Northwest hip hop is hip hop or rap music that originates from the Pacific Northwest of North America, encompassing major cities such as Portland (Oregon), Seattle (Washington), and other towns. Northwest hip hop music mixes elements from various genres of music to form a sound different from its southern neighbor, West Coast hip hop. For many years the scene existed mainly as an underground genre, but recently Northwest hip-hop has seen more and more mainstream acceptance, with artists such as Macklemore gaining nationwide attention.
Overview
During the late 1970s, high school kids from the Rainier Beach, Rainier Valley, and Central District areas started to perfect early hip hop forms of dancing in the northwest defined as bopping. Many of the local underage clubs and high schools in South Seattle held formal contests called bop-offs where dancers would compete against one another. There were also informal bop offs that occurred at house parties and school yards where urban kids "called out" one another to compete. Some of the more prominent dancers (or boppers) during this period were James "PJ" Daniels, John "Sir John III" Arnold, James "Captain Crunch" Croone, Pojo, Snake, among others in the south Seattle area. Bopping, also known as poppin', was seen as the precursor for many popular forms of urban style dancing today. These bop-offs were a segue to some of the first rap competitions in the northwest. A student group from Rainier Beach High School called LTD (Leaders of Tomorrow's Democracy) with its DJ, John "Sir John III" Arnold, put on all-city rap competitions offering prize money. These events attracted the top rappers across the city which included the Emerald Street Boys among others in the early 80s.
In the early 1980s, soldiers positioned at Tacoma's military bases provided the foundation for a growing hip-hop fan base in the Northwest. In the 1980s, Seattle rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot started his career. Fresh Tracks was a two hour show that played on Sunday nights on KKFX 1250 ("KFOX" and formerly KKDZ), and consisted of a mix of new songs and a mastermix created by Nasty Nes. These mixes were made up of songs by The World's Famous Supreme Team, Malcolm McLaren, Run-D.M.C. and many others. Due to the show's popularity, the station's producer allowed Nes to expand it to a Monday through Friday, 9pm to midnight show called NightBeat that featured prominent R&B songs as well as intermixed rap songs. As Seattle's music scene evolved, so did the Seattle breakdance and graffiti crews, including B-Boy groups like Silver Chain Gang, Circuit Breakers, and Breaking Mechanism, and graffiti writers such as Spaide, Streak, DadOne, and Spraycan. With this space there was room for an eclectic group of identities to form, however none were successful in formulating a Seattle identity. Old school rapper Kid Sensation was also from Seattle.
History
1986-1992
In 1986, the first radio show in Spokane to play rap and hip hop on commercial radio was The Power Switch on POWER 104 FM (KXVO). Hosted by TJ Collins, Collins also featured local rappers and began airing mixes by GrandMixer GMS (who was a young teenager at the time). (PROP$ Magazine article, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 12, Dec. 1993).
Nastymix Records, the Northwest's first hip-hop label was founded with the local release of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Square Dance Rap". Nastymix Records gained national recognition with Sir Mix-A-Lot's 1992 #1 hit "Baby Got Back", which won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance. This award came after Nastymix's last release, Criminal Nation's 1992 album Trouble in the Hood.
1993-2002
Seattle hip-hop culture was confined to the only venues that would play hip-hop, all of which were in Seattle's traditionally African-American neighborhood, the Central District (referred to in Seattle as "The CD".) In 1993, Jonathon "Wordsayer" Moore of Source of Labor approached Caroline Davenport of Tasty Shows, who was responsible for booking a popular Seattle venue called RCKCNDY. In 1996 a venue called the Power Plant, 825 Western Ave, Seattle (now a Dania Furniture store 2015)became a popular venue on Saturday nights with a hip hop group called The High Children. Home for B-Boys, break-dance battles and hosted the legendary Invisible Scratch Pickles versus X-men.