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: Hollis

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

A Long Walk

Chong The Nomad’s latest fresh and ambitious mind-bending EP dropped in August of this year. On a comment thread, someone really nailed the vibe, describing how “A Long Walk contains the endearing quirks and whimsy we’d expect, but with a new, palpable sense of confidence that gives the songs a sort of weirdo swagger.” Yes, there are guest features from heavy-hitters Benjamin Gibbard and Ben Zaidi. But it’s the other new songs, like opener “Go Away” … The ones that rely on her unique mix of sampling and distorted vocals to explore the most interesting edges… Songs that take you to sonic and emotional places you barely thought possible. Listening to this EP, we’re reminded of a young Sir Mix-A-Lot, circa 1985, being told that music made with computers can’t possibly be considered hip-hop, and him laughing all the way into the future. Again this year, Chong The Nomad scouts the terrain ahead for all of us who are following behind.

Here’s another take:

In their annual year-end critics’ poll, The Seattle Times ranked A Long Walk as one of the very best Seattle albums of 2020, saying:

The idiosyncratic producer known for boiling quirky sounds into wildly original electronic music takes a sizable leap forward on her latest EP. Its whizzing and whirring compositions are more the work of a full-fledged songwriter than beatmaker, thanks in part to increased confidence in her vocals, and cameos from Seattle staples Hollis Wong-Wear, Ben Zaidi, and famous fan-pal Ben Gibbard.

A Long Walk was created in and features appearances from:

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Corduroy

Taylor Hart from West Coast cannabis hip-hop site Respect My Region selected Corduroy as one of the very best Northwest albums from 2020, saying:

To me, Sam Lachow’s album, Corduroy, is a work of art from start to finish. A multi-course meal for your audible soul. An exploration through different sounds and flows, which is a common theme throughout a lot of my favorite albums this year.

Sam’s quirky, unique, and often humorous approach to music has always been a vibe for me. Even back in the Shankbone days. The spectrum of emotions that Sam makes me feel throughout Corduroy is exactly what I look for in a complete project. You know that feeling of satisfaction you get when you have a full stomach? When you’re in your comfiest clothes, and you get to sit down in your favorite place? That’s the same feeling my ears get after listening to this album.

Corduroy was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Forevers

Regular Show is The Matrix. The 2011 Don’t Talk To The Cops album introduced two main characters, DJ blesOne and emecks, who activated their radically organic, anti-machine approach to dance music. “Cold Nuts,” for instance, displays a band nimble enough to dodge bullets. On the opening track, blesOne repeats, “When they drop the bomb I want you in my arms,” metaphorically referring to the underground refuge city of Zion. Similar to Neo in The Matrix, the protagonists in “Guess I’m Strange” don’t fit in to stiff, normal society, and yearn for a freer reality. DJ blesOne is fully complemented by his musical partner emecks, just like Neo and Trinity work their formidable best as a team.

Let’s Quit feels like Reloaded, with perhaps even more action and drama than the first iteration. In fact Reloaded opens with Trinity and Neo romantically involved. “Tattoo My Name” from Let’s Quit is a real life documentary of emecks and blesOne declaring their love for each other. The mad, leaning tension in “Laos! Laos! Laos! Laos!” and “Tiptoe Right By Em” is as captivating as any high speed, eighteen-wheeler, tractor-trailer collision ever was. Reloaded may have magic orgasm cake created by the Merovingian, but Let’s Quit has a murderous hamburger leaving a trail of pickles and ketchup in its wake. Even the title Let’s Quit refers back to the first film in which Neo takes the red pill and “quits” the Matrix.

