Empire Way Vol. 1 Update

GT and I managed to get an almost-finished draft of the 8-songs that will comprise our forthcoming collaborative album, Empire Way Vol. 1, which I soft-announced earlier this month with a preview of a new track, “IRL,” which is currently behind the paywall in the previous post. We had a mixing session on the day D’Angelo passed, and ended up making a whole new song that day called “FST.” Performed both in their final form for the first time at the Abyssinian Creole Sexy Beast 20-Year Anniversary show last Friday (pictured above), and it felt right.

The finishing touches are now being made and the release plan is being mapped out. As mentioned earlier, the album roll-out will bypass the big streaming-platform & social media blast model. If any of y’all want to be the first to hear it, get familiar with the [untitled] app and stay tuned.

I’m now four weeks into my run as the new weekly host of the KEXP Late Thursday/Early Friday 1-5am time slot, and also still popping up as a fill-in DJ all over the schedule. Catch me filling in on Street Sounds tonight at 10pm playing three hours of spooky rap. Yes, there will be plenty 90s “horrorcore” in the mix.

Outkast’s fourth album, Stankonia, dropped on this day 25 years ago, and I just recently unearthed some photos of the day they came to the University of Washington campus to promote it. They didn’t do a show because it was the year 2000 and Seattle’s concert venue situation, with the Teen Dance Ordinance still law, was absolute shit. Especially for rap.

That’s me on the right. Also, fun fact: Andre 3000’s bar on “Humble Mumble” where he says “…blue collar scholar, who take your dollar…” is the line that inspired the name of the rap group I would form a year later with the guy standing on the far left.

New(er) Shit In Rotation

At the request of the budding teenaged music nerd in the house who just recently experienced a growth spurt surpassing me in height, I’m reviving my lapsed Friday tradition of sharing What I Listened To Last Week. Plenty quality cuts dropped this season so far. Here’s a few that have garnered repeat spins:

Back around 2006, in the early days of Massline, the idea for a collaborative record between myself and Gabriel Teodros (aka GT) came about, a side project of another side project called Good Medicine (us two plus Khingz and Macklemore) which existed mostly as a live performance group with a few demo tracks that hadn’t surfaced until very recently.

One song we started writing but never recorded was titled Empire Way—the original name of the Seattle arterial road that was later renamed Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. The song title stuck and became the idea for either an album title or a group name or both.

In 2007, GT’s debut record Lovework and the second Blue Scholars album Bayani were released months apart. As those records cooked, our main quests took precedence while our side quest became yet another idea out of many that incubated, had potential, but never materialized.

Fast forward seventeen years later. GT been producing on the low, first to make air break music for his shows on KEXP, then producing his own songs, and finally throwing beats to fellow rappers. Almost exactly a year ago, he sent me a massive folder of instrumental sketches to write to. And he kept sending em. Probably over a hundred of them, easily. I wrote and recorded a bunch of drafts that sat for awhile, then picked back up in the last few months, realizing along the way that we had an album in the making, completely unplanned.

Listening back to what I had written, I kept thinking about the name of our abandoned project from way back. Empire Way. There couldn’t be a more a fitting album title. The reasons why will become evident and obvious when it’s out in the wild.

We’re forgoing a release centered on big streaming services and social media. It’ll arrive there eventually but will emerge in the dark forest first. There will be a physical release in multiple mediums. I’ve decided to split the project into two parts, with Volume 1 rolling out in waves in Q4 2025 and Volume 2 coming in Q1 2026. There will be eight tracks in each volume.

The first place any of this new material will land will be right here in this publication, so…

NEW SHIT!

For those with a paid subscription—thank you, enjoy this exclusive listen of the most complete-mixed track, and have a great weekend.

“IRL” 👇

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Thank you to everyone who has ever paid or still pays for this newsletter, especially during the drought, especially during hyperinflation and economic precarity, especially in an era of endless, shameless grift. In the spirit of transparency, here’s where those funds went: meals, coffee, books, subscriptions to other writers on this platform, subscriptions to tools that help me organize, write and share demos like Ulysses, Tick Tick and [untitled].

On that note I’m gonna be real with you on two fronts: 1. I’m grateful to even still be doing this (and for you still reading this). 2. my current financial situation is fucked up, has been for awhile now, probably the worst it’s ever been tbh. But I got stories to tell. So in this next phase of Brownouts, I will be more forthright with my aspirations to get more paid subscriptions as I expand the breadth of my writing topics and media content over here.

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After 2 years and 2 weeks as a fill-in DJ at KEXP, I will be hosting my own weekly, an overnight Variety Mix show, on Fridays 1am-5am. Starting October 3, I’ll be stepping into a timeslot held down by Atticus for the last ten (!) years. In turn, he’ll be stepping into the Tuesday Late Night timeslot (10pm-1am) being vacated by DJ Michele Myers after over two decades and 1,500 shows with the station.

Respect to Michele! In 2010, she invited Blue Scholars to the studio for an extended interview as we were nearing completion of what would become Cinemetropolis. I snapped a single photo on that visit:

Oh, about Blue Scholars. I haven’t written much about it because, at some point, I convinced myself there wasn’t been much to write about. I was wrong. More on this later. Know what will get these stories out, though?

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Long Live Assata Shakur. I learned of her passing as I wrote the paragraph above when my phone went off from multiple messages. My brother GT shared a gut-wrenching eulogy from Saul Williams, just minutes after we were coordinating meeting up to watch him perform later today for a Live on KEXP session.

I learned about Assata and her story through rap songs. Common’s A Song For Assata will rightfully get the plays, but my entry point was the 1992 song and video “Assata’s Song” by PARIS. He never mentions Assata directly in the lyrics, but it was the first time I remember learning her name, which led me to reading her book.

Here’s a photo I took of LaRussell rapping in the crowd at the Palestine Will Live Forever: All of Us, Or None of Us festival on September 13. I shared this photo and a handful of others, plus some reflections on the entire day, on a photoessay I wrote for the South Seattle Emerald.

Meanwhile, the head of the rogue state of Israel has announced his intention to “finish the job” in Gaza. At the United Nations podium, no less, as delegates walked out leaving the war criminal to speak to an empty chamber.

On October 24, I’m rapping alongside my friends Gabriel Teodros and Khingz (Abyssinian Creole) to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of their album Sexy Beast! Hit the flyer for tickets and info.

Speaking of photos, check this out 👆🏽. I’ve consolidated 6-7 years worth of undeveloped film and will be bringing a batch to the photo lab to be developed today. Might take awhile to get them all done, but know what would speed up that process? Some paid subs!

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I’ve passed by La Hacienda, this cutty little motel in Georgetown, many many times, and have never seen what it looks like inside. Never had to, never thought I would. That all changed one night thanks to my guy Travis Thompson, who shot a music video there for “MOTEL HEART,” a cut off his forthcoming album.

Thanks to everyone who tuned in last night as I filled in for my good friend Diana Ratsamee on her weekly show Eastern Echoes. Here’s an archived stream, good until October 8:

I played a segment of the show dedicated to legendary but under-appreciated keyboardist Philip Woo, a fifth generation Chinese American and Seattleite who’s credits include playing the main keys on Roy Ayers Ubiqity’s “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” and Frankie Beverly & Maze’s “Before I Let Go.” Producers, samplers, and liner-note nerds are familiar but more people need to know about bro. Which is why I’m excited for the documentary Play it in Woo, currently in production. Tonight is Seattle 7pm at SIFF Film Center, there’s a screening of a teaser cut with the director Philip himself and director Steve Mallorca in attendance. Tickets are sold out but I’m trying to finesse my way in right now.

Before I let this post go, as Summer 2025 becomes a memory, I wanted to leave you all with this excellent nostalgic post from my friend DJ Daps 1. He reflects on the Summer of 1995 with a sit-down interview with Seattle OG DJ E-Rok, with an uploaded stream (!!) of his Summer ‘95 mixtape, ripped straight off the cassette. The amount Seattle DJ history documented in this conversation is incredible:

daps’s Substack

DJ E-Rok: Rewind to Summer '95

Greetings - I’ve had a difficult time lately trying to figure out what the song of the summer was this year. Your song of the summer can be a personal choice (related to travel, a fling, an overpriced music festival), but i’m talking about that one or two songs that capture that summer. Think about the last few summers: Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan…

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7 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · daps

Hello again, friends and fam, comrades and ex-comrades, co-conspirators and spectators, stalking-ass opps and algorithmic passersby. How are your cortisol levels today? Damn, sorry to hear that. How’s mine? Welllll. Considering everything still happening in Gaza, in America, in my feed, in my head, in my struggling business that people seem to think is “thriving,” in my weird state of restlessness and fatigue—I guess I’m o.k.? Thanks for checking in.

It was worse earlier this week, though, as I’m sure many of you can relate. But I’ve found it helpful to follow the 20-20-20 rule, hit the sauna, and feed my affinity for dense, lyrical spiritual miracle raps, when done right, like JID does on his newest album.

What’s also keeping me anchored in the empire’s dying days are amazing friends and family. Healers and space-holders who refuse to let the spectacle of violence and bad internet energy desensitize them. They help me dig the moat between me and despair. It’s no accident that many of them will happen to be where I’ll be tomorrow—at the Palestine Will Live Forever: All Of Us, Or None Of Us festival, going down 12pm-9pm at Seattle’s Volunteer Park. One of them is Gabriel Teodros, who I’ve been working on an album with (I’m rapping, he’s producing). It’ll drop soon. I’m in awe of bro, watching him handle multiple roles in organizing the PWLF festival, produce multiple album projects simultaneously, and somehow keep his Substack current with content including this mix featuring artists who are performing at the festival.

If you can’t physically make it to the festival but have the means to make a donation, please consider contributing to some of the recipients of the festival proceeds, including Heal Palestine and Baladna. Read about them and more of the organizations.

Read about the elements of the festival artwork piece by Zahyr Lauren.

Vanishing Seattle put on an dope exhibit titled My City’s Filthy at Bumbershoot. I checked it out in between watching Digable Planets and Janelle Monae. Beautiful and bittersweet, as I anticipated, seeing artifacts and images of a city I remember but my kids don’t. I bought the last two remaining copies of the exhibition book, which featured a photo from my guy Nam Nice. I believe the physical copies are no longer available, but you can flip through the pages digitally.

Saul Williams, Carlos Niño & Friends have a new record out:

They’ll be in Seattle soon. Hoping to be in the building when they do a LIVE on KEXP session on Friday, September 26 at 3pm (open to the public). They’ll also be headlining the Walk the Block Festival arts festival at Wa Na Wari on Saturday, September 27 (get tickets).

