TOWN LOVE is an online art museum dedicated to celebrating the vibrant past and present of Northwest Hip-Hop. You can browse by artist or browse by year.

This gallery page is organized to highlight the creative work of

Artist: Khingz

As you scroll, items are sorted from most recent to earliest.

A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Liberation of the Monster

Seattle hip-hop blog 206UP picked this record as one of the “Top 10 Albums of 2011,” saying that:

A relocation to Vancouver, BC has not changed the allegiance or focus in the subject matter of the South End’s most self-aware rapper, Khingz. Liberation of the Monster was the best collection of tracks the MC has released since 2009’s remarkable From Slaveships to Spaceships. Canadian producer Rel!g!on was responsible for all of the beats, a Pacific Northwest re-working of the SoCal gangsta aesthetic found on 1990s albums like Dogg Food. While Khingz may forever associate himself with that style of rap nostalgically (like many of us who came of age in the 90s), he’s decidedly more responsible and progressive in his rhymes. His course is set on a better future, a destination borne from a dubious past. On tracks like “Monster’s Lib” and “Hard to Say,” the MC is so diffuse in his rhyming it’s hard to keep up with the words. You would be too if you had the rare combination of artistic acumen and social enlightenment of this rapper.

Liberation of the Monster was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

From Slaveships to Spaceships

From Slaveships to Spaceships, a 2009 release from Khingz is a Soufend gem of the Seattle hip-hop canon, and seriously, go listen to it right now on your streaming service of choice. It opens with a strong series of strings stabs, and a defiant definition of “The New Blaq.” Many songs here are meditations on the meanings of freedom, of blackness, and identity. The soul samples of “Reach In” channel the best Kanye production, and the verses throughout, the bared soul and sensitivity channel him, too. In 2009 this was one of 206UP’s albums of the year, and I’m not surprised. It’s a recent discovery for me and has quickly become one of my favorites of this whole summer, shaking my car speakers. The sexy-ass bass line on “Blaq Han Solo” will have you fantasizing about that girl you just want to eat nachos with, who you’ve been wanting to call, and just then, at the end of the song, it breaks into a phone call where Khingz is doing just that. Both Gabriel Teodros and Justo add some featured magic. There’s so much I love here: the rapid-fire spitting on “Hydroplanin,'” the reversed guitars on “Electric Tantra,” and the beat “Grillz, which is killer, but frankly, this whole record is off-the-charts good. I could itemize why every song is a banger, but really just go listen to it for yourself.

From Slaveships to Spaceships was created in and features appearances from:

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