Seattle Times
People have tried to put it into words but Seattle’s current hiphop renaissance is deeper than any one blog post, article, concept, or list of artists. Signs abound. Improved stage shows, a heightened sense of community, and unprecedented stylistic variety are the healthiest ones right now is a special time. Albums are dropping like crazy. Free EPs are flying this way and that on the internet. Well-attended, hyped-up, go-for-broke concerts are going down almost every night. DJs, writers, artists…everyone’s taking his/her game to the next level. It’s motivational. It’s tempting to assign a tidy cause to the effect of all this excellent, wildly diverse hiphop. But it’s a result of something deeper than, say, Marxist aesthetics — “This recession is Darwinism for art” — and deeper than a host of post- prefixes — “the new hiphop is post-rap, post-race, post-tradition.” It’s a whole lot deeper than more people using the Internet more effectively. But the sum of those parts points to a central truth: All possible worlds — economic, values-based, online — are radically different for today’s artists than yesterday’s, and the artists are adapting.