I’m 2/3 through an advance copy of Jeff Chang’s Bruce Lee biography Water Mirror Echo, which will be available on September 23. I’ll share more thorough thoughts on it after I’m done. For now, I’ll say: with all the pieces of Bruce’s story I’ve absorbed over the years from other books, movies, documentaries, museum exhibitions and even first-hand stories, this is the first telling of Bruce’s life story that truly immerses into the context that Bruce existed in as much as the man himself. The excellent 30 for 30 documentary Be Like Water moved in this direction, but was limited by the medium’s more finite form and time, and tended to mythologize at times, because ESPN.

Catch my most recent radio shows on KEXP 90.3 FM (Seattle) / 92.7 FM (SF Bay Area) in the KEXP archive, which goes back two weeks.

I’m sitting in Hood Famous Cafe + Bar on a sunny Seattle morning where the temp is supposed to hit mid-70s later, prepping a playlist for this afternoon.

Later today, I’ll be walking over a couple blocks to A Resting Place, which is hosting a live KEXP broadcast from 10am-4pm as part of Pushing Boundaries: Celebrating Asian & Pasifika Experiences Through Music. It’s an annual thing we do every May, kicking off the 1st of the month with daylong programming from AANHPI DJs. I’m filling in as host of The Afternoon Show (1pm-4pm) playing my favorite Asia/Pasifika/diaspora and -adjacent songs to celebrate.

From 10am-1pm today, my KEXP and SEA Vinyl Society colleague and Eastern Echoes host Diana Ratsamee will be hosting The Midday Show. Check her out crushing this all-vinyl mx of Thai Psych, Molam, Luk Thung & Soul in Humano Studios that dropped a couple weeks ago.

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What I’ve Been Listening To Lately

Here it is, sans commentary:

I mentioned in my March 24 post that a disruption has hindered my weekly commitment to share music I’ve been up on every Friday. That was three Fridays ago. I’m re-evaluating the format and will soon relaunch a weekly post, most likely on a different day of the week than on Friday. In the meantime, I’ve decided to remove the paywall from every post in the newsletter archive (posts 69 days or older were previously only viewable to paid subs). With all posts available, paid subscriptions, for now, are completely optional (but appreciated).

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KEXP Six Degrees Week

My favorite week at KEXP is Six Degrees Week, and it’s happening right now. It started last Friday (with The Continent, 7pm-10pm) and ends this Friday (with the conclusion of Drive Time, 4-7pm).

For the uninitiated, it’s an annual tradition where, for an entire week, DJs link every song played to the one that came before it (and the one coming after). Each show highlights an artist of the DJ's choice. Por ejemplo, Street Sounds (Friday, 10pm-1am) artist was E-40, and Mechanical Breakdown (Saturday, 1am-3am) artist was Blondie. So each song played on Street Sounds, starting with E-40, has to eventually connect to a final song that connects with Blondie at the start of the next show. Real connections (guest vocals, relatives, shared producers and musicians, samples, etc.) are encouraged while weak connections (same genre, same major label) get the gas face. Some map their connections out, some completely construct it on the fly, some do a little of both. The challenge: to keep the chain unbroken for all 168 hours.

I love this shit, and lowkey already do a little of it in every show I do. So do many of my favorite DJs on the station. It’s particularly fun hearing DJs freak out in the last 20-30 minutes about how to perfectly time the last few songs/connections. I signed up to fill in or guest host on four Six Degrees shows, two of which were yesterday (Sunday, April 13) - streaming archive (available for two weeks) below.

Guest-hosting DJ Miss Ashley’s Self-Care Sundays show (12pm-3pm), going from Sade to The Replacements was dope. We mapped possible beginning and endpoint connections but had to wing it in the middle, which led to some real-time surprises, like learning that Linda Rondstadt (and her manager) were responsible for getting Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks connected to Mick Fleetwood, resulting in the Fleetwood Mac lineup we’re all familiar with. Or finding out that Sade and Maxwell share a major co-writer/producer/band member/saxophonist/guitarist. The saxophone you hear on both artists songs is played by the same lad: Stuart Matthewman aka Cottonbelly

After the show, I had six hours to kill until filling in on Expansions (9pm-midnight), where I had to link The KLF to Yann Tiernen. Instead of preparing for the show like I should’ve, I walked around Seattle Center in the sun, which I realized I don’t ever really do solo. Had a Dick’s Deluxe, which I only ate half of. Then I watched No Other Land at SIFF. Got back to the station while Lace was filling in on Sunday Soul and chopped it up with Kevin Cole about the future of noncommercial radio on his way out.

Then, it hit me. This was my first time filling in on Expansions. Along with Rap Attack (now Street Sounds), this show on KCMU was part of a Sunday night routine stretching back 30 years ago, when DJ Riz started the show in 1995. Later, when I went to UW, Kevin Cole became part of that sequence when he took over the slot right before Rap Attack, and the radio signal was much better from near campus than across the water in B-Town.

Later this week, I’ll be popping in to keep the chain alive on Overnight on Thursday April 17 1am-5am, where my featured artist is Joe Bataan, eventually connecting to REM on Early. On Friday, April 18 1pm-4pm I’ll be guest-hosting The Afternoon Show with Larry Mizell, Jr., where we kick off with Kendrick Lamar and eventually connect to Tears For Fears on Drive Time.

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An Update on Brownouts, The Book

If you’ve been up on this newsletter since 2021, you’ve seen your mans go on hiatuses (see: all of 2024), then return, but with a different writing focus. Brownouts started as updates and drafts of a book-on-progress that I started writing in 2017 (and still am). Then, photoessays adjacent to my once-thriving rap career and random musings, also for possible use for the book project. Most recently, I’ve been sharing music I’m coming across on a DJ journey that started with KEXP in 2023. Occasionally, I’ll write a topical long-form reflection.

I’ve honestly shelved the project emotionally, feeling distant from the 50-60% of of a draft I submitted in the early pandemic days. Feels like somebody else wrote that shit. But after learning some life lessons and a year of free-writing (mostly yapping on voice recorder and transcribing), resuming this newsletter, consulting with editors and the publisher, and re-evaluating the scope of the book, I’ve found a new direction. I have a new roadmap for this project, which I hope to share in the months ahead, as well as other projects, including new music, that I’ve begun working on.

Organically, all previous and current iterations of what this newsletter has been is what will inform the form and content of Brownouts, The Book. Thanks for sticking around. If you know me, you know I take long to finish things. Like the 3-4 year gap between full-length albums. Or getting my undergrad degree at 32 years old. Or cooking dinner. When I finally do tho, it’s glorious.

For two weeks straight, I abandoned writing What I Listened To This Week partway through. Against the backdrop of an empire crumbling, due process disappearing, and bullies cosplaying victim, an absurd injustice befell my family, incapacitating my ability to think or write outside of survival mode. Two incomplete drafts sit in my dashboard, and will remain there forever as a reminder of this moment. Details will surface when it’s time, but, for now, I resume writing about music because to not write means that the opps are winning. Pray for them.

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On the Radio

On the bright side, winter is finally over and I did three shows on KEXP last week. I had the distinct pleasure of closing out my March 20 KEXP Overnight show, filling in for Reverend Dollars, with this Biz Markie classic.

Seattle hip-hop OG, fellow KEXP DJ, the Tall Homey, Vitamin D celebrated his 50th birthday this past Saturday with a big ol roast at Chop Suey that also doubled as an album release party for Bornday 5.0, the fifth installation of a tradition that started back in 2010 with the original Bornday EP. It was a legendary gathering and here’s my proof of attendance:

I also happened to be filling in on Street Sounds last Friday rocking a tribute set to DJ Premier and Large Professor’s birthday, and when it hit midnight, I transitioned into a tribute set for the Tall Homey.

Yesterday (Sunday March 23 3pm), I hosted a Live on KEXP session with Franz Ferdinand. It was my first Live on KEXP session that aired live on the airwaves in real time (I’ve done two tapings—with Brother Ali and Hieroglpyhics—dropping soon). They opened with “Jacqueline,” the opening track of their 2004 self-titled debut album. It was electric.

I had the pleasure of interviewing frontman Alex Kapranos on-air after their set, asking about their latest record The Human Fear, the similarities between Glasgow and Seattle, and the peculiar, currently perilous state of North American geopolitics. Listen here:

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In the Wild

I’m the featured DJ for this year’s Henry Art Gallery annual Gala, happening on Saturday, April 5 at Block 41 in Seattle (Belltown). This year’s theme is ELEMENTS.

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Last Week

There was no last week.

These weekly music recaps usually go out on Friday morning, but last week, a dark cloud descended upon me and my fam. It’s heel turn season: in the squared circle, on the geopolitical chessboard, in our own schools and communities. Music was both the last thing on my mind and the first thing that got me through.

In this seasonal transition within a transitional era, in a world of many worlds, amidst the seemingly daily passing of Legends, the vulnerable and displaced remain under attack. Their protectors anticipate, and have often received, wrath. The emboldened supremacists continue attacking, and their apologists anticipate, and have often received, reward.

If you live in America, good luck. Hold the line. Everywhere else: don’t cry for us. Whether you fasting or fighting or both, I offer you strength.

Perhaps you’ve been thinking about writing your way through these transitions, too:


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New-ish Ish

New(er) music I enjoyed but didn’t have the energy to write about:

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On the Radio

I filled in on three shows on KEXP since the last post: Street Sounds (2/28 10pm), Saturday afternoon (3/1 12pm), and The Afternoon Show (3/3 1pm). As always, you can hit the KEXP.org archive for any shows within the last two weeks.

For shows no longer in the archive, you can find some of my favorite sets up on my Mixcloud page. Here’s the most recent one:

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The best thing I listened to all week, though, as a shitstorm whirled around me, was this conversation between Jon Stewart and Maria Ressa.

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Last Week

Brownouts

What I Listened To This Week 2025-02-28

Congratulations for making it through the second month of 2025, in which we celebrate Black History, pay the same rent amount as every other month but get 2-3 days less in return, and thaw from winter hibernation (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere…

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a year ago · 5 likes · Prometheus Brown

I’m on the radio twice in the next 28 hours: tonight (Feb 28) on Street Sounds 10pm-1am PST and tomorrow (Feb 29) doing a Weekend Variety mix 12pm-3pm PST.

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A playlist of songs shared over the last month here. Also on Tidal and Apple Music.

