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.

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Tag: Bishop

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Goretex and Wool

Opening with samples from Seattle weather reports and the sound of a torrential deluge, Goretex and Wool serves as an ideal soundtrack for PNW winter and for a day like today. Throughout this 2016 beat tape, Diogenes slowly builds up layers of samples and drums and then adds wintertime environmental sounds, and then, equally slowly, peels those layers away again, especially effective on a song like “what love (will do)” that is more than once overtaken by a downpour. Mostly instrumental, there’s extensive and creative use of vocal sampling, and a couple of tracks feature guest vocals from Bishop Gaddafi and STSY. For those with a boom box, this one may still be available for purchase as a limited-edition cassette from Bandcamp.

Goretex and Wool was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Hear to Heal

On the song “Fly By,” featured lyricist Moka Only raps, “If vinyl could talk, it would probably say, what the fuck? Like why you put me through all the scratching and chops?” We throw around terms like “old school” whenever there are wax and jazz samples and turntable scratching. While those elements are all present here in abundance, there’s nothing old about Hear to Heal, a 2016 release from Ear Dr.Umz The Metrognome. This record is a 16-track prescription, where The Doctor collaborates with contemporary local cats to derive novel new approaches to boom-bap. This is a who’s who of the Seattle underground, featuring verses and beats from Able Fader, Specswizard, Silas Blak, Myka 9, and others. A standout track for me is “Whole ‘nother Level” with some special cool flows courtesy of Dex Amora and Zuke Saga, but really this whole record is solid from end-to-end, and a great response to “vinyl” on why all the scratching and chops.

Hear to Heal was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

All Your Friend's Friends

Hmmm... There’s not a lot of information about this record in the museum encyclopedia.

This TOWN LOVE website was created in 2021 as a pandemic-era project. It was a volunteer-led effort to help document and celebrate the complete history of Northwest hip-hop between the years 1981 and 2020. This public archive we built is now available for free online for everyone to read and explore.

If you'd like to contribute, and you know something about this particular record--a story, a memory, or a favorite lyric--please email us a short write-up, and we’ll add your thoughts to the archive when we get the chance.

Thanks for your help in preserving the history of our scene!

All Your Friend's Friends was created in and features appearances from:

Did we get it wrong? It happens. Send us an email and let's get it corrected right away!

A film about Northwest hip-hop from

The Grey Area

Hmmm... There’s not a lot of information about this record in the museum encyclopedia.

This TOWN LOVE website was created in 2021 as a pandemic-era project. It was a volunteer-led effort to help document and celebrate the complete history of Northwest hip-hop between the years 1981 and 2020. This public archive we built is now available for free online for everyone to read and explore.

If you'd like to contribute, and you know something about this particular record--a story, a memory, or a favorite lyric--please email us a short write-up, and we’ll add your thoughts to the archive when we get the chance.

Thanks for your help in preserving the history of our scene!

The Grey Area was created in and features appearances from:

Did we get it wrong? It happens. Send us an email and let's get it corrected right away!