The OK Hotel has a long history. It was built in 1910 and was a hotel until the 1950s. In the late 1980s, Steve Freeborn and Tia Matthies turned it into a restaurant and music venue that hosted performances by the giants of grunge (Nirvana, Hammerbox, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and Mother Love Bone—Pearl Jam's first incarnation). It was also the scene of a lot of ska activity, led by the band Monkey Business. On February 28, 2001, a powerful earthquake knocked the building out of business. The place was closed, and Freeborn and Matthies relocated to the Rendezvous. In 2004, a developer rehabilitated the building, and it now offers living spaces and studios for artists. All well and good. But the interesting and unexpected thing (even more unexpected than the earthquake) is this: The basement of the OK Hotel is now becoming the center of local hiphop production.

It did not happen all at once, but gradually. The first hiphop producer to move there was the DJ and hiphop entrepreneur Audeos, who is 25 and a native (he grew up in Lake Hills). "I moved here in 2004, after they remodeled the place," says Audeos. "I had a regular apartment upstairs and made beats in the basement." DJ Audeos set up a studio where he recorded a variety of underground acts and released a series of compilations of mostly obscure artists. Audeos called the studio 206-HOP Sweatshop. "The name has to do with the fact that it gets really hot down there. There are no windows. Even in the winter it's hot. I don't know why. I think it's the ghosts. The old grunge bands used to play in that building. Their ghosts are keeping the place hot."

After establishing the studio, Audeos partnered with Gabriel Teodros and OC Notes. "I started fucking with the Seattle cats when I was 17, when I first came to town," OC Notes explains as he plays some tracks he produced for Rik Rude, the rapper for Fresh Espresso, one of P Smoov's two main projects (the other being Mad Rad)—everything is connected in this city. "I came from Maryland," Notes continues. "My father is in the military. And so I bounced around and ended up in Seattle. I would go by Westlake and see these cats breaking and freestyling. I met Rik Rude, Specs, and I'm getting down with everyone. I met Audeos, who was the first cat down here. He let me in and we started sharing half of the studio." In 2007, OC Notes, who is 23, moved to Arizona for family reasons and studied sound engineering there. He returned in October 2008 and resumed his partnership with Audeos.

Before OC Notes moved to Arizona, a strange thing happened at 206-HOP Sweatshop. "We were just down here one day, doing our thing, and there was a knock at door," he explains. "I opened it, and there he was—Vitamin D. He had just moved in and heard the music in our studio and was curious to see who was making beats." Vitamin D moving into the building was like a Nordstrom store moving into a small mall: He brought gravity to the location. The Pharmacy, the name of his studio, had a long and rich history in the Central District. Every rapper in town mentioned the place with religious reverence. If you were serious about making hiphop, that was the place to go. For the Pharmacy to move from the Central District to the heart of Pioneer Square is not a minor shift. Its cultural implications are so significant that it necessitates a reevaluation of both neighborhoods. A Central District without the Pharmacy is not the same as a Central District with the Pharmacy. The same can be said about Pioneer Square.

"I had heard about Vitamin D since I started making music in town," says OC Notes. "That's the dude everyone knew. And I'm coming up producing music, going to shows, getting closer and closer to this dude's circle. He is at a level I want to reach. I'm down here; he is up there. I'm trying to get up there. Then, boom, there he is at my door... It was one of those moments."

"The Pharmacy was the hub of so much that was born in this city," says Monk Wordsmith of the Physics, who also have a studio in the OK basement. "But now he is here. It's kind of cool, 'cause you see all of these people going in and out of his place." When the Physics moved in a year ago, the basement became an official center of local hiphop. "There is definitely a number of artists who pass through here," explains Thig Natural. "Macklemore, Blue Scholars. Everyone got the word about the place and comes down to record or hang out." When asked why the Physics moved here in the first place, Justo answers: "It's only 300 bucks. Less distractions. No phones work down here. The internet connection is not good. You can do work."

The Physics' studio has an MPC2000XL, a Moog, an ASR 10 sampler, and a computer that stores rather than makes music. Everything is plugged into a 24-channel mixing board. Like all serious producers, Justo cannot abandon the warmth of analog. At the corner of the studio is a little, dark chamber that seals the rapper in and immerses him in a beat. There is also a comfortable couch, a standing fan, and a drum set. The first record to come out of this year-old studio will be the Physics' High Society, an EP that contains carefully crafted tracks that are hard to categorize. High Society feels completely different from their debut album, Future Talk—more organic and less uneven. (High Society will be released at Laced Up on June 27.)

"It's great to have all this energy in one place," says OC Notes. "Everybody is different. That is what is cool about this building. Nirvana used to play here. There are ghosts in this motel. There have always been ghosts here. We all probably make better music without even knowing it."

The urban theorist Richard Florida argues that cities are great because those in the culture economy are concentrated in one place. This concentration makes a great environment for innovation and the exchange of ideas. Something similar is at work in the basement of the OK Hotel. Because all of the rappers and producers are so close to each other, going in and out of the studios, ideas are easily circulated. Says Monk: "I just saw Bishop [of Oldominion] walking around here. You know, that is one good thing about working around here. You see people who you have not seen in a while, and you get the ear on the street and hear what's going on. J.Pinder is working on his shit here. So is Specs One."

Says OC Notes: "We all respect each other's space and do our own thing. But at the same time, if I need something, like a shaker, it's cool to go over to the Physics' place and borrow. It's no problem. I borrow drums for Vita, no problem. If I play bass lines for him or guitar licks. That's a community vibe. That's how it should work."

The hiphop artists share the basement with other artists—painters, photographers, sculptors. According to OC Notes, everyone seems to get along. "The diversity here is real. No one really trips. Sometimes they may say, 'Turn this down.' People have their days. But during art walk, it's crazy down here. I wish I could do some visual shit, but I just suck at it. But seeing the cats with giant paintings with charcoal and the crazy sculptures—it's filthy. It's motivating." recommended