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In the Wild

IRL, outside of the Seattle Federal Building on a Friday afternoon, I listened to the testimony of the undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic, the affirmation from the crowd, the car drivers honking in solidarity, the recurring chinga la migra chants, the rain falling, the rappers who energized the crowd, the laughter of the child who grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the music. If there was anyone, in the crowd or passing by, who supports the dehumanization of deportation, I heard their silence.

Not IRL, I keep seeing this lamentation: where is the protest music? To which I respond: obviously not where you’ve been looking, and probably not there anytime soon. The protest music is at the protest itself. In its purest form, protest music is the protest itself.

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In the Cloud

Is Soundcloud starting to pop again? Is a migration off the major streaming platforms happening? Is this TikTok’s fault?

I’m part of the wave that has seen it die and resurrect several times, from being a first-release demo platform for established artists, to being the actual release platform for noobs without DSP accounts (the “Soundcloud Rapper” era), to becoming the main source of DJ/producer-dominant song remixes.

I haven’t posted my own music in years, mostly using it lately as a DJ looking for new songs to play that can’t be found on major DSPs. Gradually over the last couple years, the frequency and quality of new material in my feed has grown 2-3x.

Let’s go.

DJ Hybrid - Old Gang

When I fill-in on Overnight radio shows (1am-5am), at some point I’ll throw a long Jungle (the genre, not the band) joint on. It’s usually when I need to take a breather and/or want to zone out. I’ve been digging deeper into the genre lately, which is part of a bigger trip I’m on coming full-circle with where I was musically twenty years ago. Fellow KEXP DJ Mike Ramos, who breaks a lot of new cuts for the first time on the station, played this one on his weekly Overnight show (Tuesdays). No surprise, it’s not available anywhere (as of now) outside of Soundcloud.

Gyasi - On That Note

Lately everywhere I turn, young Seattle rapper Gyasi pops up. We were on the same rap concert bill last month, I recently played his songs on the radio, and he performed at the protest I wrote about earlier. I heard him on a stage before I heard him on a stream, and in both settings I’m impressed with the natural ease of his delivery as a poetic storyteller with an intense fire disguised as nonchalance. There’s something distinctly Seattle, across generations, about this approach, and he embodies it.

Nasty Nes - KCMU Rap Attack Best Of ‘94 Megamix

Still grieving Kuya Nes’s passing, especially with an upcoming fill-in spot tonight on KEXP Street Sounds. My bro Daps1 wrote a tribute post and shared this 25-minute continuous mix from 1994. It was a tradition back then for the show to close with a live continuous mix, which always ended with Nes signing off with his signature, “peace, love and hip-hop unity.”

Jon Reyes - Goin’ Again (mix)

I was in a old-school, sappy slow jam mood a couple weeks ago. The nostalgia trip was fun, but there’s a quiet renaissance is happening in post-pandemic contemporary R&B, which sounds like a hybrid of mid 1990s and early 2010s R&B. Jon Reyes put together a great tasting menu, which he dropped on V Day a couple weeks ago.

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Last Week

Brownouts

What I Listened To This Week 2025-02-21

Every week this year feels heavier than the last. I know you feel me. I feel it, too. I briefly mentioned last Friday that I was in a funk. Then I found out over the weekend one of my biggest heroes passed away. I wrote an elegy and published it on Tuesday…

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a year ago · 6 likes · Prometheus Brown

Brownouts

Rest In Peace, Nasty Nes (1961-2025)

Please consider donating to: Nasty Nes Rodriguez's Legacy: Help Support His Family…

Read more

a year ago · 14 likes · 5 comments · Prometheus Brown

The authoritarian rugpull continued, fueling the resistance. I turned 45 mid-week. Answered three day-old messages. Got this website operational again. Finally watched The Brutalist.

Before we dive in, I want to thank everyone who’s subscribed to this newsletter, with a big shout to those who upgraded to paid subs. You help keep this thing going—make sure to check the chat for exclusive drops. O.K., I gotta head out to this protest soon, so let’s make this week’s drop quick.

The New-ish Ish

Macklemore - Fucked Up

People think this is a new version of Macklemore, but anyone from Seattle who knew him before he blew up knows that this was there the whole time. There really isn’t more to be said that he doesn’t say himself in this song.

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Ransom & Dave East ft. Jay Electronica - The Final Call

Ah, a Jay Electronica feature. Did you have this on your bingo card? I did. Told anyone who’d listen last year that we’re entering a multiversal renaissance era where all the great spitters from all eras are returning to save the world. Kendrick opened the portal. Hot Unc/Auntie Summer was just the beginning. Jay Elec’s more recent features (noname’s “Balloons” and Tobe Nwigwe’s “Can You Imagine?”) have hinted that he’s back in spiritual warfare mode, where he’s most potent.

●▬▬▬▬▬▬๑۩|●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|۩๑▬▬▬▬▬▬●

DJ Premier x Roc Marciano - Armani Section

At the top of the comment section is a great suggestion that these two do a whole album together and call it ROC STARR. I’ll sign that petition.

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Saya Gray - HOW LONG CAN YOU KEEP UP A LIE?

Saya Gray is a Japanese-Scottish Canadian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist that got her chops playing in a Jamaican Pentecostal church band. Her second album, SAYA, is hitting all the familiar indie music spaces, and I lowkey listened to it out of obligation to stay up on the industry, as I do many records that don’t end up standing out. This one did, though, and this song in particular. Like I said, I was in a mood last week, that bled into this week, and this aching song did some healing.

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Errol Eats Everything - Kingdom

I know very little about Errol Eats Everything. Bruh has little-to-no social media presence, and it’s seemingly all by design. His album cover artwork is AI-generated. The few press outlets that have covered his work liken it to MF Doom and Jay Electronica, perhaps the two most “mysterious but ubiquitous” rappers ever. Solid work on this album, but the intro cut “Kingdom’s” hook, spit in half-time, is hard. “You used to call me slave / now you can catch a fade / I am unafraid.”

●▬▬▬▬▬▬๑۩|●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|۩๑▬▬▬▬▬▬●

FEM du lit, Obsvdian - BANKRUPT

“This business is troubling me / How can I invest in myself / If you’re depleting
all my energy / Uncle Sam I’m running on dry” are the type of bars I don’t usually hear in a contemporary R&B/vintage Soul song. I’m here for it, ready to hear more when FEM du lit’s debut album STIGMATA drops on February 28.

●▬▬▬▬▬▬๑۩|●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|۩๑▬▬▬▬▬▬●

Black Milk & Fat Ray feat. Bruiser Wolf - Franky Lymon

Black Milk & Fat Ray’s new album Food From the Gods is a Dope Detroit Rap Album in a long line of Dope Detroit Rap Albums stretching back to the last millennium. A consistent vibe runs from front to back, seasoned with three guest features. The first two from Guilty Simpson and Danny Brown are solid and straightforward as you’d expect. But Bruiser Wolf, the most polarizing rapper in the group chat, steals the show on “Franky Lymon.”

●▬▬▬▬▬▬๑۩|●̲̅̅|̲̅̅=̲̅̅|̲̅̅●̲̅̅|۩๑▬▬▬▬▬▬●

JPEGMAFIA - Valentines Day Freestyle ‘25

Last Friday, Peggy dropped a Valentines Day song, which is just some raps over SWV’s “I’m So Into You” (as in, literally over the song, singing and all, not a flipped sample). I enjoyed it but I died when I saw this top comment:

Last Week

Brownouts

What I Listened To This Week 2025-02-14

Happy Friday to all, and happy whatever y’all celebrate today as long as you’re doing it with love. I’ve been in the emotional trenches this week. Here’s what got me through it…

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a year ago · 7 likes · 3 comments · Prometheus Brown

Listening to Nasty Nes on Sunday nights was a ritual I rarely missed in my teen years. From around sixth grade until my senior year in high school I tuned in nearly every week to listen to Rap Attack on KCMU 90.3 FM, 7-9 p.m.

That he proudly repped being Filipino was an impact multiplier for me. There were other Filipino DJs I looked up to from turtablists and mobile crews, but Nes was on a different level. His influence on a whole generation of Seattle music, on West Coast hip-hop culture, on the radio DJ industry, and its lasting ripple effects can’t be overstated. In 1981, he started the first all-rap radio show west of the Mississippi river (Freshtracks, KFOX 1250 AM). He co-founded Nastymix Records and went gold and platinum independently, and went on tours with Sir-Mix-a-Lot in a time where not only were they the only acts repping Seattle, but often one of a few repping West Coast, period. After being unceremoniously fired from KFOX in 1988, KCMU music director Don Yates (aka DJ Bass!) hit him up to bring his AM radio show to FM. He linked with Shockmaster Glen Boyd, beginning a run as host of Rap Attack, inspired by DJ Mr. Magic’s show of the same name in NYC.

Accolades aside, his voice left the biggest impact on me. He was high-spirited, jovial, with a genuine love for the music he played and the culture it came from. He def had “radio voice” with a texture, pacing and inflection expected from a professional who studies the craft. Even then, he’d occasionally break the “radio DJ” character, revealing real emotions. I still remember how choked up he got on his farewell show, when he passed the torch to his co-host, Kutfather (RIP). I can still hear his laughter, which, it’s hard to explain, but it sounds like a Filipino uncle type laugh.

Sometimes, I would call in on those Sunday nights. No song request, just hoping to get a shoutout. The line was usually busy, but when I got through, it made my night, even if I didn’t get a shout. If you ever tuned in to KCMU Rap Attack in the early/mid 90s and heard a shout to “G in Bremerton,” that was me.

Brownouts

Last Night and a Thousand Other Nights Before, a DJ Saved My Life

1. Last week, our beloved KEXP 90.3 FM announced it’s new show schedule and DJ lineup. In addition to the returning staple shows, there are new shows with new DJs, old shows with new DJs and new shows with old DJs…

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3 years ago · 14 likes · 2 comments · Prometheus Brown

It was Sunday, late afternoon, when I read online, via message posted by his wife Llola Rodriguez, that Nestor “Nasty Nes” Rodriguez passed away the previous day. It didn’t feel real. A memory flashed. A Sunday afternoon 30 years ago, getting my tape ready to record Rap Attack. I’m pointing the stereo antenna east toward Seattle, hoping for a clearer signal. But in this memory, no music. Just static. My brief nostalgic trip became noisy and fuzzy. I was teleported back to a present to face my disbelief and grief.

