We love good music, no matter the label that its given. We try to make sure in our music that theres something for everyone, its a great way to get people together. This bands members are Orcas Island and Bellingham locals. That’s northwestern Washington State. All of them have had very different upbringingings, but have become close friends through tight jams, road trips, snowboarding, packed houses to empty bars and lots of weed. Rise n Shine as its known now started as a garage band in Bellingham Washington in the fall of 2006. But the bands musical journey started years earlier on Orcas Island where the band experenced playing with any and every musician that wanted to jam. The band had a strong love for regggae and hip hop, and over the years have developed a sound that is a portrait of the environment they were raised in and their own personal musical experiences through the years. Rise n Shine now rehearses in Anacortes Washington and this last August released their first album. The band has stayed busy playing shows in and around Seattle, the San Juan Islands, Bellingham, and is planing a west coast tour in May of 08. The tunes that you’ve heard, are hearing, or are about to hear were recorded at The Art Institute of Seattle, Bianary Studios in Bellingham and Kalara Studios in Fremont.We know you’ll like it. More concert dates yet to be posted.

www.myspace.com/orcasislandband

Sandpeople was formed roughly three years ago as an unlikely gathering of hip-hop artists in the Pacific Northwest. This crew has since built itself into a 10 member unit fully equipped to fill a stage and empty a keg (preferably in reverse order). Within the first two months, and long before most Sandpeople had even met each other, their debut album Points of View was recorded and released independently over a two week span. That album laid the ground work for what has become a quick moving crew with extremely high standards. Having several “sub-groups” – with two or three members pairing for a series of projects – interwoven throughout the bigger collective, the crew’s catalogue has been growing rapidly since their inception and only continues to gain momentum. Sandpeople member Illmaculate has also been stacking his list of substantial achievements. After winning the world renowned battle at Scribble Jam in 2004, he has been extremely busy. His establishment as one of the world’s top 5 battle MCs gained further validity with his victory at the World Rap Championship in Las Vegas. He and Scribble Jam 2006 champ The Saurus, won the prestigious 2-on-2 team battle that began in New York and culminated by facing the top team from the UK on the Vegas strip (http://jumpoff.tv). As the only undefeated team in the entire competition, their achievement has been viewable nationally On-Demand (Comcast) while also providing them coverage in XXL. The latest installment from Sandpeople is an album titled Honest Racket. The project – which boasts 16 tracks – acts as further proof that this crew is constantly moving forward. Production is handled entirely in-house by Sapient and Simple, as they craft a unique and cohesive sound from start to finish. The MCs attack each beat with their signature style and amazingly the outcome is an album that feels like it was made by a tight knit group, rather than such a large crew. Included on this breakthrough effort are features from two of hip-hop’s finest - The Grouch (Living Legends / Zion I & The Grouch) and Sean Price (Boot Camp Clik / Heltah Skeltah). To the untrained eye, the Sandpeople may appear to be a confusing mass of hungry emcee’s full of passion and low on serotonin. To the trained eye, this is a certainty. In the cloudy and gray corner of the country not known for its bountiful supply of physical sand, an inappropriately named force is emerging. Concerned first with making quality music that is relevant to real everyday life, Sandpeople are sure to connect with listeners where other artists most commonly fail to. As their name and inventory continues to expand, this will undoubtedly be looked back upon as the crew’s humble beginnings.

www.myspace.com/sandpeople

A blind rapper, a Puerto Rican Jagger, and a Gypsy walk out of a bar with one of the seminal Rock & Roll Records of the past decade. Backed by Seattle Jazz & Rock heavyweights Joe Doria, Dave Carter, Andy Coe and RL Heyer, The Staxx Brothers have created a living document that uncovers Seattle’s lost identity as an urban crossroad for classic R & B, Hip Hop and Hard ASS Soul. It all starts with The 12th Street Blues.

