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: Kid Sensation

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

The Weekend

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Prisoner Of Ignorance

For almost a century, vinyl records had been the dominant medium for music playback, but in the ‘90s, the format’s long reign was quickly eroded by two newer options: cassettes and CDs. Both were smaller, cheaper, less fragile, and portable. You could play cassettes and CDs in your car, throw them in a boombox, or go stroll with headphones and a fancy new Walkman.

“Prisoner of Ignorance” marks the first time NastyMix put their marketing and promotion efforts behind a cassette edition rather than the vinyl. (A plain-sleeve vinyl was made for DJs, but it was the cassette of “Prisoner” that got the cool cover art.)

NastyMix also splashed out on an MTV music video. In it, Kid Sensation is tied to an electric chair. He’s about to be executed. A white, racist cop narrates, saying “another Black youth is being appropriately punished.”

When asked if he has any last words, Kid raps that he’s a product of the system: “My only crime from birth is dark skin.” He recounts how he was expelled from school, how he turned to the streets and gangs. He started running with the wrong crew. In desperation, he tried to rob a liquor store. It went bad. He took a hostage, he killed two cops, the hostage was killed, too, I think? The story gets a little convoluted, but the message is clear: The system has failed him over and over again.

For his fall, he blames bigots, the school system, the media for promoting white supremacist falsehoods as truth. Americans are being brainwashed. Where is his piece of the so-called American dream?

At the end of the music video, Mix-A-Lot stands over Kid Sensation’s grave and makes the song’s anti-gang message clear: “Minorities make up 93% of all gang membership in the United States of America today. Whether you choose to call this genocide or just straight-up homicide, you brothers need to remember it’s all suicide.”

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A.K.A Mista K-Sen

Kid Sensation dropped two albums on Seattle’s juggernaut record label Nastymix, one in 1990, and the other in 1992. But Nastymix shut down in late ’92, and so Kid’s third and fourth albums were put out by Ichiban, a Georgia label which had made waves in 1991 with MC Breed’s hit, “Ain’t No Future In Yo Frontin.” Kid Sensation’s fourth album, A.K.A. Mista K-Sen released in 1996, is a funky effort that fits in well with the rest of his catalog.

“Priorities” lays out Kid’s important things in life, “God number one, family number two, and music number three.” Easy-on-the-ears song, “Roll Slow And Bump” features rapper Kream, and her bold verses mesh well with those of K-Sen. “Nina ross on my waist just in case I have to pull it, but I’m ducking from these feds and I’m ducking from these bullets,” she raps in her smooth voice, using a slang nickname for her 9mm pistol. Kid’s song “I Come Wicked” from his third album Seatown Funk gets a remix here titled “I Come Wicked 96,” and he drops line after line such as, “Because I’m known for alphabetical acrobatics, flip a phrase like a fraction in mathematics.”

After four albums, Kid Sensation retired the name and began a new chapter of his entertainment career. His public rap history began with his appearance first on “Electro Scratch” and then on “Ripp’n,” both in 1987. “Ripp’n” was the B-side of the “Square Dance Rap” single, and everyone remembers the unforgettable line, “Let’s get live with the Kid Sensation.” His streak continued for nine years, including his early first single, “Back 2 Boom” which hit the streets in 1989 and gave fuel for multiple car stereo battles. His album Rollin With Number One even hit the famous Billboard 200 albums chart in 1990, peaking at #175. Kid has many accomplishments to be proud of, including an acting career which led to commercials and a role in the film Safety Not Guaranteed. A.K.A. Mista K-Sen ends with a remix of “Back 2 Boom” called “Back 2 Boom (And Still Boomin),” which seems not only like a perfect ending to the album, but also an appropriate farewell to the artist known as Kid Sensation. Written by Novocaine132

A.K.A Mista K-Sen was created in and features appearances from:

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Seatown Funk

Seattle’s Nastymix Records was in financial trouble in late 1991 after losing Sir Mix-A-Lot and his lucrative catalog. To stay afloat, Nastymix partnered with Ichiban in Georgia for approximately a year, finally closing at the end of 1992. Artists who remained at Nastymix in 1992 had the Ichiban distribution logo on their tapes and CDs. Kid Sensation was no exception, and his 1992 album The Power Of Rhyme was a complicated Nastymix/Ichiban/Emerald City Records collaboration. Kid continued making music after the demise of Nastymix, and in 1995 he recorded his third album Seatown Funk strictly for Ichiban.

The songs on Seatown Funk fall into three main categories: party life, tough guy gangsta talk, and knocking boots. Highlights of the fun cuts include the Kevin Gardner produced “What Comes Around Goes Around,” which sees Kid reminiscing about his past relationships and what he has learned. The title track “Seatown Funk” borrows its silky beat from a 1977 hit by The Floaters, and it is a good way to start the album. “Rhyme For Me” is a funky interpolation of “Flashlight” by Parliament. For these radio-friendly type tracks, Kid keeps the topics light and the rhymes fairly simple.