It’s surreal to know that just past midnight on the day Nes would later join the ancestors, I was on air at KEXP, wrapping up Street Sounds, filling in as a guest host on the same show that I grew up listening to him host. I closed the show with a salute to Nes. I don’t know why I did, but something compelled me to end the show by acknowledging its history.

From Rap Attack to Street Sounds. From Shockmaster Glen Boyd to Stas the Boss and DJ Yaddy. For almost 2000 weeks straight—through a name change, physical relocations, new radio station call letters, and a move from Sunday to Friday nights—it remains, resilient, a living document of past and present. It now holds claim to being both the longest running mix show on KEXP/KCMU, as well as the longest continuously running all hip-hop radio show on the West Coast. From ‘88 ‘til.

In our most recent exchange, Nes tapped in to let me know that he heard me hosting Street Sounds on my very first show as fill-in DJ. He said he was proud, and that he was moved by being acknowledged, especially during Filipino American History Month. I responded with gratitude, let him know how much it meant to get the message. I missed a message that would come months later, where he hit me up to say he recently listened to “Freewheelin’,” the song I shouted him out in. It would be his last message to me. I tapped the heart reaction emoji instead of typing a reply, which fucks me up and makes me not want to use reaction emojis as responses anymore.

I wrote and rapped these bars to close the second verse on “Freewheelin’” off the first Blue Scholars album:

I'm waiting on a Sunday night listening to Nasty Nes
paying them dudes, when KEXP was KCMU

It’s funny how nostalgic I had already become for the early-mid 90s… in 2003.

By then, Nes had moved from Seattle to Los Angeles, Rap Attack became Street Sounds, and KCMU moved from the University of Washington campus to become KEXP, near Seattle Center. My DJ aspirations gave way to rapper aspirations, and I dropped out of UW with one quarter to go.

I wrote those bars in 2003, working on the first Blue Scholars album (it came out February 2004, re-released June 2005). At the same time, I held down a day job as an exhibits assistant at The Wing Luke Asian Museum (now The Wing Luke Museum). The first exhibit I worked on focused on the Asian Pacific Americans in the local hip-hop scene. It was called It’s Like That: APA’s and the Seattle Hip-hop Scene. I gotta say, in retrospect: for being 23 and curating my first museum exhibit, with both an album and a child on the way, I did a phenomenal job.

This story would’ve been impossible to tell without Nasty Nes, so I reached out to him for an oral history interview. He was more than happy to oblige, even sending a big package of artifacts that included old gear, records, press photos. I was 23, in my first full time job, working on my first album on the side, getting paid to interview an OG who had kicked down so many doors I was only then beginning to walk through, and would continue walking through for the next 20 years. I’m humbled to know our conversation that day in 2003 will live forever in the WLM archives1.

Today, I read this interview for the first time in over 20 years. I remember how emotional he got at times. Toward the end of the interview, I asked Nes about leaving KCMU. He said about his farewell Rap Attack show:

You know what, man? God, that show. It was so great because I had my old program director from KFOX show up. A lot of friends came up on the show, and I was able to play a lot of songs that I broke through the years. And then when I knew it was the last time I was going to talk on the mic, I just choked up and just broke down.

I got a lot of messages on my pager and voicemail. People were crying too. I just couldn't help it. It was like saying goodbye to everyone, because you got to understand, man, I grew up as a kid that really didn’t have much, and it was because of the radio and hip-hop that gave me a life where I could make a living on my own without relying on my parents. And it gave me a lot, it helped me with my self-esteem because I grew up being picked on a lot and stuff.

And it just gave me my own identity. The most important thing was it made me really proud of who I am, in my race, as being Filipino. And just to be kind of, sort of, a role model, and being Asian and Filipino at the same time, made it even better, man, you know.

In 2005, just two years after the museum exhibit, a year before I would quit my job to pursue rap full-time, the first Blue Scholars album was out. It made some noise. By then, we’d met Bambu and Kiwi, who were then performing together as Native Guns. They were both from L.A. and tapped in with Filipino community organizers there, who we met on a trip to LA in 2003. All this interconnectedness led to getting booked for our first headlining concert in L.A.2, at Club Fais Do-do on W Adams, with Native Guns also on the bill.

I mention all this to provide context that, despite having made some noise in Seattle, we had no business headlining a show at a real venue in Los Angeles at that early stage of our career. At least not without going through the usual booking agency/venue promoter channels. But it happened because of connects we made through community organizing networks.

A decent crowd showed up and we did O.K. Some fans in the crowd knew our music, did all the crowd participation things. Many also there, having paid to get in, stood there and stared at the stage. LA love, as they call it. Similar to New York love, but even more stoic, probably because the weed is more potent on this coast.

So I’m onstage, not getting the reaction I’d get in my hometown, trying to thug it out. I’ll never forget: middle of our set, I’m rapping over the Camp Lo “Luchini” instrumental, looking out into the crowd. I see a stocky light brown man in the middle a few rows back from the front. He’s wearing a tank top, sunglasses and rocking a buzzcut mohawk. Holy shit, it’s Nasty Nes. And he’s enjoying himself.

I vaguely remember the homie saying before the show that he invited Nes to come through, but I forgot that by the time I hit the stage. Or maybe I invented the idea that he came on his own accord, without being invited. Whatever the case, he pulled up, and was the first to greet us after the show. What we talked about and for how long, I don’t recall. It was 20 years ago. But what I recall mostly is a visual and a feeling: looking into the crowd, seeing him there, validated af.

Real ones know that Nasty Nes was featured at the end of Eazy-E’s “Radio”. Realer ones know that he was the first radio DJ to play N.W.A. on the radio ever, anywhere, making his own radio edits manually on reel-to-reel tape. But the realest know that he tried his hand at acting. Here’s Nes giggin’ with a boombox in the background of a fight scene in Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.

Ice T - “I’m Your Pusher”
Sir Mix-a-Lot - “F The BS”
Boogie Down Productions - “My Philosophy”
L’Trimm - “Cars With the Boom”
Gucci Crew II - “Sally (That Girl)”
Stetsasonic - “Sally”
Rodney O & Joe Cooley - “Cooley High”
2 Live Crew - “I Can’t Go For That”
Bobby Jimmy and the Critters - “NY LA Rappers”
De La Soul - “Plug Tunin’ (Original 12” Version)”
Everlast - “Syndication”
Sir Mix-A-Lot - "Posse on Broadway"

Songs from Nasty Nes’s first Rap Attack show on KCMU in 1988. 40 minutes of it were digitized off cassette and posted on the internet.

When Nes suffered a heart attack last October, he revealed that he was living with multiple health conditions including kidney failure and pneumonia. Medical expenses were mounting, so he did what so many other musicians and artists have done. Family and friends started a GoFundMe to help his road to recovery.

It’s heartbreaking to see our OGs, our pioneers, our legends turn to crowdfunding in order to access basic health care. It’s the sad inevitability of working in an industry that offers no pension plans, no 401ks, no health insurance. For those fortunate enough to own their own IP and publishing and still resonate with fans, the safety net comes in the form of royalty checks. For everyone else: the multitude of artists, musicians, creative industry workers, independent contractors who never amassed generational wealth (but who collectively helped the owners in the industry do so), good luck.

A glimmer of hope is that this issue is gaining traction outside of industry circles in ways never seen before. Chappell Roan put the issue front and center in her Best New Artist Grammy speech, mainstreaming a conversation advocating for liveable wages and health care for developing artists. While it doesn’t look like record execs are going to loosen their bag grip anytime soon, it looks like some artists with big bags are donating funds3 to make up for what the corporations and the state won’t provide. But what about the artists who paved the way? We’ve made songs about how DJs save our lives, but what about saving theirs?

In his final months, Nes continued to promote new artists, soliciting music submissions for his radio promotion, RapAttackLives.com. Just last week, Nes posted on IG that he was on the mend and releasing a line of t-shirts with non-profit organization beats4hope. A portion of proceeds would go toward medical bills, while also helping the organization provide food and clothing to people experiencing homelessness. His final posts were tributes to a colleague who recently passed.

The DJ controls what we hear, but it really isn’t about them. Their role is to facilitate. To use their platform to give a voice to those who are listening, and give listens to those using their voice. They help build careers, livelihoods, movements even. If music heals (it does) and music is medicine (it is), then the DJ is an apothecary. Or a shaman, or a dope pusher. Nes Rodriguez understood this to the very end. Even in his greatest time of need, Kuya Nes amplified others, wanted to heal others.

Nasty Nes, in his own words

• OurStory: Legacy of Northwest Hip Hop - an oral history project by 206 Zulu Seattle (embedded up there ☝🏽)

• The Birth of Seattle Rap by Novocaine 132 - a recently published book on the Seattle hip-hop scene’s early days. Foreword written by Nasty Nes.

• KEXP - Filipino Hip Hop 206: DJ Nasty Nes - an interview with Gabriel Teodros in 2021 as part of a podcast series focused on Filipinos in the Seattle hip-hop community.

• 1988: Nasty Nes on Seattle's Halcyon Days of Hip-Hop - a 2023 interview with Larry Mizell, Jr. for KEXP’s 50 Years of Hip-hop series.

DJ Opus - Heartbeats (Slow Jam Mix)

In preparation for a DJ gig today, I revisited a whole heap of slow jams this week. Mostly, but not exclusively, late 80s-mid 90s R&B and anything adjacent. The kind of music you’d hear in a mix like the mythical DJ Opus - Heartbeats mixtape, which originally came into my life on a dub of a dub of a dub on a cassette tape in the late 90s. Not just a mixtape, but a MEGAMIX, as we called it. It was the dusk of the tape era and the dawn of the mp3, and this one went as viral as you could possibly get on both fronts. There were many that came before and after this one, but this is The One that entered my orbit and has stayed ever since. Every once in a while I’ll still encounter it out in the wild, like at weddings when the DJ would take a long break.

When Roc Nation-backed Infinity Song went vertical-reel-viral in 2023 with “Haters Anthem,” I endured hearing it across the room, playing out of the kid’s phone, for weeks straight. As much as it invited me to hate it it, I couldn’t.

Earlier this week, the Algo fed me their video for “Sinking Boat,” which made the reel rounds late last year. Singing “the end of an age / the end of affection” in a folky, psychedelic soft rock vibe, this feels like an appropriate response and bookend to 5th Dimension’s “The Age of Aquarius.” Also, I read somewhere that the guy in the Oval Office is a fan of 5th Dimension and ABBA, which makes me wonder what bruh would think of this.