www.myspace.com/thestaxxbrothers

Lionheart Productions started in Seattle Washington in 2001. In 2008 Caleb Cunningham Producer/MC for the project has collaborated with some of Seattle’s best musicians and singers in order to bring the music to life on the stage. For more info check

www.myspace.com/lionheartproductions

With his cool-headed SoCal demeanor and everyman charisma, Blu was championed at the onset of his recording career when he collaborated with Emanon DJ/producer Exile for the highly acclaimed LP Below the Heavens (2007). Born Johnson Barnes in Inglewood, CA, Blu, whose stepfather was a pastor, was very influenced by gospel and Christian rap when he was developing his MC skills in middle and high school. His musical turning point came when he first heard the Common classic “I Used to Love H.E.R.” (1994), as well as the Chicago MC’s third album, One Day It’ll All Make Sense (1997). From then onward, Blu abandoned his schoolyard freestyle frame of mind and dedicated his abilities to crafting well-written songs. As he started doing live performances, he paid his dues working as a hype man for several underground rap and soul artists, including Slum Village, Steve Spacek, Platinum Pied Pipers, and, of course, Emanon. His relationship with Exile and newfound mindset in making music pointed him toward signing with L.A. independent Sound in Color in 2004, which for the young MC meant brushing off interest from Interscope and Death Row. Subsequently, he cut a few records for Exile’s Sound in Color album, Dirty Science (2006), recorded features for other L.A. artists, and self-pressed his Lifted EP in 2006. When Below the Heavens first hit shelves in August 2007, Blu and Exile were virtual unknowns in underground hip-hop, but Blu’s deft songwriting and Exile’s soul-drenched, Jay Dee-influenced production quickly amassed them a national audience. Below the Heavens ended up on many critics’ year-end lists and, particularly, launched Blu into the public hip-hop eye. Remaining independent, Blu later turned to Sound in Color labelmate and L.A.-via-Detroit MC/producer Ta’Raach (formerly known as Lacks) for the collaborative project C.R.A.C. Knuckles.

www.myspace.com/herfavcolor

With Mad Rad’s debut CD, White Gold,, something radically new appears on the local hiphop scene. The trio (Terry Radjaw, Buffalo Madonna, P Smoov) have produced a hiphop record that is as good as (but is very different from) the great albums released this year by Common Market, the Gigantics, and Jake One. Mad Rad’s hiphop is local in terms of place but national in terms of content; it has more to do with the Cool Kids (Chicago) or Spank Rock (Philadelphia) than with Seattle’s Sabzi and Vitamin D. What distinguishes Mad Rad from their 206 contemporaries? Common Market, for example, are hiphop without a second thought; Mad Rad, like the Cool Kids and Spank Rock, are about hiphop with second, third, and fourth thoughts. Their music reflects and reformulates the standards and tropes of this first-thought hiphop. However, Mad Rad do not simply reframe hiphop, the trio also advance the possibilities and range of those standards and tropes. In short, Mad Rad are at once reflexive and innovative.

It’s easy to dismiss Mad Rad as “hipster hop,” but there are several difficulties with this easy dismissal. For one, the music they make is not bust or weak. The level of imagination that went into White Gold is impressive. The dreamy “Sellabration,” the crunking “Donut Truck,” the Neptunish/new wavish “Glitzerland,” the booty bumping “Superdope”—though each references this or that beat mode or rap style, each is a great tune on its own. One doesn’t listen to the simulation of crunk in “Donut Truck,” one listens to the track itself, to its accelerations and declarations, its rolling bass-deep beat, and its space-robot effects. To denounce Mad Rad as hipsters, then, is to ignore or duck the fact that they have a lot of talent. Also, one of the members of Mad Rad, P Smoov, has paid his hiphop dues, producing more traditional hiphop for rapper Rik Rude (the two are currently finishing a project called Fresh Espresso).

Another point to make: Even though similarities exist between Mad Rad and, say, Spank Rock, there are also significant differences. For one, Spank Rock’s music is a full immersion into ghetto tech or booty hop. Their reference of the real thing is so perfect that there is little or no distinction from the simulation to the real. The only way you can tell Spank Rock (the pure simulation) apart from Khia or 2 Live Crew (the more real) is by name. Indeed, the place 2 Live Crew have in an upcoming show that features Mad Rad could easily have been replaced by Spank Rock. Who would notice the difference in sound and content? The two are the same, with the exception that one is primary and the other is not.

Mad Rad are not merely making crunk or ghetto tech or booty hop or dirty disco or party rap, but instead combining and recombining these subgenres. Mad Rad share this commitment to innovation (instead of pure simulation) with Champagne Champagne, a local crew that also mix and remix all sorts of beats and pieces. For example, on “Tropical Trina,” Champagne Champagne transform the lively beats of Paul Simon’s “The Obvious Child” into a “dusty but digital” ode to a sad but dreamy girl.

