The leaves are falling, the leaves are red and gold, the leaves drift by my window. The days are short, the clouds are low, the mornings are cold. It is, in short, the middle of fall, and once again I find myself surrounded by not only beautifully dead leaves but also new 206 hiphop LPs and EPs. Some are very good, some are just good, some are bad, and some are very bad. The ones below are either very good or just good, and are also ordered from top to bottom, from best to next best. And why not review the bad ones? To use the words of Too Short: “Life is too short, you will agree.”
High & Mighty by Nacho Picasso
Nacho Picasso is currently the future of local hiphop. If he were ever to leave this old sad town, he would take this future with him. His new album is this writing on the wall: I’m the Future of 206 Hiphop. From the first track (the gorgeously nocturnal “Crime Waves”) to the last (the wonderfully demented “Sounds like the outro”), Picasso does not let you forget for even a minute that wherever he is, the future of the Seatown sound is.
Lyrically, Picasso has the remarkable ability to be surreal without being arty or enigmatic. There is a good bit of Mau (the rapper for the forgotten or virtually unknown Bristol group Earthling) in this style, which is vivid and intoxicating, but with none of the verbal gymnastics and linguistic contrivances. Mau put a lot of intellectual effort into his raps; Picasso does not. Picasso does not want to be a heady spitter, but instead to work through your system slowly and surely like a drug that, rhyme by rhyme, moment by moment, breath by breath, opens your darkest dreams. He also has the cool to reference pop-culture figures who are way below the general radar—in “Sounds like the intro,” he names Jennifer Tilly (an actress and professional poker player who came briefly into fame in the mid-1990s as the ultimate noir black widow in the Wachowskis’ Bound) and Erik Estrada (the star of the bad 1970s TV show CHiPs).
Beatwise, though the record has several producers, all of them conform to Picasso’s dark vision and mode—a mode that is only really broken by one track, the pornographic “Duck Tales.” Indeed, the tracks produced by Vitamin D and Jake One (D’s “Nacho the Ruler” and One’s “Too Much”), two very distinct and accomplished veterans of the scene, do not sound anything like Vitamin D and Jake One. They sound instead like all the other producers on this slow-burning and low-grinding neo-electro record.
Altogether, High & Mighty represents another kind of Seattle. It is still a simple city, but it’s also a very sinful city, a city haunted by hedonists, devoured by black narcissists and people who, like vampires or Whodini’s freaks, sleep during the day and come out only at night. The world is yours, Nacho Picasso.
Nacho Picasso plays the Crocodile on Friday, November 29.
The Sickle & the Sword by RA Scion and Rodney Hazard
One night in the middle of the ’00s, the local rapper RA Scion was rocking the stage at Chop Suey. At one point late in the show, hiphop legend KRS-One jumped on the stage and took command of the mic. This was probably the most important (or most defining) moment of RA Scion’s career, because it made clear to all where he was coming from (a branch of hiphop initiated by KRS-One’s track “My Philosophy”) and where he was going (the point where rap and philosophy became one and the same thing). On his new and second LP of the year, The Sickle & the Sword, RA Scion joins forces with Rodney Hazard, a producer based in New York City, to create his most elaborate and bold philosophical work to date. RA raps about being in time, being in space, being human, being in the face of death, being with others, being a rapper, as Rodney Hazard provides the dreamiest beats imaginable. The record is very strong and fascinating, though one or two of its tracks overflow with a bubbly abundance of b-boy metaphysics and oneiric beats.
But there are several masterpieces on The Sickle & the Sword. Check out the galactic “OurSpace,” which features the young and rising Romaro Franceswa, and the hauntingly spare “Hungry Like,” which features Hazard on the mic, and the dazzlingly dubby “Bloodletter,” which has RA Scion philosophizing to a wonderful whirling void of ghostly sounds. One hopes that this record is the beginning of a long and deep collaboration between two ambitious and fearless hiphop headz.
