Music

The Hiphop Tip

This Friday, January 16, the Seattle Young People's Project (SYPP) will host its fifth-annual "Love, Life and Loyalty" MLK hiphop show at the Vera Project. The event will feature some of the best of the Northwest's up-and-coming talent, as well as a special performance from the Typical Cats' Qwel, an MC from the Windy City who's in town recording songs with members from Oldominion--including his billmates Sleep and Pale Soul. Last year was a big one for Sleep; he released the Boss Hogg EP with Josh Martinez as well as his debut solo album, Riot by Candlelight. Pale Soul's album Fear Is the Mindkiller has a tentative spring release date on Under the Needle Records.

Byrdie will also perform at Vera that night. As I've mentioned before in this column, he's definitely one of the hottest rappers to come out of the Northwest, and has already garnered support from damn near everybody in town, including Clear Channel giant KUBE 93.3 FM. He just put the finishing touches on NFlight, the Album, so expect to be hearing it on blast everywhere soon.

Hosting the SYPP event will be Wordsayer of the Jasiri Media Group and community activist Isaiah Anderson. The Fraggle Rock b-boy crew will also be on hand to show their support, and the selectors for the evening will be Garfield alum DJ Topspin and current Bulldog DJ Kitman.

Although the entertainment is topnotch, this show goes beyond being just a rap concert--it also shines a spotlight on SYPP, an important local community organization. The group works in various elements of youth development, from gender identity issues to battling racism. The MLK-focused shows started in 1999 and grew out of a conversation between KL Shannon and Cindy Domingo (of the MLK Celebration Committee) about a lack of youth involvement in Seattle's annual MLK marches (some of the oldest organized marches in the country). In commemoration of Dr. King's legacy, the two young organizers decided to put on a hiphop show to help draw in their peers. Jasmine Benjamin worked on that first hiphop show in '99 as an intern. Currently in school in California, she expresses pride and excitement that the legacy continues. "I think it was really great the way SYPP organized it because they got youth that weren't deeply politically involved to see musical groups that they wanted to see, and [SYPP was] able to [teach them] more about activism, and it brought them all to the march as well," she says. "It definitely showed that youth really did care about the honor and remembrance of MLK, and it helped bridge the gap between the younger and older generations through the MLK march."

The Friday-night hiphop event kicks off the MLK-weekend celebration, which includes workshops at the Garfield Teen Life Center at 9:00 a.m. Monday morning, January 19, followed by a rally in the Garfield High School gym at 11:00 a.m. and a march from there at noon. Last year's march drew more than 15,000 people, and there's no doubt that this year's will bring even more.

hiphop@thestranger.com

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