The Audacity of Dope

If you’re reading this, either on our email blast or our blog, you’re probably aware that it has been a very difficult few weeks for us here in Seattle’s hip-hop community.  On March 8th, J. Moore passed away from the health issues he had been battling over the last year.  There are no words to express how devastating a loss this is for our city and our scene.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jon’s entire family, especially his sons Upendo and Miles.  If you’ve ever enjoyed an episode of Sound Session or if J impacted your life in any way, I ask you to please consider donating to his legacy fund, which will go towards education costs for his children.

One day, I hope to be in the right place to share how much Jon meant to me, but I’m unable to do so at the moment.  I’m an only child, but Jon’s been my brother since we started working on Sound Session together in 2005.  He meant the world to me and I’ll cherish all the time we got to spend together.  Love you forever J.

In the absence of my extended thoughts, I wrote some words for our KUBE tribute that you can read here.  I also recommend a few pieces in remembrance of Jon from Seattle Weekly (1 | 2), the Stranger, this excellent blog post, KEXP, and his Facebook wall, which is filled with countless amazing stories from some of the people he touched.

As for our show, I returned from my work trip to Brazil on Sunday and promptly hopped in the studio with DJ Nphared, DV-One, and Jake One to pick up where we left off.  We played some great new music (including Jake’s new single from Tuxedo) and shared some memories of J.  We even dusted off some of his old Source of Labor records.  It honestly felt like he was in the room with us, which I suspect will always be the case as long as SNSS is on the air.

My only regret is that the last half hour of the recording has some distortion (stuttering/clicking noises), so I apologize for that.  Hopefully you can still enjoy the music and stories.  We’ll adjust the studio equipment next week and aim for better quality.

Enjoy the show and tell all your family & friends that you love them.  We appreciate you and thank you greatly for your support.  Love & Light.

Show #587 (3/19/17)
**Co-hosted by DJ Nphared, DV-One, & Jake One**

1. Source of Labor – “Wetlands” (Local Music) (Throwback of the Week)
2. Brother Ali – “Own Light (What Hearts Are Made For)”
3. Oddisee – “Want To Be”
4. Drake ft. Jorja Smith & Black Coffee – “Get It Together”
5. Tuxedo (Mayer Hawthorne & Jake One) – “2nd Time Around” (Local Music)
6. J.I.D – “Never”
7. Nick Grant – “Luxury Vintage Rap”
8. CyHi The Prynce – “Nu Africa”
9. Will Sessions ft. Elzhi – “Knowledge Of 12th”
10. Sol – “Marathons” (Local Music)
11. Cole (of Brothers From Another) ft. Dave B, Thig Natural (of The Physics), & Otieno Terry – “Santa Monica” (Local Music)
12. Khalid – “8TEEN”
13. Frank Ocean – “Chanel”
14. Little Dragon – “High”
15. THURZ – “Iconic”
16. Jidenna – “White N****s”
17. Smino – “Anita”
18. Source of Labor – “Livication” (Local Music) (Throwback of the Week)

Download – https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B72U-rgJjvmWRVFxejZNX01tV0E

If you’d like to be added to our weekly email list to receive the playlist and stream/download links after every show, just shoot me an email, DJHyphen@gmail.com.

My favorite artists in the Northwest, The Physics, just dropped visuals for their Jake One produced “Take A Win,” off Tomorrow People.  You can grab this track and others on the Cornerstone Mixtape J. Moore and I released last month (right here) and be sure to get the full Physics album here.

Congrats to Malice and Mario Sweet from the Physics crew on the birth of their son today too!

Xavier Jamaal Sweet. Born at 7:04 am on 07/04/2013. #BabySweet2013

— Malice & Mario Sweet (@MALICEandMARIO) July 4, 2013

J. Moore and I recently had a chance to chop it up with Joey Bada$$ and the Pro Era crew at the Sound Session studio.  We touched on a bunch of topics, including how they originally came together,; how they were put on to golden hip-hop by their families, their ambitions outside of hip-hop, and what life is like on tour with the whole crew.  We also discussed their upcoming projects, including solos from Joey and CJ Fly, and they spoke on how artists like Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, and the TDE camp are inspiring them as artists and businessmen.

I’m hoping more younger cats in the game follow the same general path as Pro Era.  There’s just something naturally ill about that classic boom-bap sound, and as long as artists are being genuine and providing their own twist on it, I’ll never get tired of hearing it.