On the tougher side of things, tracks like “I Come Wicked” and “Neva Goin Out” show a harder component of Kid Sensation. “Fools in my city, even those who don’t know me, stab me in the back, but in my face they’re my homie,” he observes on “Neva Goin Out.” Later in the track he shoots his adversary point blank, “There’s a hole in your chest, your heart is pumping clots of blood into your lap.” “Seatownanina” uses lots of wordplay to describe how dangerous his crew can be.

As mentioned earlier, Kid is intent on showing his player side on this album. “Sex In The Studio” is a long voyeuristic instrumental beat with lovemaking sounds mixed in, vaguely evoking Madonna’s 1990 hit “Justify My Love.” “If My Pillow Could Talk” sees Kid’s pillow dishing about all the women Kid has slept with, but the repeating loop from “You’re A Customer” doesn’t allow any space for the song to be sexy. “Late Night Hook Up” is predictably a rap about exactly what you would expect it to be about. Kid showed stamina and longevity in the game by not giving up, and admirably he continued building his personal hip-hop brand even when he was unceremoniously forced to switch record labels. Written by Novocaine132

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Skin 2 Skin

The original version of the song “Skin 2 Skin” appears on Kid Sensation’s 1990 debut album, Rollin’ with Number One. It’s a slightly clunky love ballad, punctuated with synth stabs and banging drums. Through a series of telephone skits and rap verses, Kid attempts to convince a girl to come over to his place, expressing his sincerity and honesty, citing how Janet Jackson and Milli Vanilli said it’s “Alright.”

The brand new 12” “Naked Mix” featured here on this vinyl reimagines “Skin 2 Skin” as a new song, centering the music around a bright, funky guitar, while also dialing back the drums and adding a wide range of trippy left-right stereo effects. The mix takes the song in a fresh, intimate direction, one where you’re more likely to be won over by Kid’s flirtation.

On the flip side, you’ll find two versions of a superb new Kid track about wealth, racism, and society called “Homey Don’t Play That.” He recounts a series of misadventures that warn of the perils of money and fame: Girls who want to spend all his dough, fair-weather friends who need to “borrow” $20… He heads to a fancy restaurant and is instructed to use the service entrance. The Maître D’ insults him, saying “Black folks are only welcome to shine our shoes.” At the closing of the song, Kid and his friends are singing the chorus as a group. One guy yells out to stop, saying “The white girl is off-beat.”

Something to love about early Kid Sensation records is how they were a playground for new ideas and new talents. They’re daring. This record features the first vinyl appearance of a young DJ Ace: His work with Prose & Concepts and the ECP in the mid-‘90s made an important mark on the scene, and his appearance here is no doubt part of the reason this 12” single is such a stellar record.

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The Way I Swing

Hmmm... There's not a lot of information about this project in the museum encyclopedia. We'd love your help! TOWN LOVE is maintained by an awesome community of passionate volunteers who keep it all up to date.

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Seatown Ballers

If you listen closely to the bass line at the start of “Seatown Ballers,” you’ll hear it morph from synthesizer to beatbox vocalization and back again. Throughout his music, “Seattle’s next rap star, Kid Sensation” finds many creative new ways to incorporate his human voice.

“Seatown Ballers” is a curious song. Another one that, like “Back 2 Boom” and “My Hooptie,” yet again revisits “Posse on Broadway,” both in sampling and lyrics. (While also sampling contemporaries Public Enemy and Beastie Boys, too)

It recounts “another day in the life of the ECP,” where Maharaji, Attitude Adjuster, Mix-A-Lot, and Larry—the white guy, real estate investor—are driving down Rainier, picking up girls… Wait, haven’t we heard this all before?

Indeed, these early NastyMix rap singles are like interlocking Russian dolls, or watching Inception: It’s all layers upon layers, right down to the cover photo. Kid and DJ Skill pause in front of Minoru Yamasaki’s Rainier Tower, and they’re holding copies of Kid’s “Back 2 Boom” records, too.

At one point, Kid raps, “I don’t need drugs to create this feeling,” and you agree, yeah, it’s all déjà vu. And the beats keep turning into his voice and back again.

The music video for “Ballers” was shot at the brand new Westlake transit hub which first opened the same year, 1990.

Flipside cut “S.B.I.A.” is an acronym for “Seattle’s Best In Action.” Although no one is directly credited on the cover, Kid passes the mic around to a cypher featuring his contemporaries from Seattle’s unsigned hip-hop underground: Richie Rapp, MC Willin’, and MC Linn all drop baller verses before Kid himself takes us home.

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Back 2 Boom

The b-side cut on Kid Sensation’s solo debut is a song called, “I S.P.I.T.” Kid is rapping about his lyrical abilities and shouting out the whole Mix crew. “The Pacific timezone is on the attack.” The song includes uncredited feature verses from the whole posse: Attitude Adjuster, Maharaji, and Mix-A-Lot himself. There’s also a new voice, Greg B, aka Funk Daddy. The beats here are all about the drop. At one point, Kid raps “I merge with Mix to make a masterpiece,” and that’s a pretty great description of this whole EP.

