Back to the Hotel

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.”