J.PERIOD Presents… REINCARNATED [Kendrick Remixed]

I listened to more yapping about Kendrick’s halftime show than I listened to Kendrick’s actual music, but this one slipped through in more than one group chat. Now that I think about it, J.PERIOD is a name I’ve consistently seen pop up in group chats for decades now. In a world saturated with so many unnecessary remixes/mashups, J.PERIOD’s never feel forced, and always sound like earnest homages that stay in conversation with the original.

Brother Ali - Satisfied Soul

Today, I host my first Live on KEXP taping with Brother Ali. His new album, Satisfied Soul, entirely produced by Ant, also just dropped today. I got a chance to run an advance copy this past week, and it’s some of his best work.

D’Angelo - Voodoo

Voodoo was released January 2000, which officially makes it 25 years old as of last month. On Feb 11, D’Angelo turned 51. So, Voodoo is as old as D’Angelo was when he made it. I read a handful of reflections on this over here, like this one, which makes me feel good about being here.

Last Week

Brownouts

What I Listened To This Week 2025-02-07

First off, Happy Dilla Day…

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a year ago · 11 likes · 4 comments · Prometheus Brown

Why you trolling like a bitch? Ain’t you tired?

In the first week of the second month of this calamitous year, the Supervillains in the Capital, both of the elected and unelected variety, carried out a strategy of overwhelm to stunningly great effect. Even more than in the weeks before. A litany of flagrant fouls—too many to list—stirred out of a batched cocktail of grievance, impunity, hubris and pettiness. It’s a lot to bear witness to while remaining focused on everyday tasks. Even for an old head like me, who has seen dictators rise and fall in my lifetime, prefers reading news in long form, abhors social media hysteria, and still goes around saying things like “we were built for this.”

That cloud of anxiety, plus not having any radio shows or DJ gigs scheduled this week1, trying to duck being summonsed2 for jury duty, and getting distracted by a hundred hot Grammy takes all contributed to me barely doing the thing. The thing: being a DJ when not actually DJing. Preparing playlists, researching, listening to new releases, digging for obscure cuts, diving into music history, tapping in to music nerd communities, maybe even some crate digging, and, most of all, actually enjoying it.

This wasn’t a joyful week. So today’s edition of What I Listened To This Week is less about new music and old gems, more about what entered my orbit through happenstance and habit while I sidequested and doomscrolled. I returned to familiar, comforting records like Stevie Wonder’s Songs In the Key of Life. I organized my record collection and read liner notes. I listened to songs that friends sent in DMs and group chats, most of which were released before 2024. I even played Lo-fi Beats in the background while I worked, like a streaming-only normie.

The most current music-related thing on my radar isn’t a song or album, but the intrigue surrounding What Will Kendrick Do At The Super Bowl Halftime Show? with Supervillain Prime watching in person. Will he use this platform to make a political statement? Will he play it subversive but safe, like others have done previously? Or will he just do his songs, grab the bag, and move on? Watching yesterday’s Apple Music-sponsored interview with K.Dot, it seems like the third option is the most likely.

As we fast approach kickoff and the looming end of democracy, The Feed is filling with desperate pleas not unlike Princess Leia’s hologram-gram to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Someone posted in a group chat an appeal to bring YG onstage to rock “FDT,” followed by a shout that the letters also stand for “Fuck Drake, Too.” While this would make for great television, far more exciting than everything that’s ever happened in NFL history, one can’t help but wonder: how much pettiness can a single stadium hold? And what changes if this happens? If this is truly our only hope, we’re cooked.

A shoutout to the music community On This Platform

Salute to those writing about music from and for the under-represented and marginalized. Especially in this moment, where being from these communities means your being—your livelihood, your humanity, your existence—is under attack. And especially on this platform, which needs more of us. I’m especially thankful for the music writers on this platform who ensured my feed wasn’t entirely apocalyptic, making me feel like I was doing the thing without doing the thing.

Here’s a few I follow and enjoy:

The Almanac of Rap's Substack

This is a companion piece to my podcast 'The Almanac of Rap'. It's a place where give weekly updates on new music, explore some topics a little deeper, or just wax poetic about stuff that I don't know how to put anywhere else.

By Donwill

Black Music and Black Muses

Music writing that is not restricted by the demands, wishes, and timelines of the music industry. Writing, not advertising. Love, not a battle of the brands.

By Harmony Holiday

Elmattic

My first fight was me against five boroughs.

Diana Ratsamee

DJ, curator, producer, community organizer, co-founder of SEA Vinyl Society, host of Eastern Echoes on KEXP.

Shatter the Standards

We are dedicated to celebrating milestones, unearthing lesser-known musical gems, and promoting discussions around albums and new music that might not receive ample attention in mainstream conversations.

By Brandon O'Sullivan

The New and New-ish

Q Lazzarus - Heaven

This one is actually a carry-over from a couple weeks ago, which I’ve kept in rotation in anticipation for the documentary Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q. Lazzarus, dropping on February 22nd. This song is a previously unreleased, complete version of the Talking Heads cover sung in the film Philadelphia, directed by Jonathan Demme, who featured the late singer in his other films. It’s on the film’s soundtrack, along with many unreleased songs, which you can pre-order on Bandcamp.

(Also, today is a special Bandcamp Friday, where 100% of Bandcamp’s proceeds go towards Musicare to support those affected by last month’s greater Los Angeles wildfires).

Wiz Khalifa - Roll It Up Freestyle (JON REYES ZSHARE EDIT)

This also showed up in a group chat. Bro had me at “ZSHARE EDIT.” If you know, you know it’s an appropriately named remix because young Wiz Khalifa is definitely on the Mount Rushmore of Blog Rap. It was in that pre-streaming, mp3-link era when I initially crossed paths with Jon Reyes, founder of aforementioned group chat, producer of this remix, and one-half of a duo, DLRN, who had me guest rap on one of their songs, which got a little blog love back in the day.

Great to hear Wiz back in his primal mixtape form, when he was doing out in Pittsburgh what we were doing over here in Seattle (we did it first, he did it better). Ah, the days when rapping over contemporary Indie Rock and Electronic music samples was a New Thing, making the old heads mad and the mp3-loving kids dance.

Divide and Dissolve - Live on KEXP

This isn’t a shill. I’m sharing this recently-dropped Live on KEXP performance not because I work there, or because I’m a fan of Sounds of Survivance, co-hosted by Tory J., who hosts this live performance. I’m sharing it because playing it loud in surround sound while prepping dinner after a long day felt like a catharsis, a healing, a sonic snapshot of the present, and a reaction to it.

Not gon front, I wasn’t familiar with Divide and Dissolve, or much contemporary doom metal, before watching this. This might be my entry point. It’s foreboding, slow and heavy, alternating between soft, soothing and loud, abrasive. Imagine a collab between Andre 3000 (the flute playing version) and Alice in Chains (without vocals), and it somehow not being wack. Reading up on the band, they make it clear that one of the driving themes of their music is dismantling colonialism, genocide and white supremacy. Apropos af.

RIP Irv Gotti, who passed away this week at the age of 54. He wasn’t as well known for producing music as much as he was known for selling it, but the intro to Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s final album that he co-produced is classic. Interesting seeing a whole wave of internet rap heads only find out now that, in addition to being of Black American and Trinidadian descent, that he was part-Filipino.

A note on streaming platform playlists, plus a streaming platform playlist of last month’s songs

In the early days of this newsletter, I’ve shared songs and playlists from big streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal). Then I stopped, partly out of protest, partly to promote more artist-friendly alternatives such as Bandcamp (it’s Bandcamp Friday today, go), partly because I work in FM radio and these apps are the opps.

So what about all these YouTube links? YouTube videos get love here because 1. they pay more than other streaming services, 2. it’s the most widely used platform for listening to music worldwide, especially in so-called developing countries, and 3. there’s more music available there that isn’t available anywhere else.

All said, I’ve compiled a playlist of all the songs3 mentioned in this newsletter in January 2025, available begrudgingly on major streaming platforms 😢:

Also on Tidal & Apple Music

Last Week

Brownouts

What I Listened To This Week 2025-01-31

No, seriously, is it? The good news is that we're already 8.33% done with this year. The bad news is that there’s 91.66% left to go, and 99.99% if you're on the lunar calendar. I want to believe the answer to the question in the subheading is yes. Is it yes? I think it’s yes. No, fuck that, the answer is…

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a year ago · 6 likes · Prometheus Brown

Share Brownouts

The Newest and New-ish Joints

FKA twigs - Sticky

The liminal space between underground and mainstream, pop and avant-garde, terminally online and defiantly offline, is where most artists dream of being (even if they wont’ admit it). But also extremely difficult to remain there once one finds themself in it, the world wanting you to neatly fall somewhere, anywhere, instead of floating in ambiguity. There’s probably a political analogy there too but I’ll save that dive for another day.

FKA twigs has existed in that space, seemingly everywhere-adjacent, for longer than most who have ever made it there. Eusexua—her third studio album and first in five years—dropped last week and somehow still captured our attention in spite of totalitarianism-induced panic and ongoing out-migration from big social media. Or, perhaps because of it.

Ok, now I’m sounding like a music critic. I could draw connections between the textures and tempo and lyrics and glitchiness of the music with the current social climate but fuck all that. Just listen to it and see what I mean. This album sounds like right now.

MIKE - Pieces of a Dream

MIKE’s whole Showbiz! album just dropped today but I’ve had this song, released a couple months ago, in rotation throughout the fall-to-winter transition. It’s dope that he named this song after the song that his song sampled, which was named after the group that made the original song, which was produced by Grover Washington, Jr.

Ezale - Hang Wit Them

Ezale is Mac Dre’s spiritual successor.

I remember hearing this take around the time the DJ Mustard-produced “Too High” went sorta viral around 2016-2017. The song was dope and you couldn’t unsee/hear the obvious parallels (the flow, the beats, the MDMA). It felt too early to make such a declaration, though. Plus, Today’s Equivalent of (Insert Legend Here) debates are wack. I’m not from the Bay Area, though, so I sat out the conversation.

The more obvious uncontroversial take is that an entire generation of Bay Area rap collectively carried Mac Dre’s torch, and in many different directions. A spectrum that spans from P-Lo to Qing Qi to Seiji Oda to Larry June to G-Eazy and probably every other 21st century Bay Area rapper. But as Ezale has continued to add to his catalog, it’s become apparent that he, more than anyone over the last decade, pushes Dre’s trickster spirit in the direction it felt like it was going before his untimely death. “Hang Wit Them” off his latest album Town Taxes, which also includes last year’s “Do It All Night” makes it official for me.

