wit and droll humor that colors the majority of Ricky’s lyrical bars.

We’re really happy to have him and think you should all read this — especially you down-and-out rappers who are considering ending it all by enrolling in community college.

Ricky’s life lesson begins after the jump.

206UP 5 Year Anniversary 206UP Exclusive 206UP Exclusives Features Guest Posts