Seattle Times Archives - The Draze Experience

Seattle Times music critic

Close your eyes and think “Northwest Folklife Festival.” What do you see?

A bluegrass fiddler? A juggler? A kid with face paint?
All those will be on hand, of course, when the 44th Northwest Folklife Festival gets under way at Seattle Center on Friday, May 22, but there will also be a surprise: hip-hop emcees and break dancers.

Festival preview
Northwest Folklife Festival
11 a.m.-10 p.m. May 22-24, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. May 25, Seattle Center, Seattle; free, donations requested (206-684-7300 or nwfolklife.org).

That’s right. The cultural focus of this year’s festival is “Beats, Rhymes and Rhythms: Traditional Roots of Today’s Branches,” a program that showcases hip-hop and a tribute to the late Dumi Maraire, who established the Zimbabwean marimba tradition in the Northwest more than 40 years ago.
There will also be break dancing, a graffiti exhibit, a scratch showcase, performances of spoken word, archival films and panel discussions about Seattle hip-hop history. (Refer to our daily list of highlights for details.)

“If we are representing the Northwest, we need to be talking about hip-hop,” explained Folklife’s director of programs, Kelli Faryar, who said she has been particularly pleased to see how local groups such as 206 Zulu, which offers break-dance programs for kids through Arts Corps, fits Folklife’s mission of “bringing communities together.”

Hip-hop may be a surprise for many Folklife fans, but it actually isn’t new to the festival. Back in 1994, the Memorial Day spree presented its first hip-hop showcase, which featured, among others, emcee Jace, whose appearance this year provides some nice historical continuity.

Best bets
NW Folklife Festival 2015: Daily highlights
Another historical nicety: “Beats, Rhymes and Rhythms” will feature one of Dumi Maraire’s sons, Dumi Jr., who raps under the handle Draze. (Another of Dumi’s sons is Tendai, half of the successful Seattle hip-hop group Shabazz Palaces.) Recently, Seattle rapper Macklemore retweeted a Draze song about Seattle gentrification, “The Hood Ain’t the Same.”

Seattle Times – The pain of neighborhood change reflected in the lyrics of hip-hop artist Draze

Press

Seattle Times, the hood ain't the same

Every time I go to South Seattle and the Central District, I see more and more homes being renovated and new apartment buildings under construction. This city changes fast.

But homegrown hip-hop artist Dumi Maraire, best known as Draze, sees something my eyes have missed: The forces of gentrification are uprooting the black community.

“These used to be all black families and black-owned businesses,” Draze told me as I sketched him on the steps of his childhood home on South Orcas Street. “Nobody is here anymore.”

Including Draze, who now lives in more affordable Renton. I reached out to him after I stumbled upon a video of his most recent song, “The Hood Ain’t the Same,” on YouTube. Since he posted it less than a month ago it has been viewed more than 25,000 times.

Draze’s lyrics mention many black-owned businesses that no longer exist. What once was Sammie’s burgers on East Union Street is boarded up and covered with graffiti. The Silver Fork restaurant on Rainier Avenue South closed the day after he brought his crew to shoot the video last summer.

As he drove me around his old haunts in Rainier Valley and the CD, Draze shared his view of gentrification as eloquently as he does in his rap song: “The city is thriving,” he said, “but my community is dying. That doesn’t feel good.”

seattle-times

Folklife 2015 celebrates hip-hop and its roots

Seattle Times – The pain of neighborhood change reflected in the lyrics of hip-hop artist Draze