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: Funk Daddy (Greg B)

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

The Coolout Legacy

NYC filmmaker Georgio Brown moved to the Northwest in the early ’90s. In 1991, along with VJ D, he founded The Coolout Network, a public access show on cable television that would record the evolution of Seattle’s early hip-hop scene. As Georgio says at the beginning of this film, “we went to the community centers, parks, schools, clubs… Every place that hip-hop was happening… We wanted to cover it.” They certainly did. Coolout ran for 16 years on television, from 1991 until 2007. Various forms of the project continue online to this day.

This particular film, The Coolout Legacy was made by Georgio Brown himself. He narrates and reflects on the impact of the show and its importance to our local hip-hop community.

There’s vintage footage here galore: A teenage Funk Daddy shows off a trophy “taller than me” that he won at a DJ contest, before showing us some of the moves that earned him the victory. Laura “Piece” Kelley addresses the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated rap scene. She often faces the insult that “she can rap pretty good for a girl.” But she replies, “I rap good for the world… And I don’t rap good. I rap well.”

Rapper H-Bomb heaps some well-deserved praise on Specswizard: “Nobody’s been doing hip-hop in Seattle longer than Specs.” We then catch up with the ‘Wizard and he shares a book of graffiti sketches from ’93. The late, great J. Moore shares his wisdom for success and acknowledges the importance of that Coolout played in “coalescing a scene.”

There are numerous live performances and freestyles of Seattle legends in their early days, as well as national acts like Mary J. Blige and Leaders of The New School. Brown talks about encouraging young artists who bravely stand on a stage with a mic and bear their truths. It’s hard. But with Coolout filming you, “every little victory helps,” adds Ghetto Chilldren’s B-Self.

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Byrd's Eye View

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Town Biz Mixtape

No list of essential Seattle hip-hop compilations would be complete without the inclusion of Jake One’s 27-track opus, the Town Biz Mixtape. He dug deep into the crates, surfacing lost hits, deep cuts, and the finest local hip-hop spanning more than 20 years. (From 1989 to 2010, when this CD was released.)

The mixtape is an essential playlist that surfaces forgotten gems and unexpected bangers. My favorite track here is Vitamin D’s “Who That??” feat. The Note (from Narcotik), but there are so, so many solid tracks. Everyone’s on this, from Blind Council to Mash Hall, The Physics, Tay Sean, J. Pinder, and Shabazz Palaces. Listening to Town Biz will leave you realizing how blessed we are to have so much musical talent in our own backyard. But we knew that already, didn’t we? Thanks to Jake One for compiling this so we can spin it on a sunny summer afternoon and feel hella proud.

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In Tha Mix

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Evolution of Hip-Hop

In 2004, Seattle’s hip-hop scene was in transition. Enter Tendai Maraire of the group C.A.V.É. which had recorded their album Holy Haters a few years prior in 2000. Tendai, a virtuoso musician who would later join with Ishmael Butler to create Shabazz Palaces, looked around Seattle, pulled fifteen tracks from fifteen different DJs and MCs, and combined them into this amazing compilation.

Evolution Of Hip Hop is an unfiltered look at Seattle’s diverse hip-hop community in the mid-2000s, and the music is top-notch. Ghetto Chilldren’s track “Young Tender” shows how good Vitamin and B-Self are at breaking words down to their syllables and rearranging them into a roller coaster of inflection. “Peaches and Cream” by Merm and Mal snaps the funk so hard that it was also included on the Town Biz mixtape six years later. In a nod to hip hop DJ culture, there are DJ-only tracks by Funk Daddy, Topspin, and DV One, three of Seattle’s veteran party and club entertainers.

Evolution Of Hip Hop has so many great artists that it’s hard to believe. With names like Candidt, E-Dawg, Jace and Blak, Boom Bap Project, Skuntdunanna, and many others, there is something for every possible listener. “Yeah Yeah Baby” by C.A.V.É. is one of the most blazing tracks on the whole project, careening like a car chase loaded with drama.

When compilations are at their best, they can capture a moment in time like a Polaroid. Evolution Of Hip Hop allows you to see through the camera from the point of view of a young Tendai Maraire. Push the button! (Written by Novocaine132.)

