Seattle’s Black Magic Noize collective is full of unsung rap heroes and MadShroom MC is one such. Shout-out to the “pissed off portobello” for sending me his track, “Walk With Me” (produced by Maurice), which, according to the Soundcloud page, was released seven months ago. No matter. This bumping, spare billy club of a beat goes well in winter.
What happens when the mass media coverage of #BlackLivesMatter fades away and those who were happy to protest at the height of the mainstream frenzy go on living their lives like nothing ever happened? Songs like “Breathe” are the reminders that we all need. Singer Blakk Soul and rapper The Good Sin speak well on the track, and Kuddie Fresh offers up an appropriately mournful instrumental.
Rapper Sol emerges today from a self-admitted creative drought with two new tracks produced by his squad Nima Skeemz and Elan Wright. On “People” and “Pages” Sol addresses the redemptive roles that his folks and his process contributed in pulling him out of his funk. The tracks are equal parts well-crafted hip-hop and heartfelt confessionals. It’s nice to hear from dude again.
SassyBlack — also known as Catherine Harris-White — has her hand in a number of different pots, from the world traveling Sub Pop-underwritten adventures of THEESatisfaction, to the community-minded Black Weirdo parties hosted all across North America, to solo creative endeavors like Me And Mines (Cute Chicks), a brief, bouncy Garageband project that shows off Sassy’s wide range of musical influences.
Black Stax joined forces with South African singer Naomi Wamboe for a new single called “Star” which captures the easy fluidity between hip-hop and soul music. Produced by DJ Shingi.
Seattle OG Draze timed the release of his new Vitamin D-produced single “Children Of The Light” to correspond with the EMP Museum’s Black History Month kick-off event which went down on Saturday, February 7 (and of which 206UP was a co-sponsor). The track embodies the “Black is beautiful” truism so elemental to hip-hop’s core.
The Loop is a trio consisting of K-Due, Truss One and Brotha Freeze. All three members have ties to K Records’ 1998 seminal Classic Elements compilation. In recent years they’ve devoted themselves to reinvigorating the, well, classic elements of hip-hop: samples, scratches and head nodding breaks. Not to mention thoroughly researched and expertly-constructed lyrical science*.
Their new Dead End Streets album hearkens to that simplicity — those “basics,” if you will. (Though “basic” as a descriptor in the parlance of our modern times certainly does not apply here.) It’s the delicate craft of distilling something complex out of something so simple — hip-hop’s “something from nothing” maxim — that Dead End Streets executes so well.
*Though the word “faggot” as a dismissive term for someone wack is a practice that should remain forever frozen in time. Curiously the boys felt the need to resurrect it here.
Kevin Lavitt — frequent collaborator of Raz Simone and Sam Lachow — dropped a new single last week: “About Her” featuring raps by Dave B and vocals by Mario Sweet. It’s from Kevin’s forthcoming Planets. This one grooves and swings in all the right ways and is a testament to the bubbling R&B talent in Seattle.
The shortest distance between relative obscurity and the front page of Complex is a “Mustard on the beat, ho” audio watermark. Seattle’s Royce The Choice — simply “Choice” nowadays — hopped on Dijon’s 10 Summer label last year, popping up in a few spots on the (nearly) eponymous compilation record, 10 Summers.
Now, Choice has a mixtape to call his own: Rich Off Mackin. Okay, make that a co-mixtape; he shares rapping duties with Pushaz Ink recording artist RJ. It’s a moderately enjoyable party record, turnt and disrespectful in all the right places. And Choice shines in comparison to RJ, a rapper with dexterity but not much in the way of personality.
Of course 206UP prefers Choice before he dropped the “Royce The.” His concept album, Razorr Ramone with fellow Town native GMK, revealed Choice to be a big personality on the mic, conversational and casual, a bit like an updated version of Shock G less the kitsch and with added danger.
In any case, it’s dope that yet another Seattle MC is finding shine prominently outside of the area code, but disheartening as well because whenever you hitch your wagon to an already well-entrenched team there’s bound to be some diminished creative returns.
OTOW Gang’s fearless leader KA.lil fronts this mixtape collection of tracks recorded over the course of the last three years. Fellow Operation Take Over the World crew members Massiah, Uce Wayne and Mic Flont reveal their West Coast rap affinities over a range of beats produced both in-house and jacked from classic source material. For our money the win goes to Massiah for his head-ringing “Crazy Asian Rapper Pt. 3” which does well in subverting the “all Asians are well-behaved” stereotype bolstered by racist-ass white people everywhere. Do you, bruh.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 