KOOL A.D. - PROMETHEAN RHAPSODY

As soon as I saw the song title, I thought “why didn’t I think of that?” Then I listened to all 24 minutes and let it go. Felt like I was half hearing my own thoughts about 2024, half hearing an old friend give updates on what they been up to, half hearing a wise, weathered unc drop game on how to survive 2025. Yes, I realize that’s three halves but that’s the point. The math hasn’t been mathing for awhile, and this guy been knowing before all y’all.

Everything Else In The Mix

• Dead Pioneers - My Spirit Animal Ate Your Spirit Animal

• Eddie Chacon - Good Sun

• Travis Thompson - Dreamy Suburbia

• Marco Kane feat. Otayo Dubb & Equipto - Green Card

• Glorilla - Yeah Glo! Finals remix

• Larry June, 2 Chainz & The Alchemist - Bad Choices

• Yonny - Hood Spirituals

• Laura Branigan - Gloria

Last Week

Brownouts

What I Listened To This Week 2025-01-24

The new releases just keep coming. Musicians and DJs dropping new shit like the world’s about to end or something. Meanwhile, it’s the one’s who have been around the longest who remind us why they’ve been around the longest…

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a year ago · 5 likes · Prometheus Brown

I joined KEXP as a fill-in DJ in September 2023. Fall 2023 was like my training camp and 2024 became my rookie year as a FM radio DJ. At the time, I set no quantitative goals, focusing more on qualitative ones: grow more familiar and confident with show preparation and execution, acquire technical proficiency, deepen my music knowledge, meet new people, etc. I hit the ground running in January filling in for at least one show a week, sometimes two or three. Later in the year, DJ Vitamin D, after seeing me so often filling in the slots before and after his show on Thursday night, anointed me the station’s Sixth Man of the Year. I’ll take it.

There’s pros and cons to being a fill-in DJ. Pros: flexible schedule, leeway to say yes or no to any fill-in slot offered, reaching different audiences in different time slots. Cons: volatility of show frequency (some weeks I had several shows, some I had none), less rapport with a regular recurring audience. I recently chatted with the homie who is a multiple-subject substitute teacher. We realized that our work situations are very similar. Except he never has to teach at 1am, and I get to wear my house clothes to those graveyard shifts.

Whatever the challenges, I loved having the excuse to listen to, research, and play music all day, everyday, and be around music heads. No exaggeration—the community of 49 KEXP DJs might be the most musically knowledgeable collection of 49 people in the world. Walking music encyclopedias who drop gems and engage with audiences on air, and share and discuss deep cuts with each other off air.

The average KEXP listener has a deeply eclectic musical palate, so variety and originality is expected. Especially for the variety mix shows, where I usually landed, and enjoyed the freedom of moving in and out of genre, space and time. I constantly stayed up on new releases while deep diving into old ones, listening to more music in 2024 than in any year of my life previously. I strove to keep my playlists interesting, honoring the DJ I filled in for and their audience, trying to offer something unique alongside what is already unique, world-class radio programming.

Most of all, I approached every show as an act of resistance; a human voice threading stories through songs, interacting with fellow humans doing something together simultaneously. It felt sometimes like I was holding down a human fortress surrounded by robot invaders, where the colonizers are music streaming platform algorithms, For You playlists, and “ghost artists.”

Entering my sophomore radio DJ year, I wanted to celebrate the Ws and learn from the Ls of last year. Spot trends. Explore the choices I made. Set new goals and areas for improvements.

Let’s dig in.

2024 By The Numbers

• 61 shows across 19 different time slots

• 75 cups of coffee

• 213 hours on air

• 2732 song plays

• 2503 unique songs played

• Ranked 15 (out of 51) among all DJs for total # of unique songs played

• 1987 unique albums played

Honestly, 61 ended up being more shows than I thought I’d do. That even includes some weeks off, like the Spring and Fall fund drives, when all the regular DJs are on deck.

According to this chart for radio noobs created by a ChatGPT prompt for “How long does it take to become a good radio DJ?”, I earned my Proficient badge this past year. Gotta say, the bullet points for each benchmark have been accurate so far.

I’m also bigging up myself for my playlist variability. 91.6% of all the songs I’ve played, I was playing for my first time. True, it’s easy to hit a 90%+ new songs metric if you haven’t been around long enough to build a big list of songs you’ve played already. But if you have favorite songs and you fulfill requests often, it’s harder than it sounds, and harder as time passes. But the world music catalog is vast, so I’m challenging myself to get my play-songs-I’ve-never-played ratio to 95% this year. Even with song requesters, which includes a contingent of the same people often asking to hear the same songs over and over again. Year five, if I get there, I’m aiming for an outlandish 99%.

The Top 52 Songs I Played in 2024

1. Khingz - The Yotty Button (5)
2. Four Tet - Daydream Repeat (5)
3. Future Islands - The Tower (5)
4. Hollis - Less Like (5)
5. Gabriel Teodros - Fire Season, Pt. 2 (5)
6. Steely Dan - Hey Nineteen (5)
7. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - Love$ick (4)
8. Chenayder & MAVI - Colors (4)
9. Chong the Nomad - Shake Step (4)
10. Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - How We Do (4)
11. Denzel Curry, TiaCorine & A$AP Ferg - HOT ONE (4)
12. Black Ends - Bent (4)
13. Invincible - No Compromises (4)
14. The Physics - Seward Park (4)
15. Brittany Davis - Goons (4)
16. Angélica Garcia - Ángel (Eterna) (4)
17. Nate Mercereau - This Simulation Is a Good One (4)
18. salute feat. Sam Gellaitry - maybe it’s u (4)
19. Tomo Nakayama - Contigo (4)
20. Rocky Rivera - Brown Babies (4)
21. Gabriel Teodros - An Open Letter to My Cousins in Israel (3)
22. Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Travis Thompson - KALEIDOSCOPE (3)
23. Whodini - Five Minutes of Funk (3)
24. Sade - Kiss of Life (3)
25. Mk.gee - ROCKMAN (3)
26. Revival Season feat. Shaheed Goodie - Pump (3)
27. Chinese American Bear - Feelin’ Fuzzy (毛绒绒的感觉) (3)
28. Tierra Whack - 27 CLUB (3)
29. Tierra Whack - SHOWER SONG (3)
30. GloRilla - Yeah Glo! (3)
31. Shabazz Palaces feat. Stas THEE Boss & Irene Barber - Angela (3)
32. Charli XCX - 360 (3)
33. Nilüfer Yanya - Like I Say (I runaway) (3)
34. Girl Ultra - rimel (3)
35. Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice (3)
36. Toro y Moi - Walking in the Rain (3)
37. Keanu Nelson - Kapi Tina (3)
38. NxWorries - 86Sentra (3)
39. Hiatus Kaiyote - Everything’s Beautiful (3)
40. Mustafa - Gaza is Calling (3)
41. Nobi & The Force - Master Peace (3)
42. André 3000 - I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a “Rap” Album but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time (3)
43. Klassy - Go Again (3)
44. Ibibio Sound Machine - Pull the Rope (3)
45. The Marías - Run Your Mouth (3)
46. Kali Uchis - Young Rich & In Love (3)
47. Four Tet - Loved (3)
48. Nipsey Hussle ft. Vernardo - Be Here for a While (3)
49. Saint Levant, MC Abdul - Deira (3)
50. Thee Sacred Souls - Live for You (3)
51. Ruby Ibarra - Bakunawa (3)
52. Sonny Singh - Koi Bol Ram (3)

Of the 2503 unique songs I played in 2024, 52 were played three or more times (6 songs five times, 14 songs four times, 31 songs three times). As the year went on, I tended to choose songs that I had played either only once, or never played before. Or, even better, songs that nobody has ever played before. So, songs that topped this list were more likely played in the first half of the year, yielding to more varied playlists in the second half.

The six songs I played the most, I think I played for emotional reasons. All these songs either resonate personally or reflect a mood I’m in, and as much as I’ve played them on air, I played them even more off air. Still do. Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen,” which I keep in my live DJ playlists, also got the replay treatment when I started a tradition during my Overnight (1am-5am) fill-in shows, playing Yacht Rock towards the end of my shift. Because nothing makes more sense at 430am if you’ve been up all night than some Yacht Rock.

Four artists make the list more than once. Tierra Whack appears twice with two songs from the same album, with “27 CLUB” and the 1 minute, 47 seconds-long “SHOWER SONG.” Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band and Four Tet also appear with two songs from the same album, and Gabriel Teodros appears twice with two songs from two different albums, and. So it would make sense that these artists would also appear in the most-played albums and artists lists ahead.

Most Played Albums in 2024

1. Brittany Davis - Image Issues (11)
2. Angélica Garcia - Gemelo (9)
3. Future Islands - People Who Aren’t There Anymore (8)
4. Chinese American Bear - Wah!!! (8)
5. Tierra Whack - WORLD WIDE WHACK (8)
6. Klassy - Good Seeds (8)
7. Steely Dan - Gaucho (7)
8. Kendrick Lamar - GNX (7)
9. Rocky Rivera - Nom de Guerre (7)
10. Khruangbin - A LA SALA (7)

Technically, Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band’s BRSB is the album I played the most in 2024 (13 times). As an instrumental album, those plays were mostly made for the purpose of playing something in the background during talk breaks. So, not counting that album, the album I played most was Britanny Davis’ Image Issues. Angélica Garcia’s Gemelo (9) and Future Islands’ People Who Aren’t There Anymore rounded out the top three. All three of those albums, in addition to being albums that I actually liked, benefited from dropping early in 2024 and having many listeners request songs from those albums during my shows as the year progressed.

Interestingly, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and Khruangbin’s A LA SALA both made my top 10 most played albums list without having a single entry in my top 52 most-played songs list. It speaks to the overall quality of those albums—no single song or two standing above the rest. Both also had frequent listener requests. Notably, GNX was released on November 22nd, making this list even though it was around for just five of the year’s 52 weeks.

Most Played Artists in 2024

1. Gabriel Teodros (15)
2. Tierra Whack (14)
3. The Physics (14)
4. Brittany Davis (13)
5. Kendrick Lamar (13)
6. Chong the Nomad (12)
7. Toro y Moi (12)
8. Khingz (10)
9. Chinese American Bear (10)
10. Four Tet (10)

Of my top ten most played artists, five (nos. 1, 3, 4, 8, 9) are Seattle artists. It’s not a hard rule but, keeping in tradition that goes back to the KCMU days, every DJ is encouraged throw at least one local song in the mix per hour (local also includes the greater Pacific Northwest). I tend to play two or three an hour, sometimes four or five.