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North West Ridin'

Mr. D.O.G. is a Tacoma rap artist who made his debut in 1997 with his EP Gettin Paid. Similar to E-40, D.O.G.’s style bounces the tone of his delivery from low to falsetto, all over the vocal register. Then in 1998 his first full album Wet was released, featuring the hit “Aquaman.” 2000 saw Mr. D.O.G.’s first vinyl release on a split twelve-inch single with Playboy Bleek. His label was called Bow Wow Records, and in 2002, D.O.G. and partner BWR 2000 put together this CD compilation of various hip hop artists from Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland.

“Aquaman II” by Mr. D.O.G. is the first song on North West Ridin’, and the beat is a slinky, g-funk interpolation of “Bad” by LL Cool J. Smooth-voiced rapper K-Swiss keeps the tempo lazy and the content mellow and light with “Just Hustlin.” Portland’s Cool Nutz joins on “NW Game,” with lyrics about hustling and thugging. “I never could take seeing my bread rise slow,” is a nice metaphor from Cool Nutz. My ear found the peppery guitar picking in the “U Aint Done Shit” beat to be quite enjoyable. “I Gets Paper (Remix)” features California rap legend Ras Kass on a verse. Samples from the movie Boyz In The Hood sprinkled throughout “Blow Ya Brainz” by Mak Mahd enhance the violent mood of the track.

My favorite song on North West Ridin’ is “I Ain’t Feeling That,” by Funk Daddy and E-Dawg. It contains a line that sounds dated but was actually quite futuristic, “You wanna battle? I really don’t have time. How bout I jump in a limo, grab the laptop, and we do it online.” Remember, Myspace didn’t launch until 2003, and Facebook appeared in 2004. North West Ridin’ is a good look at some turn-of-the-millennium rap from the upper West Coast. At the end of “We G’z” the MC asks, “Who said there wasn’t no gangsters up north?” Who indeed? Written by Novocaine132

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I Want All That

Greg “Funk Daddy” Buren is a Seattle hip-hop all-star. In the 80’s he sharpened his craft as a DJ/rapper/producer, a force to be reckoned with. In the 90’s he exploded onto the national rap scene, thanks in no small part to his work with hyphy Bay Area emperor E-40. Right after Y2K, Funk Daddy continued to impress with his 2001 album I Want All That.

On “Intro,” perpetual weed-smoker B-Legit is ready to cosign for Funk Daddy, and he says so in as many words. Up-and-comer at the time Livio had just dropped his own debut single, and he joins Funk Daddy on the sardonic “All These Hos.” Groovy track “Freaks Sippin Hennessy” is an interpolation of Digital Underground’s 1990 sexy classic “Freaks Of The Industry,” and original Underground member Money B unspools an entertaining verse. Funk Daddy reunites with his Crooked Path partners Jay Skee and Dee-Lyrious on the excellent, upbeat cut “Just Don’t Stop.”

Rhyme Cartel-signed, rap/rock act Outtasite adds vocals to three tracks on I Want All That, album opener “Whatchuthought,” party anthem “Mah City’s Tight,” and the quite explicit “Ghetto Luv.” “Drinking till we see the sun, ladies be like two to to one, you don’t need no lady luck, bouncing like they’re down to f***,” goes a typical line from “Mah City’s Tight.” Portland’s Cool Nutz is featured on “Day To Day,” which has one of my favorite beats on the album. The various voices and guest appearances add zesty flavor to the project, and the album stays spicy from start to finish. The menu is assisted by rapper Mr. Rossi, who appears on most of the tracks here.

The artwork on the back of I Want All That is a city skyline, with the Space Needle modestly featured. This isn’t directed at Funk Daddy, but I have a question for all current Seattle hip-hop artists. Why do you need to put a picture of the Space Needle on your album? Is it so you can find your way home? Is it like sewing your name in your jeans to identify them?

In June of 2022, the company which owns the 1962 landmark sued a Seattle coffee business that used the Needle as its company logo. According to an article in US News & World Report, “Karen Olson, head of Space Needle operations and marketing, said the legal action is unusual. ‘We’ve never had to get to this point,’ Olson said. ‘I’m surprised that we’re here.’” In the past, the Needle let things slide, but brazen usage of the trademark has multiplied in recent years. Rappers, just ask yourselves, what am I trying to say by using the Needle in my art? Written by Novocaine132

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Hatas All Pause

Crooked Path came together in the early 1990s when DJ Funk Daddy teamed up with J-Skee and Dee-Lyrious. The group’s first album After Dark in 1993 was a success, and they returned with a follow up CD called Which Way Is Up in 1998. Their label Dogday Records put out a 12″ vinyl promo maxi-single to accompany the CD. This wax contains four songs from Which Way Is Up, and it displays the many styles of this important Seattle rap group.

