photos: Barrio on Capitol Hill

I took a trip to Capitol Hill's Barrio Restaurant with Seattle Met's resident food and drink writer Jessica Voelker (Sauced Blog) to visit the chic spot and their all-star bartender.

feature: Khingz comes full circle

As Khalil Equiano began his set at the Chop Suey album release party for his highly anticipated solo debut From Slaveships to Spaceships, there was nothing but good vibes and positivity. Opening with the track “Full Circle” and rapping “I’m right back where I started / In the south of the city where the rain and my heart is,” every so often his trademark braids would shake free, flying out with his passionate words.

Seattle has latched onto the 30-year-old MC, also known as Khingz, and the show was a “family affair.” Aside from the prominent Seattle hip-hoppers on stage including Gabriel Teodros, Nam, The Physics and Spaceman, numerous local hip-hop luminaries in the crowd made appearances to show him love. The intimacy of the venue became a perfect showcase for the rapper who got to see his words translate into action, fueling a crowd pushed together despite differences in age, race or neighborhood. And though the small stage could barely contain his energy, Khingz gave it everything he had. Before ripping into the set’s last track, he stepped back and created a sober moment amidst the celebration.

“Standing up here is a blessing,” he said, emotion palpable beneath his voice. “I didn’t have any plans to make it past 21.”

This one-time short-term outlook was the result of nearly a decade of gangbanging as a 47th Ave. Santana Blocc crip that began at age 10; at 15 he was shot twice. Being so deeply involved in the city's South End/Central District conflict is something impossible to completely escape, and while Khingz doesn’t glamorize a gangster-rap image, he doesn’t shy away from the realities of street life.

“I feel like every weekend we’re losing another kid, and so every weekend I get murdered and it hurts,” he said. “And it fucks with me really hard too, because when I was younger I was a part of that shit. I didn’t say no when I was a kid, and I can see how my not saying no lead to other people not saying no.”

But for Khingz, his approach to the city itself and the music that’s produced here are very different. The album's flowing sound echoes the vibe that's come to represent Seattle hip-hop, not harmless or soft but without a doubt conscious. From race relations to coming up as a "thug nerd," he creates a portrait based on pure lyricism that results in one of the best hip-hop albums of the year, from Seattle or otherwise.

“Honestly, the thing I like best about the album is that I made it at the right time,” he said. “A couple friends got shot up, I lost a girlfriend, moved, had the financial issues and a lot of friction with cats I came up with. When I was going through a lot of shit, making this album helped me get through a rough time.”

Khingz has a wide array of talents, and his solo project utilizes the full arsenal. On the track “Pony Boy,” he challenges the stereotypes he dealt with in the multicultural South End of Seattle: "I'm an outsider / Blacks, Latinos, and Asians / And the white girls love me 'cause I'm black and I'm skating." Meanwhile, “Blaq Han Solo” — maybe the best track on the album, despite the fact that he nearly left it off — showcases his ability to write a “ghetto love hymn.” Ultimately, the record delves into a deeper mental understanding that channels the rapper’s struggle into a powerful message.

“I’m coming from a personal and a political stance, which are really very closely aligned,” he said. “In the political stance, I’m talking about scientific mental colonization that happens when a group of people is never really free. On a personal level it’s about seeing how that colonization played out in my life, with gangbanging, selling drugs, doing things that I thought were necessary at the time. For me, this album started off and ended with my own personal breaking of those shackles.”

As people milled about the venue and spilled outside, seemingly nobody was in a hurry to leave the welcoming atmosphere. In many ways, the performance was a product not only of his Khingz life as a gangbanger in the South End or his work on the other side of the struggle as a youth and community programs volunteer, but a representation of his complete self-destruction and reincarnation. It’s the culmination of his transformation into a man of honor, and his tale of liberation is as inspiring as he intended it to be.

photos: Seattle EPA Rally

On May 22, a few hundred Earth-loving Seattleites flocked to the EPA hearings addressing a recent ruling that global warming pollution is a threat to public health and welfare. It was one of two in the nation, and I couldn't help but stop by.

The first two are pictures of a young girl I spotted, semi-symbolically toying with a globe balloon she snagged from a passerby. Adorable and very well-behaved.

The last three are of some of the costumed demonstrators (who actually ended up interacting as I left). The first was a polar bear that seemingly mimicked the two-man Chinese Lion Dance; the two inside did a great job, and the costume itself was actually pretty impressive. Soon after, I ran into "plastic bag man." No more needs to be said. Then the two met each other, with hilarious (?) results.

photos: Ballard's Syttende Mai Parade

Norwegian Constitution Day, or "Grunnlovsdag" — commonly known as "Syttende Mai" (the 17th of May) — is a celebration of the day in 1814 when Norway’s constitution was signed in the town of Eidsvoll, Norway.

