Ring the alarm—Kool Keith is here to pick up his monthly Seattle paycheck from you dirty awkward weirdos; he's at Neumos on January 29 with his longtime collaborator and Diesel Truckers partner, KutMasta Kurt. Perfectly appropriate, our own eccentric MC entrepreneur Sonny Bonoho is opening up—big ups to Sonny for the Haiti benefit last week at Nectar, by the way. Sounds like there are more of those coming, and hopefully they'll keep coming and not just die out when media exposure drifts inexorably back to whatever dumb-ass shit the Jersey Shore kids are doing at that particular moment (gym, tan, laundry).

That very same night, there's a little show going down at High Dive with Champagne Champagne, They Live!, local rock supergroup Wild Orchid Children, and DJ Terry Radjaw. (Conflict of blahblahblah... this is They Live!'s last show before we change our name. There's another band named after the same 1988 cult movie—actually, there are a few, but one of them trademarked it, so henceforth we'll be known as Mash Hall. FYI.)

January 30 is all about you getting your motherfucking groove on. First there's the NW Sweet 16 B-Boy Battle going down at the Seattle Vineyard (no grapes there, it's a church in the U-District—hit www .seattlevineyard.org for more info), which you can enter if you are of the disciplined b-boy/b-girl variety. Then there's the new '90s party Diggity kicking off at Nectar (featuring DJs blesOne, Swervewon, and Harsh), which will encourage something a little more free-form. Be warned, however: Any ironic running-man or cabbage-patching will be met with swift and shocking violence.

A whole bunch of sweet local videos dropped recently: Dark Time Sunshine's "Doom/Go Team/Wrong Kids" (seriously, one of the best-looking clips I've ever seen out of the NW), Canary Sing's "Freak Show" (which channels the Pharcyde's "Drop"), Todd Sykes & EvergreenOne's "90's Shit" (guest-starring Tacoma's north end), and Wizdom's "Salud" (guest-starring downtown Seattle's Harbor Steps). Keep 'em coming—I want my NWTV.

But let's head down the I-5 real quick. Your L.A. homeboy Madlib is going hard right now! His album-length collab with Strong Arm Steady, In Search of Stoney Jackson, just dropped, and it's a wonderfully weeded head trip featuring Phil the Agony and Krondon lacing it lovely (SAS's San Diego rep Mitchy Slick is only on a couple tracks) for all the iron lungs out there. Guest shots from Planet Asia, Fashawn, Sick Jacken, and Guilty Simpson all pitch in on the blunt as well, and the Beat Konducta rolls it up neatly with his sloppy chunks of that Saturday-morning living-room funk. Madlib has also launched his new Stones Throw imprint, Madlib Invazion, which is releasing one installment of his Madlib Medicine Show every month for 2010—the first is called Before the Verdict and features original tracks and remixes of previously released Guilty Simpson material. Between all things Stones Throw, the ever-popping Soul Assassins, and Snoop taking over as "creative chairman" at Profile (his first signee: Cypress Hill), seems like L.A. hiphop is really looking good. Like a wise man by the name of Willie Calhoun once said, Motherfucka West UP!