Zenith by Grayskul
I want to first think about One. Released in 2001, it’s Oldominion’s first album, and it stands in my top five local hiphop albums ever. One was to Seattle what Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) was to New York City. Both albums announced the arrival of something truly new, both had a defined aesthetic and theme (One drew from horror cinema, Enter from kung-fu flicks), both were not made by crews or posses, but by whole societies of hiphop artists. Knowing these similarities between the two considerably contributed to the pleasure of hearing Raekwon on the opening track, “Zenith,” of Grayskul’s new album, Zenith. But who is Grayskul? It is Oldominion’s Onry Ozzborn (aka Reason) and JFK (aka Recluse). Back in 2005, Grayskul (which then included the Beacon Hill bassist and producer Rob Castro) helped launch a new wave of hiphop with Deadlivers, an album released by Minneapolis-based indie hiphop label Rhymesayers Entertainment (the house for such acts as Atmosphere, Brother Ali, and our very own Jake One). Grayskul are, in sound and mode, a continuation of Oldominion; Raekwon is still one of the most recognized rappers in Wu-Tang Clan, and he dropped the collective’s fourth masterpiece, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… As a consequence, Raekwon’s appearance on the track “Zenith” is something like a door finally opening between two hiphop worlds that, though compatible, never connected and cross-fertilized.
But Wu-Tang Clan has been canonized; it’s a major part of hiphop history. Oldominion, of course, has not. But despite the absence of national and historical recognition, the crew has continued to make great records and steadily contribute a stream of jewels and gems to its massive body of work. Zenith, Grayskul’s first album outside of Rhymesayers and first album for Fake Four, the label that houses Dark Time Sunshine (DTS is Onry Ozzborn and Chicago’s Zavala), is a solid work that features equally solid contributions from Katie Kate, Aesop Rock, and Thaddeus David. In terms of beats, it’s a mix of the standard, gothically twisted Oldominion sound with tracks that draw from Zavala’s (or DTS’s) gorgeous impressionism—Zavala, however, didn’t produce any of the tracks on the album. In terms of raps, the focus here is science fiction. Onry and JFK not only rap about space travel, falling stars, and distant planets, but also reference classic science-fiction hiphop like Rakim’s “Follow the Leader” (“Planets as small as balls of clay”). Seattle still has space on the mind.
Beyond the Stars by Space3man
Beyond the Stars, a new EP by Seattle rapper Spac3man, is, again, all about the stuff of rockets, aliens, and comets. Containing eight tracks, one of which is produced by Jake One, and three by Nissim (formerly named D.Black and one of the founders of Sportn’ Life Records), Beyond the Stars basically keeps Spac3man’s name in circulation. Though it has several slamming tracks, the cookie is “Speakin’ Tongues,” which was produced by DJ Phinisey. That track is going straight into my top 10 of the year. Not only does Phinisey display some serious pad skills, but Spac3man shows he is not to be forgotten and ignored. With him, the harder the beat, the harder he rocks.
Eyes Open by Sol
While others are in space, Sol—a rapper who recently returned from a yearlong trip around the world—keeps things on the ground on his new EP, Eyes Open. Sol raps about his travels, his relationships, his current concerns, and the direction his post-trip art is taking with great realism. The work, indeed, comes very close to the kind of honesty you would expect to find in a diary. But in terms of beats, Eyes Open is a lot more radio-friendly than Sol’s previous EPs, and this is not at all a bad thing. Seriously, Seattle needs more Macklemores on the top of the charts, and it would not surprise me in the least if Sol were the next rapper to hit the big time. He is handsome, smart, and not deaf to the sweet call of pop success.
Sol plays the Showbox at the Market on Wednesday, November 27.
Doc Watson by Spekulation
Last on my list of fall 206 EPs/LPs is Spekulation’s Doc Watson, a collection of instrumentals. At first, I planned to avoid this work entirely because Spekulation is primarily recognized as a rapper—and rappers are rarely good at production, and producers are rarely good at rapping. I only need to mention RZA, one of the greatest producers to ever walk the earth. As a rapper, however, RZA utterly sucks eggs—sadly this suckiness has never stopped him from rapping (where are the gravediggers for Bobby Digital?). That said, Spekulation’s Doc Watson surprised me not only with its richness, but with its confidence and commitment to the basics. The album contains 13 beats, five of which are exceptional. You only need to hear “Tattoos & Golden Rings,” which features a sample of the jazz musician Ahamefule J. Oluo and soul singer okanomodé, to know that Spekulation is not making up shit. He actually knows what he is doing. 
