HAS:
A rap style that no one can imitate.
MAKES:
Rhymes that are filled with brilliance but are not always easy to follow.
IS:
Also a regarded chef who used to cook at Kingfish Cafe.
In the mid-1990s, a number of talented young rappers and producers in Seattle’s then-black neighborhood, the Central District, made a bold move. They decided to abandon the mainstream and develop a new and profoundly local form of hiphop that blended East Coast boom-bap, jazz samples from the modern moment (1955 to 1968), and something that can only be described as the Northwest aesthetic—the dark green of our trees, the long months without sun, the numerous days of drizzle. One underground crew was Silent Lambs Project, which was basically two rappers, Jace ECAj and Silas Blak, working with some of the best producers/DJs of that period: King Otto, Mr. Hill, and Bean One.
Most local headz first discovered Jace ECAj and Silas Blak on K Records’ 1998 compilation Classic Elements, which featured crews from Tacoma and Seattle. Blak displayed on his tracks a style that’s deep, complicated, and combative. Blak was not about hot anger, but the slow-burning variety. Two years after Classic Elements, Jace and Blak released a masterpiece called Soul Liquor. Each track on this work is infused with that Northwest mood and has Jace and Blak going back and forth not like rappers but horn players. Before you understand a word of what they are saying, all you hear is the music of their densely rhythmic stretching, bending, and shortening of these words.