Shout to Statik Selektah and Jake One for coming through as well, plus the Detooz Films homies for filming!

The King of Ballard himself takes us around his neighborhood in the visuals for his Jake One produced “Mr. Rogers.” Fun fact: the director, Griff J, did the first music video a young Hyphen made a cameo in (back…back…back in the day).

Grab Grynch’s Perspective album right here.

Wiz connects with the homey Jake One (again…they did multiple records for the Snoop/Wiz project) on “The Grinder” off Taylor Allderdice.  A lot of folks have complained Wiz’ label projects but honestly, if he makes more accessible records for the masses and still drops quality mixtapes for the “underground,” then don’t we all win?

Mayer Hawthorne links up with Seattle’s own Jake One to create this super smooth ode to a classic party starting drink. The Hennessy folks need to reach out on a licensing deal ASAP.

This song always reminded me of some classic Brand New Heavies…specifically the “Saturday Night” joint with Mos Def that Dilla remixed. Mayer’s in town tonight for Seattle University’s Quadstock festival and something tells me we’ll see this one performed.

With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, Ali teams up with Jake One and Nikki Jean for an original story and accompanying visuals.

Most Seattle residents know that Ali’s been spending a lot of time out here, mainly to work closely with Jake One on his upcoming album, Mourning In America and Dreaming In Color.  With those two involved, you already know the result is going to be dope.

“Some flood the blogs, some flood the streets // I don’t flood nothin’, I’m waterin’ the seeds”

Download here.

On this week’s episode of SNSS, DV-One and I were joined in studio by our good friends, Jake One, Grynch, and Wizdom, plus we played part of my interview with Wale from Saturday.  I’ll be posting up the full video soon, but if you must have visual evidence that it went down, peep our historic moment for race relations.  Enjoy music from all these fellas, plus artists like Common, Childish Gambino, Pac Dic, Rapsody, Lupe Fiasco, Yelawolf, Black Star, Robin Thicke, Peter Baldwin, The Weeknd, Amy Winehouse, and, of course, Drizzy.

Show #338 (11-27-11)

1. Common – “Celebrate”
2. Childish Gambino – “You See Me”
3. Murs – “Westside Love”
4. Pac Div ft. TiRon – “She”
5. Parker ft. SK & Mario Sweet – “In The Morning” (Local Music)
6. **INTERVIEW WITH JAKE ONE**
7. Jake One ft. Sol, Prometheus Brown, & Preach – “Dawgs In The House” (Local Music)
8. Young Jeezy ft. Jay-Z & Andre 3000 – “I Do”
9. Rapsody ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Rock The Bells”
10. Drake – “Over My Dead Body”
11. Lupe Fiasco – “Life, Death & Love From San Francisco”
12. Amy Winehouse – “Halftime”
13. **INTERVIEW WITH WIZDOM & GRYNCH**
14. Wizdom ft. Sol, Luck-One, & Grynch – “That’s Nice” (Local Music)
15. Yelawolf – “The Hardest Love Song In The World”
16. **INTERVIEW WITH WALE #02 (SNIPPET)**
17. Wale – “Barry Sanders”
18. Black Star – “Fix Up”
19. Jay-Z & Kanye West – “Gotta Have It”
20. Tha Dogg Pound Gangstas ft. Snoop Dogg & Nate Dogg – “Big Pimpin’” (Throwback of the Week)
21. **INTERVIEW WITH JAKE ONE, WIZDOM, & GRYNCH**
22. Robin Thicke – “Love After War”
23. Peter Baldwin – “Suicide Girl”
24. The Weeknd – “The Knowing”

Link to download the mp3 of the show – http://www.mediafire.com/?qglybgy3g7jhkf9
(back up / streaming link – http://hulkshare.com/tsm3zr7uh5jg)
(2nd back up – http://www.zshare.net/audio/9674494197349c70/)

If there are any problems with the links or if you’d like to be added to our weekly email list to receive the playlist and download links after every show, just shoot me an email, DJHyphen@gmail.com.

Video doesn’t do much for me, but this record is dope.  Snoop’s flooded the net with these viral videos recently and while it’s a good way to stay top of mind, I’d rather see a few higher budget clips rather than the WSHH style joints.  We do get our first look at Snoop’s 15 year old signing, Pilot, though it’s too early to judge his ability.  The voice is unique though, which can help.

Oh, and Jake One on the beat…if you ain’t know.