Seattle Hip-Hop Walking Map Charts the Central District's Rap Roots

On a recent bright day in June, the sun beat down on 23rd and Jackson.

The corner used to be home to the Promenade 23 Shopping Center, where community members hung out and perused the shelves at the Red Apple and other small businesses. The Promenade also housed Beverly's Records & Tapes, a record store that slung new rap and hip-hop records to Seattle's hungry aficionados.

The record store is the second spot on Gary Campbell's Seattle Hip-Hop Walking Map, a zine he published through Common AREA Maintenance's Pocket Neighborhood Guide series. The (free!) zine is composed solely of two walking maps — one through the Central District to Capitol Hill and another through Seattle Center and Belltown to downtown — highlighting city locations that have figured prominently in the first decade of Seattle's hip-hop and rap scene from the early 1980s to 1993. Neither map references South End groups like Massive Monkees, who first performed in 1999, nor spots like Rumba Notes Lounge. Campbell, who founded Crane City Music, a locals-only rap record label in 2017, spent the last few years researching the origins of Seattle hip-hop, which emerged right before grunge.

"There was this kind of groundswell of musical activity that was happening in '89, '90, '91. Seattle was on the [hip-hop] charts. Spin Magazine wrote a big article at the time about if Seattle is the next rap hub after New York and LA," said Campbell. "When I started researching this book, I was like, 'Am I in this Twilight Zone parallel universe?'"

There are 16 spots on the self-guided Central District route. It starts at Judkins Park and Playfield, which is home to what used to be called the Black Community Festival (now Umoja Fest) where, in 1982, rap group The Emerald Street Boys took home the fest's first "rap-off" prize. From there, Campbell very roughly traces Sir Mix-a-Lot's narrative route on his 1988 track "Posse on Broadway." In the song, Mix raps that he and Kid Sensation hopped into their black Benz limo and "picked up the posse on 23rd and Jackson," where Beverly's Records & Tapes once stood.

The maps then bop around. There's

• Bryant Manor on Yesler, the affordable housing complex where Sir Mix-a-Lot grew up;

• Washington Hall on 12th Avenue, which staged Steve Sneed and Reco Bembry's hip-hop musical Boys Will B-Boys in 1987;

• Garfield High School on 23rd Avenue, where influential musicians and rappers like Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones, Shabazz Palaces, and Macklemore attended school; and

• Frostmaster Chill's studio on Union Street, an underground recording studio where Frostmaster Chill and his brother DJ Pace produced early Seattle rap records in their grandma's basement.

Everything ends at Dick's Drive-In, where "Posse on Broadway" also narratively ends. In reality, Sir Mix-a-Lot had to film his music video at the now-closed Stan's Drive-In on Rainier Avenue South, since the Dick's owner refused to allow Mix and his crew to film at their Broadway location. In total, the route is just over four miles with about 500 feet of elevation gain.

Many of these spots might not be anything new to born-and-raised Seattleites who watched and participated in the rich history of our city's hip-hop scene. But for those newer to the city or less acquainted with the Central District's history, the map is an interesting exercise in grounding these stories with a sense of place. For example, Sir Mix-a-Lot's childhood home in Bryant Manor was just down the street from where he got discovered at the Rotary Boys & Girls Club on 19th Avenue.

"I've walked a lot of these streets before, I've been in these neighborhoods," said Campbell. "And it's so exciting to see these [streets] with new eyes, like walk around and go, 'Oh, that's where this happened, it was right here, yeah, right on this corner.'"

The Seattle Hip-Hop Walking Map started as an outgrowth from a larger book project Campbell is working on, which traces the history of early Seattle hip-hop before grunge (and Frasier) became our city's main cultural export in the 1990s. A lot of early Seattle hip-hop and rap records aren't available online, and Campbell spent time tracking down vinyls and tapes. Over the last few years, he's spent time in newspaper archives and concert listings, collecting hundreds of locations. For the zine, he carved out routes based off of his research.

Looking at both maps, it's obvious there are lots of crucial South End spots — especially places like Rumba Notes and Beacon Studio — and major players missing. Campbell acknowledged that he couldn't include everything in the zine. However, he never intended for either map to be definitive or comprehensive. He designed them with transit hub options in mind and for the walk to be feasibly accomplished in a few hours.

"The idea is to try to create these loops that could connect between these two places," said Campbell. "I have a bunch of stuff … that just didn't make it into the map."

For now, the zines are only available IRL at Common Object's Mobile Bookstore pop-ups at King Street Station this summer. Campbell says the response has been overwhelming and that the first wave of copies ran out in 20 minutes during Capitol Hill Art Walk earlier this month. They'll next be available on July 2 at the Pioneer Square Art Walk, where attendees can grab a copy, put on their comfiest pair of walking shoes, and prepare to hit the road.