Quick PSA: It’s 2010, people—and only for four more months. Take a look at the world around you, and most importantly, listen. You can do anything you want. Why be another carbon copy? You can talk in industry terms to sound knowledgeable and play dress-up in a dead man’s clothes, or you can be original, which is actually hiphop’s rule number one (and not “do what the last guy did,” as previously reported).
Synthesizing the respective approaches of Bilal and Pharoahe Monch, Olympia’s Xperience is a favorite round these parts, and he’s having a Seattle release party for his album William the VIII at Nectar on August 19 with sacred hosting rites performed by local trues Grayskul, Black Stax, Sonny Bonoho, and Candidt (whose own Sweatsuit & Churchshoes album will have dropped by then). On the low, that Oldominion cliqua is putting out some dope shit in 2010 between William (the surprisingly tender “What 2 Say” is a recent repeater for me), JFK‘s Building Wings on the Way Down, Candidt’s Sweatsuit (more on that later), and Pegee 13‘s (I mean Taco Neck) jamming new Tutorial EP. Throw the Owl up, but psycho burnout stalkers please go thataway!
Calling all creamy spies! Digable Planets are blowin’ out Neumos on August 20. Yeah, we all know about Ish’s other thang, and thank the higher power we do, but the brother is still getting it in with his OG insect Grammy family, having recently borough-checked Europe. Perhaps you remember Planets’ last Neumos gig, back in 2008, a pulsing, psychedelic event that basically made me see colors. Bugged. Not many rap shows can induce synesthesia, but DPs were on some other shit, in a galaxy far, far away from some golden-era reunion road show for the heads. Also: Is Ladybug going to be there? It looks like. DJ 100Proof and Khingz will respectively push the button and start the show.
Just up the block at Chop Suey is the CD release for Saturn Returns, the new album from the gifted Seattle MC LaRue. I haven’t heard his album yet, but all signs point to growth, and ‘Rue was already working with a ton of skill and heart to begin with. His Black Aries cohort, the talented Yirim Seck; P. Washington (aka Pistol, who got some nice spits on him); MPact; and Quarter Life set it off.
Two gorgeous entries in the 206’s visual library recently debuted for your YouTubin’ pleasure: Seatown expat (yes folks, he’s in the ATL now) J.Pinder‘s “Three Words” (directed by Jon Jon Augustavo) and State of the Artist‘s Cloud Nice–featuring “ExtraHellaDope” (lensed by Stephan Gray). The two are great but polar opposites, the former a lonely, cinematic treatise on love self-denied, the latter a Starburst-colored, effects-heavy celebration of crew, town, and revelry. I love to see such quality video representation happening, because the onslaught of clips featuring dudes counting, throwing, and rapping about money (while the video looks like it was made with a rehabbed Motorola Razr) is what literally makes our scene look bad, not skinny jeans, as some sources have previously reported. There’s a ton of very talented visual artists in this town to match your work to; please think twice before you make that green screen of you flying around the Space Needle in your T.J.Maxx best. Oh what am I saying—that sounds awesome! 
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