While stopping by for a few shirts, Saba Mohajerjasbi (better known as Sabzi of Blue Scholars and Common Market) and an old friend had a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, society, Seattle, and music. Sabzi discussed his move to New York, future projects, and his personal philosophy. Seattlest has the exclusive record of the proceedings. more ›

We know that this video dropped about a week ago, but a.) we love it so much, we wanted to post it, and b.) it seems that, somehow, far too few people have watched it. more ›

Blue Scholars play a packed New Year's Eve show at Vera in 2005. Vera has been a longtime supporter of Seattle's hip-hop scene, and hip-hop shows at Vera draw some of the venue's largest audiences. more ›

October is nicknamed Rocktober for good reason. The fall touring season has officially begun and there are more choices than ever no matter what kind of music lover you may be. This week is chock-full of musical goodness due to the City Arts Music Festival. City Arts has surprised us all with the heavy hitters the small local publication has managed to book throughout the city for the next four days. Seattlest is excited to be at many of the goings on throughout the fest. For the next few days we'll tell you where we're planning to be and why you should be there too. Let the insanity begin! more ›

We posted a little something something about this fest earlier this month and if you haven't heard of the City Arts Music Festival being held October 20th through the 23rd, then you must have been camped out under a sound-proof rock. Now that you've come out of hiding, let us give you the skinny. City Arts Magazine was founded in 2006 as a source for residents of Tacoma to get their arts-related news. It's grown in the past four years to have a web presence and spread its coverage to include Seattle, the east side, and Tacoma. They seemed to stay below the radar, however, until they announced an unbelievably star-packed festival earlier this month. Even the announcement was low-key, printed on the back of their magazine and seemingly nowhere else. A few days after the print version appeared the slow creep of whispers and discussion started, then the media got a hold of it and the word is out. The lineup boasts huge acts the likes of She & Him, Gogol Bordello, The Weepies, and Belle and Sebastian. more ›

MvB is going to get his pound of opening night hors d'oeuvres after seeing the The Merchant of Venice at the Seattle Shakespeare Company tonight. Saturday, if rainy, may involve an all-day LOTR-athon at a friend's in LQA.
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HIPHOP EXTRAVAGANZA: My, oh my, Seattle hiphop fans are in luck this weekend: the Blue Scholars are doing a stripped-down version of last year's The Program, with three nights at Neumos. This time, Common Market will join them every night; Truckasaurus and very special guests are playing on Saturday, Macklemore and Dyme Def will play on Monday night. Saturday's already sold out, but the second two nights are equally as awesome. Don't miss it. Really. more ›

driving unless you have to. Try to use the bus. We know service is highly impacted by the weather, but Metro has a nice page set up that's regularly updated that gives you information on bus service. more ›

Kim is relieved the debate is actually going to happen. She'll be watching with friends tonight before working all weekend. Saturday, she'll take a break for a quiet night out, and then she'll close the weekend off getting funky in the balcony of Jazz Alley with Maceo.
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Tonight and Saturday night our friends at Massline, KEXP, and The Stranger are bringing something called the Freshly Dipped Tour to the Showbox at the Market. We don't know what Freshly Dipped means, but we do know that headlining the night will be Seattle's own hip hop heroes, Blue Scholars, and from Oakland, California, The Hieroglyphics. more ›

Here we are at Day 16 of the Festival. If by now you're long tired of SIFF, you're in luck: STIFF starts tonight. And if you're tired of our takes on this year's festival films, check out reviews by Blue Scholars' MC Geologic. In addition to everything below, this weekend also offers the last chance to hit up two great documentaries, both of which we've previously mentioned, and both of which deserve another shout-out. Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a crowd-pleaser on the "real-life Spinal Tap" (today, 4:30pm @ SIFF Cinema). Meanwhile, Man on Wire, an unexpectedly moving doc about the French tightrope walker (and his friends) who conquered the WTC's Twin Towers, is the best thing we've seen at the fest so far (tomorrow, 11am @ the Egyptian). more ›

The most important thing we brought away from the EMP Pop Conference was the name Labi Siffre, along with a link to the English musician's blog, Into The Light. This was the fruit of a moving, well-researched presentation from Charles Aaron, music editor at Spin, and we can't wait to dive deeper into Siffre's poetry and musical catalog from the 70s and 80s. Aside from that presentation and a few from the "Liminal Soul" panel, we were underwhelmed by the Conference. more ›

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Seattlest is quaking in their boots (bought especially for the occasion) with excitement for this years SXSW in Austin, Tex. We're making our initial sojourn to the festival and are so pleased to see there will be a strong Seattle contingent joining us in Austin this year. more ›

Nectar was full of hiphop fans anticipating the power line-up on Saturday night. Macklemore, back from a tour in Europe, headlined in a masterful performance with special guests XPerience (out of Olympia) and Evan Roman; Grayskul (and his shaggy-haired little brother!) rocked some of his solo work, and we finally got to hear Wizdom do his thing. Wiz's solid work was actually upstaged by his special guest, Grynch, who is astoundingly, consistently good at focusing his energy and drawing in the crowd. more ›

Right on the heels of the announcement that the Mars Volta was added to the Sasquatch lineup, and right before tickets go on sale this Saturday, the three-day music festival has seen fit to delineate who will be playing on which day: more ›

After months of wild speculation, the official 2008 Sasquatch lineup has finally been announced: more ›

Think nightlife is getting the short end of the stick in Seattle? Filled with righteous indignation over the way hiphop gets portrayed as Capitol Hill's downfall? We do, and we are, so it was a healthy shock to the system (and yet oddly familiar) to read about this Saudi hiphop group which, to the great chagrin and social shame of the guys' fathers and wives, made it onto MTV Arabia. From the MSNBC story about Dark2Men:

"There are a lot of Saudi rappers, but they're underground because of the wrong impression people have of them," Farhan told MTV's "Hip HopNa" co-host Qusai Khidr, a Saudi rapper who has lived in Florida. "We would like people to hear our words and listen to our message before they judge us."