Champions Of Breakfast corresponds to Revolutions because in many ways it is the climax chapter of the story. Neo is carried to the Machine City and filled with electricity, which reboots the Matrix. The impossible-to-verbalize themes of this pivotal scene are captured by the instrumental power chords and b-boy floor-rocking energy in “DJ blesOne’s Theme” and title track “Champions Of Breakfast.” But many Revolutions viewers felt that the franchise lost the edgy vibe established in the first two films, and that’s how I felt about Champions Of Breakfast. “Michael Jordan’s 50” and “That Ain’t What 2048 Mase Do,” both show a band risking everything on a sound that felt like chloroform. In the skit “Bles The Mess,” blesOne plays an invincible medieval hero similar to Neo. “Hast thou ever had an encounter with Bles The Mess? So, are the legends true?” a character asks. By the end of both Revolutions and Champions everything is saved by the Deus Ex Machina. Both Neo and Don’t Talk To The Cops have metamorphosed into something entirely new.

2016’s Forevers reminds me of Resurrections because it is defanged, declawed, and simply not “Dangerous” to quote one of the album’s song titles. We already know the general plot so we can’t be surprised like we were the first couple of times. In addition, the meta scriptwriting approach keeps us in our heads the whole time. Just like Neo and Trinity, emecks and blesOne are older, and more like everyday people than the superheroes we remember. The title track “Forevers” sounds mellow like Art Of Noise cosplaying as Muzak. Here’s the deal, if Bruce Illest heard this tame s*** he would be pissed. Some Forevers tracks that should have sounded unfamiliar or bracing like opener “What You Say What You Want” and “Animal Planet Rock” simply feel safe like we’ve been here before. Forevers feels like coloring inside the lines. At the end of Resurrections, Neo and Trinity fly off together in hopeful expectation, and that’s exactly how I imagine emecks and blesOne ending this exciting and important band. Written by Novocaine132

Forevers was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Barkada

I’m spinning this 2014 collaboration, Barkada, from Prometheus Brown (aka The Blue Scholars’ Geologic) and Bambu. Here’s a record that has become more relevant with age, with lyrics that deeply consider West Coast identity, immigration, the origins and future of America, protests and police; themes on the forefront of front pages during these first few months of 2017. These themes are communicated via a deeply playful playbook of technical prowess: “Coming (To America)” is almost exclusively built around with words that end with “o,” while opener “Live from Hawaii” contains more words than you could imagine that contain “bar-…” This is a fun album, ingenious and subversive. Hook your headphones up to it today. Also, I love the Photoshopped “record wear” effect on this cover art.

Barkada was created in and features appearances from:

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Champions Of Breakfast

Don’t Talk To The Cops are the closest thing to Seattle rock stars that I can fathom. The group’s first album Regular Show in 2011 was a psychedelic fruit salad of creative tasties, including “Guess I’m Strange,” and “Girls Buy Me Drinks.” Their second album Let’s Quit the following year crystallized the flavor even more on wild experiences like “I Don’t Like Rachel,” and “Tip Toe Right By Em.” Then in 2013, right on schedule, a third DTTTC album called Champions Of Breakfast arrived. It was released in a limited edition, cardboard “cereal box” with a CD inside, very collectible. The group’s DJ, El Mizell aka Gatsby, was billed for the first time as a full-fledged DTTTC member. As a historical note, the trio had previously posed together for a frameable March 2012 City Arts Magazine cover photo.

Champions travels to way more abstract places than the first two albums dared. Regular Show and Let’s Quit are firmly rooted in rhythm, but this third offering is slower and more vaporous. Interestingly, the two tracks I respond to the strongest are both instrumental cuts, “DJ blesOne’s Theme” and “Champions Of Breakfast.” These two beats have a singular quality which was plentiful on the group’s first two albums, that head-banging feeling you get when your body just wants to move. “Bombshell” gets close to perfection, but the looping quality of it prevents me from getting immersed like I usually do in a blesOne production.

Actually, to my dismay, much of Champions Of Breakfast is elusive to me, and contains no handles to metaphorically grab onto. For instance, the songs “That Ain’t What 2048 Mase Do,” “Gimme That ’80s Butt,” and “Michael Jordan’s 50” ensnare the listener in a hazy, chopped and screwed, Jupiter-level gravity zone. It’s paralyzing and imitates what I imagine being stuck in a ketamine hole would be like. One happy exception among the vocal tracks is the boisterous “I’m @ The Ocean Kid,” which renewed my faith in this important band.