In Seattle, the day has been celebrated since 1889 in the waterfront Ballard neighborhood. Some say Ballard has the biggest Syttende Mai parade outside of Norway, driven by its large Scandinavian population who descend from fishers who settled near the port generations ago.

This is a quick glimpse of the new generation through a shot I snapped while enjoying the festivities.

feature: SOL Makes His Mark

Sol Moravia-Rosenberg started rapping when he was in the fifth grade. Back then, it was just him fooling around with his cousins.

By age 12, he was already in the studio, improving at such a rapid pace that an album was never an option. For the UW sophomore, now known as SOL, this was the beginning of a process he refers to often: artist development.

“Before I knew it, I was a rapper,” he said. “I would listen to my brother’s CDs and my cousin’s CDs, and I would learn all the words and come up with my own lyrics. I would be rapping on top of “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” with the same delivery DMX has. And before I knew it, I was writing songs.”

When SOL and his cousin parted ways at age 15, he began his solo career; this is when he exploded as a musician, taking drum lessons and regularly practicing singing and rapping. It still wasn’t time for an album — according to Rosenberg, puberty made him “sound like a chipmunk” — but that only drove him to work harder.

“It takes a lot more to be a good hip-hop artist than one might think,” he said. “It’s not just talking over the beat — a bad rapper can talk over a beat and rhyme. There’s a lot of music involved in making good music.”

From an early age, Rosenberg paid for booth time at Seattle recording studio Undercaste. He would be assigned homework every week, sent home to write songs and develop ideas. It was a slow process, but it taught him to get things right the first time. And he had heart; instead of settling, music was always about improvement. Everything he’s done so far led up to his debut album.

“I was a student to the game and the culture of hip-hop. I grew up within the culture because I was always listening to hip-hop, but this was the business side; I was a sponge, and I feel lucky that I was dropped into that situation.”

Recorded at Undercaste, most of his February-released debut LP The Ride was co-produced by Captain Midnite and Isaac Meek, but SOL makes it clear that he was the executive producer. There’s no question that the album is his from top to bottom, taking the listener on a journey of sounds and ideas.

The album is, as Rosenberg describes it, just like Seattle: two-thirds dark and rainy, one-third sunny and beautiful. On The Ride, SOL talks about socioeconomics, race, class and poverty. He doesn’t explicitly draw his family into the rhymes, but his parents give him global context; though they met at the UW, his mother was born and raised in Haiti, while his father's family emigrated from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution.

“Instead of creating a character on the microphone, what I really did was find out more about myself and bring this realness that I have as being multi-ethnic and immersed in the hip-hop culture for so long,” he said. “I have no problem just being me.”

Influenced by Eldridge Cleaver’s prison essay compilation “Soul on Ice,” “Heart of Ice” stands as one of the album’s most complex and moving tracks. In it, SOL fiercely denounces prejudice via the persona of Bigger Thomas, antihero of Richard Wright's classic "Native Son." Even “Spliff,” as a stoner groove with an infectious beat and catchy Notorious B.I.G. sample, displays SOL’s schooling in hip-hop history.

“The writing in my music is something I take really seriously,” Sol said. “I’m not dealing with hunger or starvation, I’m not dealing with daily violence, but these are realities that people I know and people that I care about and people in general deal with. It’s my responsibility, almost as a sociologist, and as a storyteller, to talk about these things.”

The past month has been big for SOL: he’s done a radio appearance on KEXP’s Streetsounds, picked up play from local stations including hip-hop giant KUBE, while finishing second overall in the EMP Sound Off! competition. That win earned him recording gear, studio time and, best of all, a slot at Seattle’s Northwest Folklife Festival.

“I’m excited about taking second place as a solo artist, but Sound Off! isn’t the pinnacle of my career. I’m trying to put myself in a position where 2009 is going to be a really good year for me,” he said with a laugh. “I plan on making my mark."

review: Ra Ra Riot lives up to ‘best young band’ buzz

The brace-faced, plaid-clad crew was out in force at Neumos on Feb. 25, but to my surprise the barriers separating bar from dance floor was left a larger drink-available region than I’ve ever seen at Neumos. That allocation of space and diversity of crowd was a true testament to the cross-generational appeal that genre-melding indie rock has gained.

One of the first things I noticed while waiting for middle-slotted New Zealand outfit Cut Off Your Hands was a dreadlocked fan from the band’s first Seattle stop in support of We Are Scientists last July. After the group’s performance that night, he thanked each member personally as they exited the stage in a touchingly personal example of true appreciation. Though he didn’t get quite as involved this time around, he seemed to enjoy the show as much as the rest of the crowd.

