Raz Simone has been on a creative tear for the last two weeks, matching the frenetic pace in output he set earlier this year. “Plottin,” is his third music video to drop this month and the tenth overall with Black Umbrella cinematography maven Jacob Hill. The new video is dark in a Wes Craven (R.I.P.) type of way, and seems to suggests Raz fighting off a horde of unwelcome soul-suckers.
Category: Video
VIDEO: “Downtown” – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (feat. Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, & Eric Nally)
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis make their grand re-entrance to the scene with “Downtown,” a viral-friendly, absurdist’s fantasy shot in and around downtown Spokane, WA. Yes, those are living hip-hop legends Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, and Grandmaster Caz rapping back-up. And yes, that’s Ken Griffey, Jr. recreating his famed 1989 Upper Deck rookie card portrait. It doesn’t all make sense, but then neither does Mack and RL’s insane trajectory in pop music. You’d be at least partially dead inside if you didn’t smile at this one.
VIDEO: “Charged Up” – Raz Simone
Easier than finding eight rings in a haystack, Raz Simone emerges from his months-long social media silence to let loose some thinly veiled fury against one — shit, maybe even two* — of Seattle’s favorite rap sons.
Yes, that’s Sol’s beaming grill — the target of Raz’s barbs — right there at the beginning of Simone’s new clip, “Charged Up.” Did you happen to catch the Zilla’s “Same Problems”-referencing diss in his new track “Ain’t Gon’ Stop” on your first listen? (Uh yeah, like, we totally did too…) You certainly caught Sol executing the hack of all social media hacks (or were they??) earlier in the week, swapping out Raz’s snarling smirk with a ridiculous shot of himself in the shower, Mutombo finger-wag in effect, all like, “Gotcha Raz!“Curiously the image remains on Raz’s Facebook page, which means either the internet giant is dragging its feet on relinquishing control back to Simone’s camp, or there’s something troll-y going on.

So is this real life? In the rapidly advancing age of media manipulation, that’s barely a question worth posing anymore. The battering ram of public discourse can unceremoniously take one fiction and hammer it into something slightly resembling fact. Is this just one massive Seattle rap troll hiding out in Fremont? Maybe. Are there better, more constructive conversations to be had? That’s a certainty. But maybe the platinum lining in this charade is a renewed conversation about the Tale of Two Rap Seattles, originally articulated by Raz in his “Same Problems” video, the very words to which Sol seems to have responded in “Ain’t Gon’ Stop.”
Rap politics, when enumerated tactfully, are often a microcosm of the body politic. And that right there is called “artistic value.” Personally? I’m waiting for one of these cats to declare a run for City Council. Then we really gon’ see.
*That could only be one man’s Volvo Raz is talking about, right?
VIDEO: “Ain’t Gon’ Stop” – Sol (dir. by Noah Porter)
Sure to put a smile on everyone’s face and make the film nerds wild out, Sol’s new video for “Ain’t Gon’ Stop” is one take — literally — of a lovely day spent with good music and good friends. Directed by Noah Porter.
VIDEO: “All Up In My Feelings” – Ju-Ju Twist (feat. Neema)
Ju-Ju Twist employs one mister Neema Khorrami for the very raw “All Up In My Feelings.”
VIDEO: “Focused” – AlonzoSevan (dir. by Dylllyn Greenwood)
AlonzoSevan (formerly Peta Tosh) and director Dyllyn Greenwood find the dark, quiet places in DT Seattle in order to get “Focused.” From the rapper’s Thanks Krit EP.
VIDEO: “The Deep End” – Kevin Lavitt (feat. Thig Nat; dir. by Noah Porter)
Dig the new video for Kevin Lavitt’s “The Deep End” featuring brooding vocals by Thig Nat of the Physics. At first I was like, Why the girl gotta be pink and the boy gotta be blue?, but by the end I was all, Oh they both colors now — that shit cool. #RejectPatriarchy, you know? From Kevin’s recent Planets EP.
VIDEO: “Annex” – Thaddeus David (dir. by BVHUTCH Visuals)
Check the a-day-in-the-life music video for Thaddeus David’s “Annex.” Off the Moor Gang soldier’s most recent EP, Parallels.
VIDEO: “Can’t Wait” – Spekulation (feat. Mic Flont, Khingz & Paolo Escobar)
Mic Flont, Khingz, Paolo Escobar, and the maestro of the track, Spekulation, push it along in a Seattle summertime fashion. “Can’t Wait” is about not being complacent in art and activism, two things that inform each other in the lives of these artists. Catch them all, plus the rising Dex Amora and Jamil Suleman at Columbia City Theater this Thursday (7/30).
VIDEO: “The City” – AlonzoSevan (dir. by Ralph Madison)
AlonzoSevan, the rapper formerly known as Peta Tosh, dropped this clip earlier in the month. “The City” is from his 2013 project, Still Different, and was directed by Ralph Madison.