Event

Band in Seattle live television taping with Huey P and Nacho Picasso

What's more Seattle than supporting your local businesses? Supporting your local musicians, that's what. So be a responsible Northwestern-er and get yourself down to Victory Studios for the taping of our next episode of Band in Seattle with artists Huey P and Nacho Picasso on June 30th, 2016. Each band will perform a 45-minute concert, followed by a filmed interview and music trivia webisode, sponsored in part by American Music. Front doors open at 6PM at Victory Studios, 2247 15th Avenue West (near the Interbay Golf Center) and the concert ends approximately

Huey P:
With the Seattle hip-hop scene on the steady come-up, Washington native Huey P talks to SOHH about his upcoming 206253 album and putting on for his state.];

Its been a lot of trial and error. Im 26 now and Ive been doing this, literally half of my life. I started making music when I was 13 and from there, Ive just been developing as an artist and learning.

At first, you sound like your influences. Thats what I feel like. The influence you come in that gets you to start making music. Those natural influences, you start off sounding like that. It takes time to develop your own sound and your own craft.

It takes time to develop all of these different things that it takes to get something thats innovative and that people will gain attention to.

It really took a lot of development and patience.

It started off really doing it for the love of the music. It was never for the profit or the intent of fame. It was more so about the love of music at first. It was fun for me. It was an outlet for me. It was a way for me not to be stuck in the situation that I was in at the time.

It took a lot of failure, it took a lot of putting material out and not getting heard, it took a lot of under-marketing. It just took a lot of effort.

Eventually you learn, eventually you see not to move that way, move this way.

Its so hard to come out from here. Artists dont really get a lot of respect coming from where were from due to the fact that we dont have a high capacity of artists that have made it really in the industry.

This is as far as rap artists. Theres some producers, theres some dope producer teams and theres a few artists that have stepped their foot in the game but theres no real artist that has really made any noise and gained that home respect here.

Theres so many others out here trying to come up at the same time that it often turns into a crab in the bucket scenario.

Just being the one that puts in that work and effort and time to gain the love and respect, it took a lot of trial and error.

Nacho Picasso:

Seattle rapper Nacho Picasso is a self-proclaimed scumbag. The antithesis of the city's other hip-hop superstars, he's grimier than Macklemore and raps lines that would make Blue Scholars blush. Nacho's music springs from the dark, depressive side of Seattle that once birthed the grunge movementbut his twisted lyricism is balanced by humor in the same way Nirvana's music once was. He recognizes how shitty things are, and simultaneously realizes that there's nothing you can do but shrug and laugh.

Nacho's humor and witty turns of phrases come fast and frequent, but they're always a little hard-edged with cynicism. Sonically, his music follows in the footsteps of Def Jux alumni El-P, Cage, or Cannibal Ox, along with fellow Northwest collectives like Oldominion and Grayskul. The majority of his work has been with the production duo Blue Sky Black DeathVICE premiered their most recent collaboration, Stoned & Dethroned, a few months back. BSBD's trappy, layered beats fit seamlessly with Nacho's dark flow.

I recently met up with Nacho at a weed dispensary in downtown Seattle. The tattooed rapper looked like he had just stepped off stage, decked out in goth-gangsta attire. We walked around Seattle a bit before Nacho stopped, lit a blunt, and told me about his new record and how he uses humor as a way to ease his pain.