The kiwi quartet utilized strobe lights and fog machines to their complete advantage, and turned their danceable indie-rock into a total crowd pleaser. The one thing I failed to notice last time is that all four members are mic’d up for vocals — and they all contribute significantly — making the entire performance was really an exercise in sharing.

Unsurprisingly, frontman Nick Johnston pulled many of his same stunts: tossing his microphone into the crowd, writhing around the dance floor, somersaulting over barriers. I have no idea how he didn’t break through the skin of his drum after beating it with the wrong end of his sticks, or break his neck from the wild positions he contorted into while writhing on the stage.

When Ra Ra Riot took stage around 11 p.m., I remembered that, through no fault of my own, female musicians are intrinsically attractive. That being said, cellist Alexandra Lawn surpassed Flobots violist Mackenzie Roberts as my latest crush. She’s incredibly talented, along with violinist Rebecca Zeller, and was clearly classically trained before she switched to electric and traded in Rachmaninoff for Rock ‘n’ Roll.

With six on the stage, Ra Ra Riot managed to maintain perfect stage flow and awareness not only of self but all the others. That really came through as evidence of their closeness, a bond developed from years together at college and the death of a band mate; John Pike, the group’s original drummer, drowned in June 2007. And though they attended Syracuse and mostly hail from the Northeast, signing to Seattle record label Barsuk made the Northwest their home away from home.

The sextet, who began generating buzz almost as soon as they formed and toured with the likes of Art Brut, Editors, Vampire Weekend and Los Campesions!, earned their headlining tours. It’s still amazing to hear how they can transform a cello-violin string duet into a rock song at the drop of a hat. Ra Ra Riot creates a true symphony of sound, a wave rising above the stage and crashing down on the audience. I caught myself starting to lose focus on the band itself and focus only on the music-inspired feeling.

With the volume turned just a few notches below “eardrum-bursting,” my ears rang for hours after leaving the venue. The performance — and feeling of musical satisfaction — was well worth the cost.

review: K'naan — "Troubadour"

6.8/10

K’naan Warsame fired his first gun at age eight. At 11, he demolished half his school after accidentally detonating a found hand grenade. The next year, the boy fled from gunmen and narrowly escaped with his life; his three best friends weren’t so lucky.

Growing up in a part of Mogadishu known as “the River of Blood,” named by the UN as “the worst place on earth,” his childhood bore witness to unimaginable horrors. K’naan’s mother walked through gunfire to the US Embassy daily to file for a visa for her family. He was 13 when they left in January 1991. Theirs was the last commercial flight out before the government collapsed and violence closed the airport.

K’naan and his family moved to New York City for a brief stay, then continued on to Toronto. He caught the attention that fueled his rise to international fame after performing a spoken word piece before the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1999, criticizing the UN for their failed aid missions to Somalia.

Sophomore album Troubadour — a French word meaning “folk singer” — is a fitting follow-up to 2005 debut The Dusty Foot Philosopher. K’Naan truly acts as a voice for his region, following in the footsteps of his aunt Magool (one of Somalia’s most famous singers) and poet grandfather Haji Mohamed.

He doesn’t beat around bushes. There’s “mountain bike racing,” where kids wrap rusty barbed wire around bicycle tires and roll them down hills. He touches on the common practice of mixing cocaine and gunpowder to make “brown brown.”

Despite being signed to A&M/Octone Records, a subsidiary of “big four” label Universal, K’Naan doesn’t hesitate to be real in the only way he knows. His long-term goal isn’t a mansion or a clothing line, it’s to effect change in his East-African home. He makes the point that gangerstism isn’t something to brag about — for some, it’s a horrible fact of life.

Troubadour features some titanic guest appearances for the fresh new artist, including Mos Def, Chali 2NA, Chubb Rock, Damian Marley, Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett. Those artists and their varying genres are represented through the pure lyricism, The buffalo soldier ideals, pop vocal backings and symphonic instrumentation that saturate the album.

Explosive single “If Rap Gets Jealous” is the only carryover from K’naan’s debut album. But while the underlying theme is still unbelievable pain, the palpable angst and stream of consciousness from the first version fades after a complete rewrite of all but the first three lines of chorus. Fortunately the solos and guitar riffs from Metallica’s Hammett, intensifying the musicality of the song and pushing it beyond the purely hip-hop original composition, redeem the new recording

The crown-jewel track of the album is undoubtedly “Somalia,” a beautifully flowing and deceivingly upbeat ode to the horrors of his homeland and “to never know a single day without a big commotion.” The piano-backed diamond in the rough is “Take a Minute,” opening up with a time-old revelation: “any man who knows a thing/knows he knows not a damn damn thing at all.”

K’naan’s flow is consistently impeccable, and his melodious beats mask the pain of a childhood filled with closed coffins and blood-soaked streets. Don’t miss your chance to share it at Neumos on March 10.