“Hatas All Pause” is the A-side. The lyrics are about how nobody can mess with Crooked Path because they are “making big moves.” When they walk in the room, everybody freezes. Side B includes the instrumental and the acapella versions of “Hatas All Pause” so that DJs can mix it up in the club, always a smart idea for a twelve-inch release.

Side B starts with “Bad Mutha 4 Ya,” which brings that party vibe. It’s a sweet slice of funk, with a deep, fuzzy bassline that could be mistaken for an earthquake. J-Skee describes his player pedigree in verse after verse. Next on the B-side is “Feel Like A Nut,” which explores the group’s sexual tendencies with lines like, “I’m a motherf***er, I put a bitch to a test, I goes and gets another trick and see who f***s best.” The last song on the maxi-single is “Don’t Give A Phuck,” which is the most gangsta of the four offerings. The track features Lil Frank, and it tells how Crooked Path is gonna “put you in a body bag.” Now in 2023, twenty-five years after this release, DJ Funk Daddy can still be found entertaining music fans in the Northwest. Written by Novocaine132

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Which Way Is Up

Seattle’s Crooked Path may not have come together were it not for Sir Mix-A-Lot’s matchmaking. After his mega-success with “big butts,” Mix produced Seattle’s first hip-hop compilation, Seattle… The Dark Side. On that compilation, rapper Jay-Skee appears on two tracks, both produced by Greg B, aka Funk Daddy. It was a two-song partnership that birthed the first Crooked Path mixtape, After Dark, in 1993.

Five years passed before the duo dropped Which Way Is Up on Oakland’s Dogday Records. By this point, Funk Daddy was a certified hitmaker, having contributed his signature squelch to E-40’s platinum release, In A Major Way and other mainstream hits.

On Which Way Is Up it’s clear that he and J-Skee, with the addition of Dee-Lyrious, are messing around, having fun, creating classic gangsta cuts, all posturing, reputation, drug-dealing, sexual conquests, finger on the trigger shit.

Favorite tune “Young Playa” lifts the melody from Steve Miller Band’s “Fly Like An Eagle,” and tells the story of a young man trying to keep just a hair on the right side of the law while walking around Yesler Terrace. (There’s also a sweet reference to “where the Ghetto Chilldren play…”) This whole record is on Spotify and you should go spin it today for them classic Seattle vibes.

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Wet

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Delirious

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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

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Return of The Bumpasaurus

Sir Mix-A-Lot is an absolute genius. How else could he have come up with such a perfect metaphor to use for his newest LP, Return of the Bumpasaurus? The record is dinosaur-like in every way: small-brained, slow-moving, and, not least of all, extinct.

Return of the Bumpasaurus, as much as any of Mix’s recent offerings, reeks of Velveeta pop platinum. The only way I could categorize these tracks as hip-hop would be in the area of bad parody.

The song “Mob Style” should carry a ‘contents under pressure’ warning sticker for all the clichés and stereotypes that have been mercilessly crammed together. Mix uses the Sugarhill Gang’s “Jump on It” to simultaneously kiss asses in at least two dozen states across the U.S. (Yes, he did use this same idea in “Square Dance Rap” almost ten years ago-it’s not just your imagination.) Don’t worry, the lifted Kraftwerk-/Miami-bass-style beat is here just like on every other Mix record. Disses, put-downs, and egomania run amok throughout the entire album.

This wouldn’t be so bad if Mix were 18 or 19 years old and not pushing 35. It would take a city as recycling crazy as Seattle to produce an album that is so blatantly reused. The only points I can give Mix are for letting my man Funk Daddy rumble things up on the track “Top Ten List,” reminding me of skills like the track “Yo Flow” on Funk’s album Tha Source. It’s easy to see why so many artists are clamoring for Funk Daddy’s keyboard and production talents. As for Mix-A-Lot, extinction looms baby. (This review originally appeared in The Rocket and was written by Novocaine132.)

Here’s another take:

In 1996 I was a young writer at The Rocket, and this CD showed up in my mailbox. I was busy at work on a cover story based on Tribal Music Inc. for the November 20th issue. I was definitely a contrarian, and I remember having a friendly argument with Strath in front of the Showbox the following year about the best recent rap album, he picked ATLiens by Outkast, I picked Sex Style by Kool Keith. The pull of the underground ‘backpack rap’ movement appealed to me, and soon I held contempt for anything even remotely mainstream.