Someone recently described the Mix-A-Lot and Kid Sensation relationship like Batman and Robin: It’s apt: Mix was 26 and Kid was only 18 when this single dropped.

Mix’s mentoring hand (and production) is evident throughout the title track, “Back 2 Boom,” which makes the song all the more curious. It starts by liberally sampling and referencing “Posse on Broadway,” Kid is driving down Rainier… The tune play like many of Mix’s early rapid-fire, Electro hits, hyping up the crowd even higher. It’s so referential to Mix’s other work and apes his style, you start to wonder, is this a parody track?

Two minutes in, everything shifts. Kid drops the beat to half speed like it’s some early chopped-n-screwed experiment, and the song lingers here for the duration. This is the “boom” … Kid changes up the verses, he and the posse are trashing stop signs, tearing shit apart, blowing up Broadway.

And then the verses are spoken backward. And then you remember how Kid Sensation is a talented beatboxer, and you realize the beats have been his voice all along. Everything eventually drifts away like a car crash in slow motion.

So arrives the debut of Mix-A-Lot protégé Kid Sensation. BOOM!

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Rippin’ / Attack On The Stars

The “Rippin’” EP is a true double A-side: Center circles are labeled “1” and “A.” Both singles are strong, but the best cut by far is a mind-boggling three minutes and forty seconds called “bonus beats.” Mix chops up Kid Sensation’s beatboxing into a wild construction, demonstrating how truly skilled he is as a beatmaker, sampler, and turntable scratcher. At the end, he boasts to Nes that his competition “better retire.”

To best understand early Mix-A-Lot, picture him as an identity worn by Anthony Ray, the same way Bruce Wayne dons the guise of Batman. Early Mix was “Adam West”—a campy, computer-obsessed nerd with style who knows how to rock a party.

“Rippin’” plays like a send-off for this early Mix, looking back at his early hits and summarizing his rise to success. The lyrics revisit the themes from “I’m A Trip,” a section of “Square Dance Rap” makes a reappearance, and he samples vintage Electro greats Kraftwerk and Gary Numan.

After this record, the Mix character becomes brasher, bolder, more gangster… a guy who’s tough because he’s a gun-toting badass with a posse, and not just because he knows how to oscillate the bass kick on his computerized gear.

It’s always been curious that most of Mix’s earliest tunes have never been released digitally or on streaming: These songs are mostly great fun, weird, geeky, production marvels. Go seek out the original vinyl records! I found many of these in used bins for $1. You’re in for some wild ass silly shit.

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The Power of Rhyme

Let’s be honest: The Seattle rap scene has become a disappointment. At one time a couple of years back it was being hailed as a budding talent pool, just notches below New York and LA. NastyMix was at the forefront of Northwest rap and Kid Sensation looked to be a potential national hit right after his first LP.

Kid Sensation’s new album, The Power of Rhyme, will not be the area’s savior. The style is a mediocre hard hip-hop attempt–showing no improvement from his debut–with one noteworthy song, “The Way We Swing,” a collaboration with Ken Griffey, Jr. It’s not enough to save this album. The LP has been out since early spring, and by now it is fair to judge the Kid’s mass appeal; outside baseball collectors, there has been little. (This review originally appeared in The Rocket and was written by Scott Griggs.)

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Rollin' with Number One

The debut full-length from “teenage lady killer” Kid Sensation dropped in 1990, while Kid was, indeed, still a teenager. He and Sir Mix-A-Lot originally met back when pre-success, mid-80s Mix was a popular recurring DJ at Boys and Girls Club parties and events. Kid was a teen who’d linger after the set and help Mix put away his gear.

The backside of Rollin’ with Number One has all the best songs, like “Two Minutes,” where he shows us how it’s done by spitting verses for two minutes straight with barely a breath. The drums on standout “Legal” pierce your synapses at unexpectedly pleasant times. This one tune was co-produced by Mix-A-Lot—whose shadow looms large over the whole record—but it’s very much Kid Sensation who’s the star here, making all the beats and dominating 10 tracks with a smooth, speedy bullet train cadence.

Side B opener “Flowin’” is a great example of Kid Sensation’s dual threats of production and rapping. “I’m impossible,” he says at one point, adding, “Sucker emcees can’t comprehend because they’re too slow.” Kid then lays down a ground cover of drums, samples, and vocal wordplay, demonstrating his impressive skills, letting you know he’s “cutting you down like grass in a mower.”

The song is yet another NastyMix tune that incorporates elements of “Posse on Broadway.” (That’s 4, for anyone keeping count…) I’d love to know if there’s a larger story here.

Deft samples include movie lasers, a heart-rate monitor, and the infamous “funky drummer.”

The jacket will have you plotting your next beach fire at Golden Gardens. Listen closely to the lyrics and you’ll hear references to Rainier and Seward and other Town locales. This one is on Spotify so you can go bump it right now.

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