As for their raps, Mad Rad’s boasting and dirty rhymes take us back to a time when raps were not about real wealth or real sex. Back in the day, it was understood that the rapper did not have “checkbooks, credit cards/more money than a sucker could ever spend.” The rapper was “bragging about the things [he] ain’t got” (to use the words of Roxanne Shante). And so if boasting was really about how far the imagination could go, what kind of life could you imagine if you had immense wealth and fame? These days, however, if someone like Jay-Z raps: “I got watches I ain’t seen in months/Apartment at the Trump I only slept in it once,” we know without a doubt that he does have “more money than a sucker could ever spend.” Or if Pharrell (leader of the superpopular production team the Neptunes) raps, “My dick is being sucked by a bitch called what now?” we believe what he is saying—a person as famous and adored as Pharrell might be unable to keep track of exactly who is sucking his dick now. Us ordinary types, on the other hand, we always know who is sucking our dicks; we know their name and very much hope that some day they will be kind enough to do it again.

When P Smoov of Mad Rad raps, with Jay-Z-like cadence and expressions, “Cook it up, package it, put it on the block/They call me poultry ’cause all these chickens on my cock,” we know that this is in the realm of creative boasting—boasting that has no consideration or ties to reality, boasting as play. Even underground rap has a strong commitment to speaking the truth. RA Scion’s whole album Tobacco Road is practically a historical document. It has real people, real situations, real concerns. The same could be said about Grynch, D.Black, Blak, Eyedea, and many, many others—they rhyme about real situations, places, and people. Mad Rad and Champagne Champagne abandon reality for the pure pleasures of play and self-exaggeration.

On his debut album, The Language of My World, Seattle-based emcee Macklemore drafts a lyrical landscape of classic proportions. This record is teeming with energy and ambition, serving as a fitting debut for one of this countryнs most promising young artists. Macklemoreнs gift, like that of all great songwriters, is his ability to speak on universal experiences in a uniquely personal way. Throughout The Language of My World, Macklemore consistently addresses topics that are uncomfortable or taboo, in an attempt to exorcise his own personal demons.

His music is inspirational, filled with social and racial consciousness, as well as a constructive political vision. He’s also funny as hell, making music that is at once hilarious and affecting. Born and raised in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood Macklemore has been an integral part of the Seattle hip-hop scene for the past 7 years. He developed his style and character as part of Elevated Elements, which he founded when he was just 14 years old, and quickly moved on to pursue his solo career. From these humble beginnings Macklemore has matured, both as a songwriter and performer, into an artist who is clearly beginning to realize his near limitless potential.

The Language of My World marks the beginning of a movement. The album also features the talents of emcee Xperience who, along with Macklemore, makes up one half of the super-group Stepcousins. Stepcousins features the lighter side of Macklemore. The chemistry that these two have together is nothing short of timeless, and their debut album, set to drop in the summer of 2006, is sure to break the mold. Stay tuned. This is only the jump off.

DJ Cide began networking in Seattle and acquired his first weekly gig at Contour in Pioneer Square as a 19-year-old.

This allowed him to find more shows and venues to scratch at such as the Showbox, Des Amis, Nectar, Venom, Tost, Phenix, Chop Suey, Belltown Billiards and War Room.

In 2005, he had the opportunity to go on a nationwide tour with Jamaican recoding artist Prezident Brown. DJ Cide toured for five months though Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado.

www.myspace.com/djcidemusic

Formed in the summer of 2006 in Bellingham, WA, N/NW has been gaining recognition for it’s eclectic style and hype stage performances.

N/NW: is composed of D.I., Johnny Concrete, Lokeye, Mic Lee and Raw Jawz.

http://www.myspace.com/northbynw

The way I see hip hop is as an art and a science. There has been many great teachers which has
led to many great students. I am a student of rhymes, beats and cuts. I remember in junior high
rapping over cassette single b-side instrumentals. I remember needing a beat like biz mark needed
a haircut. Hip hop is forever elevating and staying fresh because freshness is what hip hop was
founded on. Peace to the four elements and don’t forget the beat boxers…they never get credit.

www.myspace.com/northbynw