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: Proh Mic

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Top 10 Songs

Throughout the ’90s, writer Novocaine132 extensively covered the Seattle hip-hop scene. You’ll find his byline on feature stories and record reviews in both The Rocket and The Stranger, and he contributed to the marketing of several Tribal and Loosegroove releases, too.

Over the past few years, he’s been posting a series on YouTube called Top 10 Songs where he digs deep into the work of a particular Seattle rap legend, surfacing the not-to-be-missed songs from their catalogs. Whether or not you agree with the specific choices, each video provides a great overview of each artist’s career and there are lots of audio samples so you can hear what each song sounds like.

He adds, “The project began in 2017 when I heard that Wordsayer had passed away. At the time I was retired from music and print journalism, and I was concentrating my efforts on documentary filmmaking. When Jon died it hit me very hard, and I had to evaluate my life and my work. He and I were good friends in the 1990s, and he inspired much of my work in the area of hip-hop writing. I made a Top 10 Songs video of Source Of Labor at the end of 2017 to help deal with the pain of losing Wordsayer. Then in 2018, I made one for Ghetto Chilldren, and it started to become a series. I named my enterprise “Overstanding Seattle” to give tribute and honor to Jonathan Moore, one of the most truly amazing musicians I have ever known.”

Top 10 Songs was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Art Of Da Griot

Nomad dropped his first cassette single in 1996, with “What Is Hard Core?” and “Windy City Hustle,” both produced by local hip-hop legend Mr Supreme. Then in ’98 Nomad released a twelve-inch featuring “Da Movement,” and “Blessed 2 Mic Check.” “Da Movement” brought DJ Sayeed on board, with his dissonant unique approach to beatmaking. Next in the run of Nomad singles was the three-song Sedated Thoughts maxi in 2000, including beats by three of Seattle’s most prolific producers, Jake One, Bean One, and Proh Mic. The following year saw a fourth single, “Worldwide,” with “Divine Rhymer” on the B-side.

Finally, after five years of singles he released a full album titled Art Of Da Griot, and expanded his name to the pleonastic Nomad Da Nomadic. “Griot” is a word used commonly in West Africa that translates loosely as “storyteller.” Art Of Da Griot features many of the earlier singles, including “Blessed,” “Sedated,” “Who Me,” “Worldwide,” and “Divine.” Because there are so many different producers, Nomad gets to show off his lyrics to a variety of different soundscapes, which makes for a compelling listening experience, never boring.

New material on Art Of Da Griot includes “Extortion” which starts with the tick, tick, tick from Kraftwerk’s 1978 electronic hit, “Man Machine,” and then unfolds with groovy momentum. The informative “206 / 101” is just like it sounds, an entry-level college course about the pros and cons of life in Seattle as a young Person of Color. “Locked up downtown, King County jail, like a rite of passage for every black male,” he observes. “Ill-Literate” stands out for its wavy, choppy beat and seasoned wordplay from Nomad. He often mentions “paying dues” in his lyrics, and it must have worked for him. He had risen to the top of the rap game in 2001, and the star studded credits on his tracks are all the evidence we need. Written by Novocaine132

Art Of Da Griot was created in and features appearances from:

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A film about Northwest hip-hop from

Sedated Thoughts

From 2000, this is the sophomore 12″ by Seattle emcee Nomad da Nomadic. This is one of my personal favorites in the 206 section. Nomad is a Northwest cat through and through–his flow is heavy-footed and grimey, and the top-notch beats on these three tracks (by Jake One, Bean One, and Proh Mic) are mid-tempo, dusty, and rough.

There are no tricks here. No ironic raps in double-time, no clever pop-culture samples, no guests emcees to dilute what he has to say. Nomad delivers his message straight to your head in plain language. This release sums up what I love about the old-school Northwest scene: In an era of hip-hop known for its unchecked expansion and wild experimentation, this record remains understated, direct, and wholly refreshing because of it. (This review originally appeared on the Bring That Beat Back blog and was written by Jack Devo.)

Sedated Thoughts was created in and features appearances from:

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Operation Raw

Here’s an early lo-fi release from Seattle producer Bean One. After I found out about his project Doublevision, I picked up this dope tape back in the day from local music supporter Orpheum Records on Broadway. It’s a great snapshot of some obviously talented artists in their early days. Although Bean has become a household name in the underground hip-hop community (producing tracks for such notables as Charlie 2Na and Trife Da God), I’m not really sure what Proh Mic has been up to. Any info would be appreciated. Other names that appear on this tape include Putney Swope, Verse Omega, Kylea from Beyond Reality, and Mr. Hill (later to be found all over Oldominion releases). Over an hour of classic grimy and lo-fi goodness from ’99. (This review originally appeared on the Bring That Beat Back blog and was written by Jack Devo.)

Operation Raw was created in and features appearances from:

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The Stats

The True Believers Crew (TBC) encompassed an underground Seattle hip-hop movement in the early 1990s. Members included Specs, E Sharp, Bean One, King Otto, Page 3, Proh Mic, Tracy Armour, and others. Producer Bean One and MC Proh Mic teamed up to create Footprints, and their first release was this 4 song, lo-fi EP titled The Stats. As Proh Mic describes in the intro, the tape was made “on some busted-ass equipment.”

Side A leads off with “The Planet” and it’s a major head-nodder. This beat by Bean One is droning and hypnotic, it seems to consist of emptiness. Galactic gravity rhythms pervade the low end as the high-treble scratches and laser sounds on the chorus explode like pop-rocks in your ears. Proh Mic may “want a new drug like Huey Lewis,” but to a hip-hop addict this track itself is going to get you high. “I represent the whole planet,” he raps, eschewing the phony East vs West coastal beef which fragmented hip-hop culture in the ‘90s. The second song is the short “And It Don’t Stop,” which has some punch but ends quickly. Then we get about two minutes of weird musical bits and samples in an interlude of sorts. This chaos puts me pleasantly off balance, reminiscent of listening to the classic disorienting record “A Childs Garden Of Grass” from 1971.

The B-side gets going with “Mental Acugenics,” a choppy and loose excursion with lots of noise and dissonance. Next is “That’s A Lie,” another cut proving that Footprints were serious contenders to join Seattle’s royalty. Similar to what he did with “The Planet,” producer Bean One absolutely slays it on “That’s A Lie.” Those two beats manage to accomplish so much with so little. They harness the power of nothing just like the hub of a wheel holds the spokes together in the famous Lao Tzu paradox. “That’s A Lie” features hints of harp strings, bird sounds, tiny whispers of music, but nothing you can grab onto. Proh Mic lyrically stands up for himself, “You think we gonna stay quiet?” he asks incredulously. “They want to say we start riots, that’s a lie,” goes the chorus, throwing out a challenge to anyone blaming rap music for violence. At the end, the tape fades out with two more minutes of spacey, gyroscopic, audio madness. The Stats really does have something for your mind, your body, and your soul. Written by Novocaine132

The Stats was created in and features appearances from:

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