Four of these ten artists I know personally, and, sure, there’s some homie bias there. But real shit, these are all artists I’d be a fan of if I didn’t know them, and they all deserve more shine than they’ve gotten so far. Seeing them pop up frequently on some of my fellow DJ’s playlists, I know I’m not alone.

Reflecting on Gabriel Teodros being in my top most-played artist spot, there’s a perfect storm of reasons. As a former KEXP DJ, he’s legit left many listeners who do actually request his music. Also, in his time as a DJ (when I wasn’t) he played my music often, so I’m lowkey returning him the favor. But the biggest factor was that his album From the Ashes of Our Homes, released late 2023, stayed in rotation through early 2024. One song in particular, “Open Letter to My Cousins in Israel,” resonated, unfortunately, as Israel continued to commit genocide in Gaza throughout the year. I was particularly moved to play it more than once after a fellow DJ received a physically threatening message from a listener for playing it.

O.K. Now What?

I went through most of 2024 collecting memories, not metrics. It wasn’t until the end of the year, when I did my annual review with the DJ manager, that I zoomed out and audited my own data, and I’m glad I did.

We hear so much about “data-driven decisions,” often pushed by big tech companies and a culture of capitalism-fueled production and efficiency maximization. Big Data Energy. On a very basic level, all decisions are data-driven, whether its done via instinct or algorithm. It’s what the data is, how it’s collected, what it’s used for—y’know, context and purpose—that determine whether or not I’m down with it. I believe in Small Data, and what you’ve read is an example of it, and more of it will follow in this here publication.

Thanks for reading. Download the KEXP Mobile App or bookmark KEXP.org to stream the live on-air feed or an archived show (goes back two weeks).

Addendum (2025-01-28):

I’ve been asked how I keep track of my data. I have a master spreadsheet that I add to manually on a show-by-show basis (we can download .csv files of any show or time frame), and there are also dashboards for internal use that allow searching and sorting data from the playlist database, that has kept track of every song played by every KEXP DJ since 2001, when the station transformed from KCMU and began streaming online. All playlist info is public, and posted in the real-time playlist.

Some playlist data dashboards that access the public historic playlist information are independently maintained, such as the long-running kexplorer.org, which seems to be currently offline. An alternative, kexp.fmspins.com has since been set up.

The new releases just keep coming. Musicians and DJs dropping new shit like the world’s about to end or something. Meanwhile, it’s the one’s who have been around the longest who remind us why they’ve been around the longest.

The Newest and New-ish

Zentronix - Music for the Apocalypse Imminent

Zentronix is the online moniker of writer (and scholar, organizer, DJ) Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop and other books, including the forthcoming Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America. Real heads also know him as DJ Zen, co-founder of the Solesides Collective. Like me, he recently kicked his Substack newsletter back into gear after a hiatus and dropped this mix on that day when we celebrated MLK’s life and legacy, the old president became the new president, and the richest man in the world did that gross, goofy salute but wouldn’t stand on business. Frenetic, high-BPM most of the way through before abruptly mellowing out into some kind of fatigued optimism—this was the perfect soundtrack for that weird day.

De La Soul feat. Choklate - Bigger

It’s been dope seeing Choklate, a fixture of the 2000s-2010s Seattle hip-hop and R&B scene (now based in LA), featured on songs with some certified legends recently. Last year, it was with Moby, and just this past week, an unreleased De La Soul loosie surfaces, with everyone sounding as good as they ever did. It was recorded during the 2004 sessions that resulted in The Grind Date, though it didn’t make the album. This def sounds like the mid 00s version of Chok, and it turns out the connection this album has to Seattle goes deeper than the two Jake One-produced songs, including the album’s legendary finale. For a song that’s older than streaming platforms itself, this one sounds refreshingly fresh.

Cymande - Chasing An Empty Dream

Nearly all things that get slapped with the label “timeless” just aren’t. Especially music. Sure, some songs and albums have longevity. But they’re still of a particular era. So I’ll avoid the pretense of calling Cymande’s music, whether it was released in the early 1970s or now, “timeless,” as tempting as it is. “Chasing An Empty Dream,” the lead single off Renascence, their first album in 40 (!!!) years, doesn’t just sound impossibly both like an early 70s song and something made yesterday, it feels spacetime-transcendent.

A large part of this is owed to the fact that, in the time gap between this song and their last album, the British band’s unique blend of music traditions of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora with soul and funk lived many more lives as breakbeats and samples for hip-hop artists. That they not only lived to witness this, but returned to form after 40 years apart, is a remarkable story that bookends not just their career, but perhaps an entire cultural era.

Ebo Taylor, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad - Ebo Taylor JID 022 (Jazz Is Dead)

One of the dope things about working radio in the 2020s is getting the plug on albums early, when only parts of the forthcoming album are currently available. Legally, that is. That’s the case with this album, the Ghanian legend Ebo Taylor’s first in seven years, dropping at age 90.

This record is warm. Funk, psychedelia, and jazz across generations and continents. Two songs, “Obra Akyedzi” and “Obi Do Woa (If Someone Loves You)” are available to stream now. The whole thing drops on the 31st. Between listening to this record and Cymande’s Renascence (which also drops on the 31st), it feels like the upper limits of how youthful one can sound when nearing the century mark is being tested now more than ever.

Damon Locks - Click

I appreciate spoken word poetry on the stage, and I hold in high regard music-poetry legends like The Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron on one end and Leonard Cohen on the other. But tbh I’m usually underwhelmed by most spoken word poetry set to music.

This is a rare track that cleared the high bar for me. Played this track off Chicago multidisciplinary artist Damon Locks’s new album, List of Demands, on the radio on filling in on the KEXP Overnight slot this week. At first, it was the instrumental that kept my attention, but as the song continued, I was drawn by the actual writing and delivery. Not doing too much, not saying much that stuck as quotable but saying just enough, with enough intrigue, to get me to shut my own brain off and absorb it all. Not sure if a Nihilistic Saul Williams vibe is what mans was going for (“List of Demands” is literally the title of a Saul Williams song), but I dug it. Something I’d mostly bump on solitary drives and walks.

Busta Rhymes feat. YG Marley - Treasure and Gold

The closing track of Busta Bus’s new EP, Dragon Season… The Awakening. While his peers put out music in the past year largely returning to their 90s roots, doing what’s familiar. Or, pivoting to something else completely, Busta finds a happy medium, sounding both like the Busta we’ve always known but also presenting himself in a slightly different way, fully Patois’d out. No surprise, though. Since the beginning, he’d switch his flow from song to song, his intensity from bar to bar, perhaps solidifying the spot of being the most dynamically ranged rapper not named DMX, unmatched by any rapper alive.

What Else I Listened To

• 24-7 Spyz - We’ll Have Power

• Sanchiko Kanenobu - Anata Kara Toku E

• Yuma Abe - That Feels Good

• clipping. - Change the Channel

• Freda Payne - I Get High (On Your Memory)

• Electric Light Orchestra - Believe Me Now

• Nala Sinephro - Continuum 6

  
  

What a week. Let’s dive in.

Khingz/KA.lil - Midnight In The Garden

Fun fact: Khingz’ The Yotty Button was the song I played the most times on air at KEXP in 2023. I was in a mood, looking inward, and so was he. Kinda still am. Grown man rap from around my way that I can relate to. Today is the release date of his latest, Midnight In The Garden (album artwork by Lacan, design by Gabriel Teodros), that continues the theme of his latest records.

Brother Ali - Handwriting

More introspective grown man rap. Brother Ali and I have crossed paths many times, and it’s been years since the last crossing, but something about his music in recent years makes me feel like we just talked yesterday. This song, one of five he’s dropped in advance of his forthcoming album, Satisfied Soul (produced entirely by Ant), was hipped to me by Gabriel Teodros a few Fridays ago over coffee. It’s stayed in rotation since. Speaking of GT, he and Ali had a great convo awhile back that I highly recommend.

I played Berlin and Ramallah-based Palestinian artist Muqata’a’s “Zyadet Naqs” while filling in on KEXP’s Afternoon Show on Wednesday, and read immediately after the next air break that news of a ceasefire deal had been reached to end Israel’s 15-month war in Gaza. I want to be optimistic, as Israeli airstrikes have continued. The whole record, La Lisana Lah - لا ل​ِ​س​َ​ا​ن​َ ل​َ​ه, is excellent, as is Muqata’a Bandcamp discography, and his previous pioneering work with Ramallah Underground.

Eraserheads - With a Smile
Nine Inch Nails - Came Back Haunted

Like many of you, I was saddened by David Lynch’s passing yesterday. But seeing the outpouring of tributes reminded me of his massive influence beyond cinema—especially amongst musicians and music lovers. Even my son, who’s in middle school, asked if I had heard the news. I revisited a handful of music videos he’s directed, including the very Lynchian Nine Inch Nails “Came Back Haunted” video. I also thought about the Philippine band Eraserheads, who was in heavy rotation throughout my middle school years. Lead vocalist Ely Buendia recently reflected in an interview with Rolling Stone on the band’s name “I wouldn’t have named the band Eraserheads if I didn’t respond to the movie or Lynch somehow. I enjoy surrealism and dreamy stuff — that kind of atmosphere where you don’t really know what you’re looking at or what you’re listening to.”

Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - Lost In Emotion

I played this song, my favorite Lisa Lisa song ever, on the radio and several listeners tapped in to show appreciation. Several people slid into my DMs to link me to this trailer for Can You Feel The Beat - The Lisa Lisa Story, premiering on Lifetime on February 1, 2025 9pm PST for those who, somehow, still haven’t cut the cable cord. These low-budget made-for-cable-TV biopics have gone from guilty pleasure to just straight up pleasure over the years, and I actually prefer them to self-serious big bag Hollywood productions.

DJDAPS1 - Sade.

About a year ago, my mans DJ Daps1 dropped a mix of all things Sade called Sade. that aren’t easily accessible on mainstream streaming platforms—remixes, instrumentals, deep cuts—and blended them all together in a seamless 63-minute listen. Since yesterday was her birthday (and Aaliyah and FKA Twigs’s) I threw this mix back on while I showered and folded laundry and it was a glorious domestic morning. I also still got “Young Lion,” a solo offering (as Sade Adu) from the Red Hot Organization’s TRA​​​И​​​Ƨ​​​A compilation in rotation.