So anyway, I decided to screw up my courage and write a harsh negative review for Return Of The Bumpasaurus. I guess you could compare my feelings at the time to a young prison inmate who needs to prove himself, so he goes out on his first day and punches the baddest boss in the yard, hoping to gain respect for being so daring. I totally forgot about my responsibility to The Rocket and its readers, and I blasted out this total attack piece. As it turned out, The Rocket’s editor Charles Cross was not amused, and after reading it he confronted me on the wide stairs inside the entrance to the Belltown office, clearly unhappy that I had attempted to torch the more than ten-year friendly relationship between Mix and the paper.

Now that I am older and hopefully a tiny bit wiser, I would write a very different review of this album. In fact, I could still use the dinosaur metaphor but I would remind readers that, due to his stratospheric, Grammy-winning success, Mix had become the de facto Tyrannosaurus Rex of the Seattle hip-hop scene. He could crush ten rappers just by rolling over in his sleep.

With twenty seven years of daylight between these two write-ups, my biggest observation is that the T-Rex went extinct, but Mix sure didn’t. Boy, was I wrong. Mix reinvented himself many more times, dropping his final studio album Daddy’s Home in 2003 with its lead single, “Big Johnson.” In 2010 Mix released his single “Carz,” dangling the possibility of a new album called Dun 4got About Mix. (Could this be Seattle’s Detox?) In 2014, he collaborated with The Seattle Symphony, which according to the New York Times, “was viewed with envy by some for the way it brought the symphony to a broad audience on the web, and derided by others as a cringe-worthy gimmick.” From 2017 to 2019, Mix-A-Lot was a DJ and personality for the popular Hot 103 hip-hop radio station. And who knows what his future holds… Written by Novocaine132

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Funk U Right On Up

In the early ’90s, DJ Greg “Funk Daddy” Buren really turned up the heat. He recorded a full album with his group Crooked Path called After Dark, and also contributed production for E-40 and D-Shot in the Bay Area. Then in 1995, he dropped two solo projects back to back, Funk U Right On Up for Shot Records, and Tha Source, jointly on Sunset Blvd Entertainment and Funk’s own label Till Ya Tight Records.

California had ‘valley girls’ but in Seattle there was another similar term, ‘prep’ or ‘preppy,’ which usually implied the banal clothing style of a Gap or J Crew catalog mixed with a dash of Miami Vice color. The enjoyable song, “A Prep’s Tale” tells the life of a prep high roller who consorts, “never with a b**** only with a model.” Sexy track four, “Funky Worm” is a shout out to the classic 1972 jam by Ohio Players. Rapper Dee-Lyrious performs on two songs, “Hoo Ride,” which was also featured on the After Dark album, and “Locked Up.” Anti-violence track “Put Away The Clip” featuring Skee shows a mature MC who is trying to renounce his past gang life. Skee’s two other songs, “Funkiest S***” and “On Tha West Side” are also worth checking out.

My favorite track on Funk U Right On Up is the intro titled “Funk Theme.” It is sonically creative, and taps into the turntablist movement of rapid switch ups and beat changes. Samples of Snoop, Run DMC, Pharcyde, and many others swim in and out of this clever beat. Funk Daddy is one of the original hip-hop DJs in Seattle, be sure to look for his other music! Written by Novocaine132

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Tha Source

Maybe it’s the influence of Gifted Gab’s murderous new masterpiece, Cause & Effect, that’s resulted in my listening to a lot of Seattle G-Funk and Gangsta classics lately. Here’s Tha Source by Funk Daddy, released in 1995. Funk has been releasing new music for over 30 years: He produced the eagerly-anticipated 2019 The Mixtape Vol. 2 from Maribased1. At the other end of his timeline, in the ‘80s, he was Greg B from Ready-N-Willin’ and also Kid Sensation’s DJ. Fascinated with Sir Mix-A-Lot’s production prowess, he obtained Mix’s old equipment, but soon realized it’s the player and not the gear, and developed his own unique sound. Listen for that delightful, rubbery, squashy bass and the tickling, squishy highs. (His track “Yo Flow” is golden honey.) Multitalented, he’s also famously won most any DJ, MC, or beat battle he’s been in and was one of the members of hip-hop group Crooked Path. Oh, and in 1995 he produced a bunch of E-40’s platinum-selling record In A Major Way. It was that same year that Funk Daddy dropped this debut CD, a relaxed 15-track romp through Seattle summer. In the lyrics, he’s aware of his baller resume but humble to his roots. (Okay, and yeah, there’s also “Fu?K,” a song about how big his “meat” is.) “When I hit the club, it’s on V.I.P. status…” he raps on “Streets of S.E.A.” while later stating that “The day I can’t roll through the CD… is the day I let my own hood beat me.” There are several hometown anthems here, including the aforementioned “Streets” and creeper “Rainy Day Hustle” that argues for reparations “since I’m from Seattle where it rains all the time.” Funk Daddy—thank you for your long service to the Seattle music scene. Everybody else—This record is on Spotify, so go crank it loud today.

