A film about Northwest hip-hop from

NEWCOMER

This 82-minute feature film is an intimate introduction to Seattle’s vibrant hip-hop underground. It was assembled from hundreds of tiny performance clips—shot for Instagram—into a single, continuous concert mosaic, and stars 93 of the top hip-hop artists from The Town.

Here’s how KEXP describes it in their review: “NEWCOMER stretches the idea of the concert film to an artistic extreme: Sub-minute snippets artfully arranged to resemble a field recording of Seattle’s rap scene, the pieces fractured and pieced back together in a truly engrossing way. The narrative flows through venues like Barboza, Cha Cha Lounge, Vermillion, Lo-Fi, the Showbox, the Crocodile, and dozens more. It’s Khris P pouring Rainier into a Solo cup while he raps; bodies packed into regional landmark ETC Tacoma; SassyBlack improvising a song urging concertgoers to buy her merch; the delightfully awkward dance moves of white people in KEXP’s Gathering Space; Chong the Nomad beatboxing and playing harmonica simultaneously; Bruce Leroy bullying a beat next to the clothing racks at All-Star Vintage; Specswizard rhyming about his first time performing in front of a crowd while standing before The Dark Crystal playing on a projection screen. The film is about the moments we experience—as lovers of live performance—just as much as the performances themselves.”

NEWCOMER was directed by Gary Campbell and was an official selection at the 2020 New York Hip-Hop Film Festival and the 2020 Golden Sneakers International Hip-Hop Film Festival in Hamburg, Germany. Throughout November 2020, the film screened for four weeks on the Northwest Film Forum theatrical screening site in honor of Hip-Hop History Month.

You can watch the full movie below.

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Channel Surfing

The Seattle Times describes this solo debut from Tacoma painter and rapper Perry Porter as “manic, with voice-cracking bars over thickets of trunk-knocking bass… short bursts that, like a good punk record, leave you craving more.” The Blow Up points to Porter’s “high energy chaos and smooth funk.” CityArts says “He bounces from syrupy drawl to chirpy double-time to suit each song’s character, street-hardened but self-deprecating, stoned, surreal, and cartoonish.” Distinction describes it as “an alt-trapper bouncer made of SoundCloud-era strangeness.”

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Tales From The T, Volume 1

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.

Do you know something about the history of this record? Do you have a favorite lyric or a favorite memory? Send us an email on why this is one of the great hip-hop albums from the Northwest. Thanks!

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

TRUNK

The young Tacoma hip-hop scene is on fire. Roughly once a month, in a secret location with a list of secret artists, there’s Toe Jam: A series of cathartic, hip-hop raves, held in sweaty basements, as raucous celebrations of musical debauchery.

That context is useful for understanding the epic, grinding rap-synth-punk sound of Sleep Steady (aka Perry Porter and CidVishiz) and their 2017 album, TRUNK. Like the gaudy and in-your-face cover art–reminiscent of Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy cover by George Condo–this record balances messy, raw emotion with sweetness, and then hits you in the gut.

Put on the first track, “HABITS,” and let the strident synths overtake you. Beneath all that digital distortion is music screaming for an intimate, close connection. This is anti-algorithm music that, as someone commented on Bandcamp, “goes way hard.”

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