206UP.COM YEAR END: The Best Seattle Hip Hop Albums of 2013 – The Top 10

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Today concludes 206UP’s Year End feature on the Best Seattle Hip Hop Albums of 2013. Below the jump you’ll find the blog’s Top 10 Albums of the Year (including a master list of all the albums considered at the very bottom of the post). Click on the album artwork or artist-titles for links to download or purchase.

Thanks so much for checking out the site! In 2014 there are some new features and — hopefully — big surprises to come, so keep visiting 206UP.COM throughout the New Year.

Peace, family!

Best of 2013 Best Of Lists

NEW MUSIC: Zenith – Grayskul

Grayskul - Zenith

There’s a full album review coming soon, written by yours truly, and hopefully to appear on some national music outlet foolish enough to give me space for a few hundred ill-conceived words. It will probably say something about how Grayskul makes better hip hop music than Macklemore and is an overall more accurate representation of the “Seattle rap ethos.” Or some similar malarkey.

Yeah, it’ll definitely have the word “malarkey.”

In the meantime, the fuck are you waiting for? Act like you’ve been here before and go get Zenith via Fake Four Inc. (Oh, and I meant it: Grayskul is better than Macklemore.)

Audio

NEW MUSIC: “Zenith” – Grayskul (prod. by Smoke)

Grayskul - Zenith

Oldominion crew pioneers Grayskul (Onry Ozzborn + JFK) have jumped the good ship Rhymesayers for the just-as-reputable indie darling Fake Four Inc. That doesn’t mean the group’s upcoming Zenith (due September 17) is any less anticipated, though. Here we have the title track which premiered today on Complex. The album version will feature Wu legend Raekwon (with whom I recently had a memorable encounter in Toronto — see below).

And now, 206UP.COM story time…

Traveling back to NYC from Toronto this past Sunday, my fiancĂ©e and I had an entertaining run-in with Raekwon the Chef. Dude was waiting patiently in the Porter Airlines lounge at TO’s downtown Billy Bishop airport. No crew. Just him, this Herschel camo duffle, and some girl who couldn’t have been a day older than 21. Whatever.

So, as I’m geeking out, we’re walking down the concourse to board the plane and my girl spies a Borden (that’s Canadian for a Benjamin) just lying there on the floor. She picks it up. We deliberate on who might’ve dropped it. The only person between us and Rae is a middle-aged white lady wearing a fanny pack — the type of lady still spending travelers checks from 1993 — the hunny clearly does not belong to her. So Claire (that’s my future wife) asks the Chef (that’s the rapper from Wu-Tang): “Excuse me, Mr. Raekwon, but is it possible you might’ve dropped some cash?” (That’s not how she asked — she used way more tact — but you get the picture.) Rae said something about, “If it was a hundred, then it was probably me,” and then proceeds to pull a wad of Canadian guap the size of Shaq’s fist from his over-sized sweatpants pocket.

Dude shakes his head. And then, “These sweatpants, man, I keep dropping everything. Receipts, cash… Thank you, thank you.” (Flashes his fronts at Claire.)

I thought about making a Plaxico Burress joke, thought better of it (thank God), and just nodded my head and grinned like the Wu fanboy I am. Fun times in the T-dot.

Also, we saw Parker Posey on the flight over, and bumped into Michael Cera in a bar last Saturday. You know we major.

206UP Story Time Audio

VIDEO: “Come On” – Grayskul

Fuck. Yes. Grayskul’s long-awaited Zenith has a new release date of September __th. That’s good enough for me. “Come On” was produced by the Bay Area’s 6Fingers and the clip above directed by Trinity Webber.

Video