The whole Champions Of Breakfast album plays like a series of experimental demos, as though DTTTC had grown tired of its own previous sound, and wanted to grow and evolve. Sure enough, there was much more to come. The group dropped an angry swan song of sorts titled Swamp Jams II in 2014, then a true coda called Forevers in 2016. Written by Novocaine132

Champions Of Breakfast was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

The Otherside

The Otherside is an hour-long documentary predominantly covering Seattle’s Capitol Hill-centric “third wave” hip-hop scene, circa 2010. This was a time when MP3s and streaming were fairly new and completely reshaping the music industry. Artists like Blue Scholars were experimenting with Kickstarter and direct fan support. Everyone was trying something new.

There’s a wealth of great interviews, concerts, and backstage footage from artists across the Town. There are hella people in this movie. It’s clear the filmmaker tried to talk with anyone and everyone who was willing. There are some great long chats with Jake One, Prometheus Brown, and Sir Mix-A-Lot. There’s also lots of footage of pre-stardom Macklemore & Ryan Lewis as they prepare to drop The Heist.

Larry Mizell Jr. offers up a four-point guide to being successful in the Northwest: “Be truthful to yourself. Be respectful and knowledgeable of what’s going on and what came before you. Be good: Work on your craft. Further the culture at all times.”

The Otherside premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival and was an audience favorite, selling out two consecutive screenings. It was also chosen as “Best of SIFF” by festival programmers.

The Otherside was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

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The Heist

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about success. We’re all clamoring and hustling for success in our own ways. Do you follow Macklemore online? That dude works every single day. He’s always in the home studio or on tour. Every day. On “Ten Thousand Hours” he raps, “The Greats were great because they paint a lot,” and you see this with Ben. So when was the last time you listened to The Heist all the way through? I’ve been listening to it a lot lately and there’s such a clear concept from start to finish. It’s not just a collection of random hits: You can see a summer day, walking our green streets, past the big, luxurious northern Capitol Hill homes up to Volunteer Park. You know all these songs, all those songs that played on the radio all summer in 2012 and into the next. There’s so much Seattle on display here. I met Mr. “Thrift Shop” Wanz at a party a few years back and, and I was celebrity struck talking with him. Many of the themes on The Heist have only grown in relevance in 2017, in an America where our president says it’s okay to hate and discriminate. Somewhere between the gentle piano that opens “Same Love” and the chorus of angels that ends it, Macklemore raps, “No law’s gonna change us,” which succinctly summarizes the current mood of defiant Seattle. Don’t be jealous of Macklemore’s money or fame. Be jealous of his impressive flow, his honesty on display, the chart-topping arrangements from Ryan Lewis, and the fact that they did it all themselves on their own terms. No labels. It’s all self-produced and self-released like 90% of the other records I review here. “A life lived for art is never a life wasted.” Pictured here is the 5lb, double vinyl, gator-skin, 18-insert, bonus tracks, box set. It’s a big audacious statement in an age when most are releasing virtual music for free on SoundCloud. Lots of my fav local cats were involved with this record: Nathan Quiroga, Eighty4 Fly, Budo, Hollis Wong-Wear… And then you think, “Damn, this DIY record from Seattle won a Grammy!” What does success mean to you if not this?

The Heist was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Regular Show

This is hardly a traditional hip-hop record–whatever that means. This is absurdist punk disco, with occasional rapping, and it’s perfect music for arenas and large sporting events. Play this record loud with a crowd. Whenever I listen to 2011’s Regular Show from Don’t Talk To The Cops!, I wish I could rent Century Link Field, and invite 50,000 friends to listen and sing along. We could all sing in unison “Big Ass Head” that that itemizes all the possible insults toward someone with an oversized cranium or “Girls Buy Me Drinks” which repeats the title over and over again in a plethora of different ways. Ideal music for your next stadium singalong.

Regular Show was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

The Beautiful Baby EP

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The Beautiful Baby EP was created in and features appearances from:

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