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

Tag: Ben Hamaji

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Gab The Most High

This artist needs no intro. I’m assuming y’all already big fans of the self-proclaimed “queen of Seattle,” Gifted Gab. Throughout the year I’ve had love affairs with other records, but it’s Gab The Most High, released in May, that I’ve consistently returned to again and again. Few records have felt so confident, demonstrating such complete command of instruments, writing, rapping, vocal sampling, and on. Gab is a magpie, collecting threads from multiple genres: funk, R&B, and reggae; and then layering in new textures, including showing off a soulful singing voice. The album release party featured a full Motown-style backing band.

Gab The Most High was created in and features appearances from:

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Gab The Most High Swishahouse Remix

I’ll confess that I wasn’t super hip to the whole Screwed and Chopped scene before Gifted Gab started hyping this record and the unique remixing style of DJ Michael “5000” Watts. Starting with Gab’s startlingly great release Gab The Most High, Watts slows down every track by 1/3, and then introduces skips and repeats and scratches. Anyone who knows me already knows how much I love the source material, and here, slowing the music down illuminates the tiny musical details, and the repeats put the focus on the nuances of Gab’s lyrics and wordplay. Listening to these remixes makes me love the original album even more. (And this isn’t just a few tracks—Watts remixed the whole damn album.) This Swishahouse remix confirms Gab’s right to serve as Queen of Seattle. Please give her the Royal Warrant pronto.

Gab The Most High Swishahouse Remix was created in and features appearances from:

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Girl Rap

One of the masterpieces of Seattle rap: Gifted Gab‘s Girl Rap. If this were a cassette I would have long ago worn it out. Rarely a week goes by that I haven’t spun this a few times. Gab has a potent ricochet flow and lots of truth to deliver.

Seattle hip-hop blog 206UP picked this record as one of the “Top 10 Albums of 2014,” saying that:

Gifted Gab becomes a more fully-evolved artist with every release and Girl Rap was Gabby embracing ‘90s-influenced R&B in equal measures with the hard, bracing shit-talk we’ve come to know and love her for. This rapper is good enough to bat third in any crew’s lineup; she’s Griffey-like in the way you don’t want to miss an at-bat because you never know when she’ll do something incredible.

Girl Rap was created in and features appearances from:

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