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After Dark

DJ Greg B aka DJ Ready was involved in several Seattle rap groups in the 1980s. In 1992 he dropped a full-length solo cassette called Listen To The Greg B with DJ Skill. Around this same time he teamed up with fellow hip-hoppers Dee-Lyrious and Jay-Skee to form a new group called Crooked Path. According to Greg, “All three of us went to the University Of Washington where we all met. Jay-Skee playing football, Dee-Lyrious playing basketball, and me DJing all the college parties. Jay-Skee brought everyone together and we all meshed naturally.” Their debut album After Dark combined the more humorous, wordplay elements of early ’90s rap with a more violent, shoot-em-up gangsta vibe. It would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention that Greg B changed his name a couple of years later to one that is more familiar to fans of Seattle hip-hop, that name of course is Funk Daddy.

After Dark was re-released by Belgian label Southwest Enterprise in 2021 and is now available on vinyl and CD. The 2021 version contains Funk Daddy “fun facts” on the jacket which give contextual info about some of the tracks. For example, two songs from After Dark also appeared on Rhyme Cartel’s Seattle…The Dark Side compilation, “Menace Crook,” and “12 Gauge.” The best thing about “Menace Crook” is the track’s pulse-quickening momentum created by the clamorous scratching and catchy bassline. “12 Gauge” has a slower, suspenseful sound, and the lyrics talk about how the group is strapped up for any situation. “I got your back *****, I got the gat *****, I got the shit to make a sucker fall flat *****,” goes a typical line from “12 Gauge.” Tacoma artist Wojack from Criminal Nation makes an appearance with his laid-back track, “Something 4 Your Trunk,” in which he expresses his feelings toward his record label. One could conjecture that he was referring to either Cold Rock, Nastymix, or Ichiban, three labels he had worked with in ’92 and ’93.

Other After Dark highlights include “Where De’ At,” a super funky cut in which all three group members bust rhymes over the famous One Way “Don’t Fight The Feeling” sample flipped so successfully by Too Short. Jay-Skee’s “I-5 South” features some lovely, stirring backup singing by Gina Douglass, and her voice is perfect for the chorus. After Dark was not the last project for this crew. Dee-Lyrious completed a solo CD three years later in 1996. Funk Daddy continued putting out music throughout the ’90s. Crooked Path returned in 1998 with their second album Which Way Is Up on Dogday Records. Written by Novocaine132

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Seattle... The Dark Side

BOOM! Here it is. The best rap and R&B coming out of this dirty-white, rock ‘n’ roll lovin’ Emerald City. So says Mix-A-Lot, the biggest rap act out of this area for hundreds of miles. (And sadly, that’s straight up the truth.) He damn near promised us a sure-fire, kick in the ass, hit-to-hit collection by putting this LP out on his own label. (And that’s more proof for my earlier statement.)

BAM. I’ll be dipped in jeri curl juice! There’s some fresh and creative “dark” music being hidden away in this town somewhere. Mix, his new label Rhyme Cartel, and American Records (Rick Rubin dropped the “Def” part) have put out a rough and stylin’ nine-song selection. Not all of this compilation would be banned by the late KFOX playlist, though. There are some mainstream artists on this CD; a good third of it is mediocre at best. But that just makes the best stuff really shine.

My favorite cut is newcomer Jazz Lee Alston’s “Love…Never That.” It sent shivers down my spine. This is probably the best example of how dark it can get in a young adult’s mind. It’s an abstract tale of a female struggling to deal with an abusive boyfriend and the father of her child. It’s delivered in a slow, deliberate spoken-word fashion to a shuffling jazz tempo and haunting keyboard samples — a style few female rappers have dared to try.