What have you been up to for the past six months or so? Professionally, artistically, personally? more ›

While we waited for Day Four of The Program to begin, we milled around the floor at Neumos and conducted a short, certainly scientific but methodologically flawed poll. "Are you here to see any group in particular? Have you heard of any of the groups performing tonight?" we asked. Out of ten participants, four were there to see Blue Scholars, two and a half came for Dyme Def, one half of a person had even heard of J. Pinder, and three were there to see "no one." The most common question Seattlest received in return: "What time do the Blue Scholars start?" Day Four: GMK, J. Pinder, Dyme Def, and the Blue Scholars. more ›

. We admit it: actually being at an event rocks at least ten times harder than watching it streamed online, no matter how good the audio/video feed is and no matter how much you love the internet. Day Three of The Program involved Seattlest physically putting our hands in the air and side to side (Grynch said to!), and even doing some headbanging to The Saturday Knights. Yes, we did spend physical, non-internet money on Day Three, but we also got to experience Grynch, Khingz (and co.), and TSK in physical, non-internet person. We jogged home during the break between TSK and Blue Scholars... Maybe we'll stay on Day Four. more ›

First of all, we have grown slightly disenchanted with the SyncLive method of experiencing The Program. Though we were most certainly not enamoured with the Swollen Members and Blue Scholars shows on Tuesday, our friends who were actually there say the energy in the room made a weak set from Swollen 100% more bearable. more ›

Siren's Echo, of Oldominion, is sassy, tough hiphop. One of the MCs, Toni Hill, has a rich and powerful singing voice, complete with control and range. Her deep, clear notes got the crowd excited, which is no small feat for an opener. These ladies are some of the first female MCs Seattlest has been able to truly enjoy live (not that we've seen many), and we're looking forward to hearing more from Toni and Syndel. Actually, we enjoyed Siren's Echo more than the next group, Unexpected Arrival, especially since Neema's voice gave out a couple of songs into his set. He hoarsely hollered through the last few tracks, which wasn't pleasant to listen to and didn't garner him many new fans; however, most of his a capella rhyming showed skill and certainly also showed Neema's drive to succeed. The energy definitely dipped during the set, from our perspective on the crowd. We wonder what Neema sounds like live when he's not all raspy and dry. more ›

Okay, friends and neighbors. December is a huge month for local hip-hop, and not just because of Blue Scholars' The Program. This week, Chop Suey's got you covered for Monday and Tuesday with the Parker Brothaz tonight (GMK will be there! We love that guy!) and freestyle master Eyedea & DJ Abilities tomorrow night. Over in Fremont, Nectar's offering Waves of the Mind and Gabriel Teodros/Abyssinian Creole on the 13th (there are nine acts on the bill, as a heads up) and an apparently two-night-long extravaganza featuring One Be Lo and Grayskul (along with some big name producers and djs) on the 15th and 16th. more ›

The Program (Dec. 18-22) will be way cooler than we initially thought, folks. Not only will some of the biggest names in NW hip-hop be on stage for your entertainment five nights in a row, but the latest news is that there are all kinds of technological tie-ins that will make this event very, very 21st-century. more ›

True confessions time: We've never set foot in 826 Seattle. We think we might have seen the building once, at night, while driving somewhere else. more ›

Admittedly, the only reason we know this is because we submitted a poem and it's on a bus, and so we were invited to the party. Sadly there was never any chance that we were going to stand up in public and read it. Its only purpose is to disrupt the glances of bus riders lingering over the list of things you're not allowed to do on buses in Spanish, the announcement of whichever UW STD study, and the Mechanic of the Year Award. Okay, we really did it for the Slog -- we would have liked to have dedicated it to them officially. more ›

The third annual 826 Seattle benefit People Talking and Singing will fill the seats at Town Hall next Thursday. Comedian Patton Oswalt had to cancel, but the event still features host John Roderick of the Long Winters, Dave Eggers, comedians Todd Barry and Eugene Mirman, New Yorker music critic (and current blogosphere gadfly) Sasha Frere-Jones, local songstress Rosie Thomas, and Geologic of the Blue Scholars. more ›

Bumbershoot 2005 hosted the inaugural People Talking and Singing show, where 2,800 festival attendees packed McCaw Hall to see Dave Eggers, Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket), Mike Doughty, Sarah Vowell, and Death Cab for Cutie, all the while raising $18K for 826 Seattle, the youth writing center in Greenwood. Last year's event, also at Bumbershoot, was hosted by Daily Show Resident Expert™ John Hodgman and singer Jonathan Coulton. Eggers, Handler, Gibbard, and Vowell were back for more, along with Decemberist Colin Meloy, Smoosh, and Stephin Merritt. All together, the benefit raised another $10K. more ›

Heads up, Seattle: there's a Beat Battle going down at Neumos tonight (Thursday)! It's called something dorky like "Red Bull Big Tune Championships," but don't let the name fool you. De La Soul will be there, Brainstorm will be there, Daps1 (we hope) will be there. Vitamin D's on the bill, and Sabzi of Blue Scholars is planning on strutting his stuff. Neumos has DV-One of recently (some would say wrongfully) convicted fame on the bill as the host DJ... It should be a fantastic time. We'll report on Friday. more ›