My Philosophy

A couple weeks back, I took a nice jaunt down Rainier on the number
7 for old times’ sake (awesome as ever) and met up with the dude who
calls himself Brilliant, I call Young Cosby, and you call
GMK—he of the Perfect 10 mixtape, of the
superenergetic live shows (with his man J-Magnum, Street
Sounds cohost and Seattle’s best hypeman), of Jake One‘s
anthemic “Big Homie Style.” Finally, after weeks and weeks and weeks of
missed connections (my fault), I got to sit down with GMK (and producer
Dot) at his pad and listen to his upcoming EP, Songs for
Bloggers. I’m happy to report that—after having had a
particularly sketchy cluck and his girl attempt to
simultaneously occupy the single bus seat next to mine (though they
only rode for two stops), followed by a brisk uphill walk to the Golden
Mic King’s domain (I am fat, mind
you)—it was totally worth the wait. Songs won’t be
out for a few weeks, but you don’t have to take my word for it, either.
In either an incredible bit of local-rap espionage or some
savvy blog-minded hype-beasting, I received an e-mail from a
mystery person linking me to a “leak” from Songs; the Ghost
in the Shell–jacking video for “Music Swinger,” one of my
favorite tunes from the oh-so-futuristic, free-form, and fully fonky
concept record—appropriately, you can find it online. Check it
and see what’s next.

Also got a chance to dip over to The Council office where the OG
J. Moore showed me the finished edit of the half-hour TV show
chronicling the Red Bull Big Tune finals. Fifteen men (including
the 206 champ Brainstorm of Dyme Def and runner-up
Rising Son)—and one young lady—enter, one man leave!
The tension, the passion, and the palpable hunger of these young
producers duking it out for the money and the fame come across well in
these 30 minutes (not to mention some damn tight editing and good
narrative), and if you tune into BET on Saturday, April 11, at 7:30
p.m., you’ll be able to judge for yourself. Goddamn, it’s time BET had
some decent programming.

The High Dive in beautiful Fremont has some decent programming
itself this week—Friday, April 10, it hosts recent EMP Sound Off!
finalists Dyno Jamz and Razpy & the Vigilantes, along
with bands Eli Porter and Bottle of Smoke (a
Pogues cover band, of all things). Actually, the jazz/hiphop
eight-piece Dyno Jamz weren’t just finalists—they won the whole
goddamn thing. Congrats are in order, people. Scant days later, on
Sunday, April 12, the Dive has Suntonio Bandanaz, Billy the Fridge,
Knox Family, and poet/MC Josh Rizeberg. I damn near didn’t
even mention that show because somebody so relentlessly posted
notice to every MySpace account I’m affiliated with. I’m already
this close to canceling my accounts—be easy, homie.

The electronic version of this article has been updated since its original publication, which included a photo of someone who is most definitely not GMK. We regret the error.