Speech time—my man Charles Mudede’s blurb about Dyme
Def from last week struck me quite a bit, check it: “Sooner or
later, Seattle has to realize that it doesn’t have to look elsewhere
for quality hiphop. If you live in this city, you can relegate the rest
of the nation to secondary status. All the hiphop you need is right
here, right now.” Hey man, when he’s on, he’s on—and right
there he’s dead on target.
Now I don’t doubt that there are plenty of other pockets of
brilliance in the U.S. (uh,pardon my nationalism right now) just
seething under the radar (I’m looking at you, Jacksonville!), but if
you can’t recognize the gravity and—I’m gonna quote the Chef
right here—mad styles and crazy dangerous, I mean, bust ya
shit open beats native to our region… well, you’re just another
hapless victim of that classic Seattle Self-Esteem Syndrome. But it’s
not necessarily terminal—yet. I’m just saying, at this moment in
time, the old guard has no clothes, and the blog-hop generation doesn’t
seem to have shit else; what we got cooking over here is
smelling real good to me these days.
Having reupped on civic pride, flock down to the Rendezvous to pay
your tithes at The Corner on May 22, and check what the hell the
Physics have been working on, along with Mr. Reinvention, Specs
Wizard (who’s a part of the Building Project… more on that soon),
brolic femcee (hate that word) Yze, Olympia’s proud shitbags
Junk Yard Gang, the controversial DJ Nphared, and your
host Billy the Fridge.
The next night at Chop Suey is the CD release for the Knox
Family (Jerm and Julie C)—check them, PDX’s
Mic Crenshaw, Black Stax (Silent Lambs Project and
Felicia Loud), Razpy & the Vigilantes, and Black
Aries (LaRue and Yirim Seck). Then, fellas, go to
Showbox at the Market on May 24 and crack at the gorgeous young ladies
under the pretense that you’re there to see Slim of 112… and
fail. But at least wish my fellow Quaker, BBoy from Soul
Gorilla, a happy birthday!
May 26 at High Dive, gird your eardrums and prepare yourself for the
Soundwaves Beat Battle (brought to you by the Subliminalz and Kuddie Fresh), featuring a nice mix of fairly established
cats and utter, wet-behind-the-ears greenhorns: MTK, DJ
Nphared, Marcus D, Jack the Ripper, Isaac
Meek, Tope, TilesOne, Joey Defone, Boombox
Massacre, Tay Sean, Baked Beatz, Buddy Ross,
JD Flow, Hydef, KD Cuts, S.Swift, and
Dan Fajans will all be duking it out for the prize. Also catch
Subliminalz’s Young Cel and Duranged Pitt throwing down
live, plus Dragonfish Killswitch on the wheels. This will pack out, as these contests tend to, but will doubtless be a bit of a
(it’s not delivery!) DiGiorno sausage party; I’m just not sure
that ladies love cool beat battles—and where’s the female
producers at anyway? Racist! 