I’m a sucker for ’70s soul samples. Two songs, in particular, bent my ear for a funfilled tour to back when. Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Sunshine” and Con Funk Shun’s “By Your Side” make for instant grooving on Jay Skee’s “Menace Crook” and Kid Sensation’s “Flava You Can Taste,” respectively.

Not all of the cuts rely on trips to yesteryear. E-Dawg’s “Little Locs” brings this LP back to the ’90s in a big way, using production skills that have had city streets cracking all over the US.

Two of the artists didn’t get their start in Seattle. Jay-Skee is from the LA area and Jazz Lee Alston is from New York City. So is Seattle really putting out new good rap acts? Or are they coming to this area to make it big?

I’m serious! This area has more major label scouts sniffing around than espresso carts on its corners. It is probably easier to count the numbers who are actually from Seattle. This album could be a swan song for most of these acts, or it could be just the beginning of some good, dark music for the future. (This review originally appeared in The Rocket and was written by Scott Griggs.)

Here’s another take:

Times change. This comp dropped in 1993, which to me was the year of the Great Upheaval in Northwest hip-hop. At that time, gangsta had outlived its welcome and new acts like Heiro and the Pharcyde were grabbing the attention. Local artists like Mix-A-Lot and Kid Sensation had lost their cool and had become the stuff of middle school dances, so by the time I heard about this album, my ears were closed.

I was in high school, the future underground was in full swing, and local acts like the Elevators and Tribal had quite effectively turned the early-’90s gangsta and R&B industry into a joke.

Though I did not appreciate this record at the time, listening to it in retrospect, I can hear the value in it. Here is some top-quality hip-hop attempting to assert itself in the face of change, And more poignantly, this is a declaration from Seattle’s Afro-American community and a group of artists who were very much left out of the anglicized Northwest music explosion of the early ’90s (AKA GRUNGE).

Dark Side is a short record. But its 35 minutes effectively showcases an important time in the 206’s long history of hip-hop. (This review originally appeared on the Bring That Beat Back blog and was written by Jack Devo.)

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Listen To The Greg B

In the late 1980’s a DJ named Greg Buren began to emerge as one of the more prominent hip-hop artists in Seattle. He started in a group called The Latin Lovers, and then created a duo with Kid Sensation called 2 Fresh 4 U. After that, he teamed up with a rapper named Willin (Owen McCants) and they they called themselves Ready And Willin. By the early ’90s he was operating at a very high volume, and he dropped two remarkable albums back to back. Buren released a solo tape called Listen To The Greg B in 1992. The following year in ’93 his crew Crooked Path featuring himself, Jay-Skee, and Dee-Lyrious released their debut tape titled After Dark.

Listen To The Greg B is a long album, which shows how extremely productive Greg B was during 1991 and 1992. Buren enlists Jay-Skee and DJ Skill for assistance on Listen To The Greg B. Highlight tracks include “Neighborhood Coroner” which narrates a sordid tale about drug addiction and domestic violence seen from the cold medical viewpoint of hospital and morgue staff. The irresistibly slinky “Out To Be Raw” uses a simple, funky bassline which lets the lyrics shine, and “Damn Ney Ruthless” is peppered with a harder street edge than the typical B-Boy aesthetic which Greg B cultivates. “Eat Up A Fat 1” and “1-2 Um Buckle My Shoe” are two highly technical DJ turntablist slideshows that are both lots of fun. They show off Greg B’s love of record scratching and cutting, a technique in which he has tremendous talent. He almost certainly inspired other Seattle DJs to do their own turntable-based projects such as Table Manners 2 by Vitamin D which came out seven years later in 1999.

Not every track is a hit, “Peace C’ya Later” is formulaic and a little predictable as Greg B tells stories of dating women and how he brushes off the ones he doesn’t want to see anymore. “Lil Snitch” borrows a little too heavily from “Five Minutes Of Funk” by Whodini which limits the originality of the track. A similar problem exists in “I’m A Pimp,” which prominently samples Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up” in a manner that is distracting and minimizes the track’s freshness. The album’s strength is the diversity of tempos and variation in beat production from song to song. Each of the tracks feels very unique and therefore your ears never get dulled by repetition. Greg B has a wide imagination for sounds and beats thanks to his extensive experience as a party DJ. In fact shortly after Listen To The Greg B, Buren settled on his new moniker Funk Daddy, and has gone on to become one of the most celebrated DJs in Seattle history. Written by Novocaine132

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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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