Madlib - Shades of Blue

Among the many impacted by the greater Los Angeles wildfires last week, a handful of musicians lost their homes, including jazz legend Bobby Bradford, saxophonist and composer Steven Lehman, and rapper/producer Madlib. Played some cuts off this one on the air this week, and let it run front-to-back at home, as I’ve done many times over many years. It’s tragic to hear these stories, and so many more who have been displaced are in need. For those with the means to help monetarily and materially, please donate to or help circulate this running list of GoFundMe pages for Displaced Black Families, which includes links to Latine and Filipino families, Disabled folks, and many others affected.

From South African artist Moonchild Sanelly off her new album Full Moon. This is just unapologetically joyful and dope, which is some energy I need to end this week on before I go rap onstage tomorrow night and DJ on Sunday afternoon .

Also in rotation:

• Perfume Genius - It’s a Mirror

• Yazmin Lacey - The Feels

• Budgie - Lovers On Ice

• SZA feat. Kendrick Lamar - 30 for 30

• Rell Be Free feat. Khingz - Cacti

• The Main Ingredient - California My Way

• MF Doom - Hoe Cakes (Jake One remix)

• Lowkey - Vietnam (GT remix)
  
  
  
  

For all the f*ckshit that happened last year, 2024 was a renaissance for auntie and uncle rappers. Legends came out of nowhere and dropped decent records. Some say it was the whole Hip-hop turns 50 thing from 2023 that catalyzed it. Or, it was the big emotional rap beef between two not-so-young-anymore titans in the rap game. Maybe it’s the feeling that capitalism isn’t doing art any favors and we’re increasingly resolved to doing it simply for the love of the culture before civilization collapses.

Whatever the case, I got caught up in it too. I started the year off focused on putting in work as a DJ, which I did, but somehow ended the year sitting on a handful of new rap-songs-in-progress alongside unreleased material that suddenly doesn’t sound as wack as I initially thought it did. And I got by with a little help from my friends.

Recent Songs I Rapped On

As long as I’ve known Rocky Rivera, from rocking shows on the same bill, to being long-time members of the Beatrock Music roster, we’ve never collaborated on a song together (although we’ve both been featured on others’ tracks). So when she reached out to have me feature on a song on her latest album, Long Kiss Goodnight (with producer Otayo Dubb), it felt past due, but the timing couldn’t have been better since we’re now both on this whole elder-in-training protect-your-energy listen-to-your-auntie-and-uncle vibe.

I knocked the verse out in a couple days but sat on it and wanted to redo the whole thing because of the “tried to medicate it, tried to meditate it” line. Just a week or so after I laid my verse, I heard the artist formerly known as Kanye say the same line almost verbatim on a new joint he featured on with Ghostface. Ultimately, I decided that Ye doesn’t deserve the power to make me change my shit, so I didn’t give it to him.

Marco Kane is newest artist to the BRM roster. Bambu first introduced me to his work on a car ride some years ago, and I remember being drawn in immediately to the noir, the rawness. Reminded me of the dark cinematic mood of, say, Roc Marciano or Ka (RIP), evinced in his 2021 album Marco From the P, and followed up with even more depth and urgency with Brown Boy, which dropped in December, and which I’m proud to have contributed a verse to on the track Brown Boys.

Inspired by hearing Marco’s rapping and finding out his family background, I ended up writing a verse that became the first and, currently, only verse in my lyrical oeuvre where I’ve spit multiple bars in Ilocano, the language of my upbringing before 1980s American public school educators convinced my parents to stop encouraging me to speak it. A handful of those bars were lowkey co-written by my grandmoms (both of em). Like “mangabak-ak manen” (I win again), which stuck from memories of from playing cards with them.

Dope Shit From My Peoples

Bambu dropped a surprise album in mid-November that, without question, is the best album title of 2024: If You See Someone Stealing Food… No, You Didn’t. No lie, this album probably captured how 2024 felt more than any other record I heard last year.

He ended up using a Fatgums beat that I had already started writing to, but his song was hella doper than mine would’ve been so I wasn’t mad at it. I should’ve suspected that a whole album would materialize when I asked him just a couple months earlier in September when we did a The Bar show together at FPAC and he responded “I got one or two songs I’m working on.”

Bam and I rapping together again as The Bar in Seattle for the first time in years this Saturday, January 18 at Khingz’ Midnight In the Garden album release at Clock-Out Lounge. And hopefully recording a new cut real quick.

Congrats to Ruby Ibarra, who dropped an incredible new song and self-directed video in September, booked Bam and I to perform at FPAC, headlined an incredible all-woman lineup in Los Angeles in October, and became a new mother in November.

Here’s a cut she had me featured on 12 (!!!) years ago:

My bro Gabriel Teodros, who has a dope Substack newsletter, Worldwide Underground, that I hope you’re already subscribing to, produced a bunch of remixes of select 2024 rap songs and compiled them all for free to download and stream right here. The platform it’s on is untitled.stream, which is incredibly dope and, trust me, you’ll want to download it because 1. it’s free af, 2. no algos, 3. I’ll be uploading things to it very soon.

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This past December, I filled in on all four episodes of KEXP’S Eastern Echoes—a weekly (Thursdays, 7pm-10pm) specialty show highlighting music from Asia and the Asian diaspora—while regular host and fellow SEA Vinyl Society DJ Diana Ratsamee spent the month in Asia. Diana knows her stuff, so I had big shoes to fill. Preparing for 12 hours worth of music to air presented an opportunity to go down many Asian and Asian diaspora music rabbit holes. Here are highlights from that journey.

Haruomi Hosono - Hosono House Revisited

The retro-futuristic warmth of Japanese 70s/80s music is to the current internet generation (2010s-present) what 70s American funk and soul was to the mid 90s-late 00s hip-hop generation. A source of samples and inspiration that lived on in record collections and new music that sounded like old music. As a result, 77-year old Haruomi Hosono, a towering figure in multiple genres and generations of Japanese music, has been getting all kinds of rightfully deserved flowers in the late stages of a legendary career.

Hosono’s 1974 solo debut Hosono House, which is arguably bigger now than at any point in it’s 50-year history, has been reissued and re-recorded many times over. Stones Throw Records adds to the lore, recently releasing Hosono House Revisited with contemporary artists on both sides of the Pacific reworking the original album’s songs. Well-intentioned cover albums run the risk of creating mutant abominations1 of originals that would’ve been better left alone. But this one avoids that trap. It’s a credit to how versatile, fluid and genre-blending Hosono was, and to how versatile, fluid and genre-blending today’s artists are.

Ayo Ke Disco: Boogie Pop & Funk from the South China Sea (1974-1978)

I have mixed feelings about vinyl reissues of out-of-print Asian (and African, Caribbean, Latin and Arab) music.

On one hand, it’s dope that previously unheralded musicians, hard-to-find records, and under-appreciated music scenes from the so-called Global South get the love and credit they deserve. The reverence for the music—and, more importantly, the people who make it—is apparent when you see what labels like Soundway have done to reintroduce this music to a new generation, and preserve the music for generations to come. Artists careers have been revived, sometimes resulting in new music. Music palettes expand along with opportunities for musicians. The more curious listeners find an entry point to learn more about the people and cultures the music comes from.

Then, the dark side. Cutthroat competition between curators who hunt obscure IP like Pokémon, repackaging cultures they’re barely connected to, de-contextualizing the work before feeding it to the de-contextualizing machine (The Internet). Sometimes, shoddy research misidentifies artists and origin stories. Too often, music journalists push the narrative of “lost” music that has been “discovered.” Kinda like how a colonizer “discovers” land… that people are already living on. Sometimes it feels like some kind of Nostalgic Exotification thing is happening with these records. Did I just coin that term?2

Putting nostalgic exotification aside (to the extent one can), it brings me relief to say that this wonderful compilation, Ayo Ke Disco: Boogie, Pop & Funk from the South China Sea (1974-1978), is a Soundway release. You can hear and feel the appreciation for the music and the people in its research and curation, which was handled by Norsicaa, who self-identifies as semi-Asian. Legendary DJ and tastemaker Gilles Peterson called it the best compilation of 2024, and he’s probably right. Part of me wants to believe that the centering of Southeast Asia—Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Hong Kong—while using the term “South China Sea” in the album title is subversive commentary on China’s disputes with these countries over contested maritime territory.

The lone Philippines song on the comp, Regalado’s “Pinoy Funk,” has never been available on streaming platforms until now. Prior, you had to scour the internet for a low quality digitization or land a rare 7” 45 rpm copy, which last sold on Discogs in 2021 for $400. Since the comp dropped, I’ve heard this song played at several events with Filipino DJs. But your mans (me) was the first DJ to ever play it on KEXP (twice), before the reissue.

Shoko Igarashi - Nesty GAL

Straight outta Yamagata! I don’t know much about the artist but this song was requested by a listener and I’m glad they did because it’s dope and now I’m a fan.

懷舊區 要爆的細胞 - 鄺美雲
Cally Kwong - The Glamorous Life

I brought in my mans DJ Daps1 on as a guest DJ on the December 19th Eastern Echoes episode. We traded sets, and his sets were live mixes done exclusively with Asian records from his extensive vinyl collection. One set was all Asian covers of Western pop songs. In that set was Cantopop singer Cally Kwong’s cover of Sheila E.’s “The Glamorous Life.” It was glamorous. Before the night was over, Daps played this other record and earned the distinct honor of being the first person to ever play a song on KEXP by legendary Hong Kong thespian Chow-Yun Fat.

Bumbu Sauce - Mojambo

I can’t remember where, exactly, I came across this Pakistani punk band and their music. Probably a Reddit thread or Discord post that linked to their Soundcloud page whilst I dug around for non-traditional music from South Asia. Bumbu Sauce’s 2011 EP, Bistee Proof, and this song in particular, “Mojambo,” immediately stood out for its sound quality, which is very different from most music, of any genre, from Pakistan, especially from this era. I dug deeper and found an explanation for this. Although they were formed in Islamabad, the band traveled to Ontario, Canada to record this EP with a producer named Nick Blagona, whose career from 1974 until his death in 2020 included producing or engineering for hundreds of artists, including the Bee Gees and Biohazard.

What Else I’m Listening To

• Bambu - Watch’awt (GT Remix)

• Bad Bunny - LO QUE LE PASO A HAWAii

• FLY ANAKIN - YOUGOTME

• SPELLLING - Portrait of My Heart

• TOKiMONSTA feat. group therapy - Feel It

• I.S.H & Longstocking - Palestine (EMUH Remix)

• Q Lazzarus - Goodbye Horses (New Wave Version)

• Tom Misch feat. Loyle Carner - Colourblind