Fine Foliage from The Emerald Mile - Washington State © 2017 TOP TREE
Facts
Serving: Issue #3 Serving per Container: 1 Calories: Tree Million
Amount/Serving
%DV
EAZY DUZ IT
9%
GIFTED GAB
7%
BIG BABY D.R.A.M.
8%
...AND MORE
*Percent Values (DV) based on Top Tree Diet
January 2017
stressed? come chill with us.
55 Bell St - 206.849.5596 on the corner of bell and elliott 8am - 11:45 pm - free customer parking
www.herbanlegends.com
WINNER
Best Ne
!
w Store
2016
this product has intoxicating effects and may be habit forming. Marijuana can impair concentration, coordination, and judgment. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. There may be health risks associated with consumption of this product and For use only by adults twenty-one and older. Keep out of the reach of children.
NEUMOS.COM WE’RE CLOSED FOR REMODEL. WE’LL BE BACK AT THE END OF FEBRUARY. UNTIL THEN, JOIN US IN BARBOZA! 2.24 2.25 2.28 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.5 3.10 3.18 3.21
HIPPO CAMPUS TEMPLES TENNIS THE RADIO DEPT. TY SEGALL TY SEGALL JENS LEKMAN VALLIS ALPS DAYA OLD 97’S
STRAND OF OAKS DEAFHEAVEN MODERN ENGLISH NAILS SENSES FAIL SLEAFORD MODS BLACK JOE LEWIS KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD 4.22 G JONES 3.24 3.26 3.28 3.29 4.3 4.5 4.6 4.9
BARE CONCENTRATES DISTILLED THC CARTRIDGES ON SALE!
0 3 $ r o f 1 5 5 $ r o f 2
9640 16th Ave SW In the heart of White Center w w w. b u d n a t i o n s e a t t l e . c o m
w w w. s u s p e n d e d b r a n d s . c o m
THIS PRODUCT HAS INTOXICATING EFFECTS AND MAY E HABIT FORMING, mARIJUANA CAN IMPAIR CONCENTRATION, COORDINATION, AND JUDGEMENT, DO NOT OPERTAE A VEHICLE OR MACHINERY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THIS DRUG. THERE MAY BE HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH CONSUMPTION OF THIS PRODUCT AND FOR USE ONLY BY AULTS TWNETY-ONE AND OLDER. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
HOW DO YOU PONDER? 24TH & E UNION
206 605 4623
O PEN D A I LY
10:00 AM 11:45 PM
This product has intoxicating effects and may be habit forming. Marijuana can impair concentrations, coordination, and judgement. Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of this drug. There may be health risks associated with conmsumption of this product. For use only by adults 21 and older. Keep out of the reach of children.
TOPTREE
E.MEDIA
EMOJI HOODIE: $25 TOP TREE LS TEE: $30
WORLD BURNS TEE: $25
TOP LIGHTER: $3
TOP TREE TOTE: $15
PALM LOGO TEE: $25
TOP TREE AIR FRESHNER: $3 TOP TREE BEANIE: $20
TOPTREE.SHOP
SHIPPING WORLDWIDE
C O M I N G T O O T H E R F I N E R E TA I L E R S I N E A R LY 2 0 1 7 THIS PRODUCT HAS INTOXICATING EFFECTS AND MAY E HABIT FORMING, mARIJUANA CAN IMPAIR CONCENTRATION, COORDINATION, AND JUDGEMENT, DO NOT OPERTAE A VEHICLE OR MACHINERY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THIS DRUG. THERE MAY BE HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH CONSUMPTION OF THIS PRODUCT AND FOR USE ONLY BY AULTS TWNETY-ONE AND OLDER. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
MILAN ACKERMAN, RIK RUDE, ERIC CHOI, ANDRE GREENE, ERNESTO YBARRA, LUCIEN PELLEGRIN, MARK ABEL, WEIRDO, SAVITECH, ALIVE + WELL, BAIT, KEXP, REIGN CITY, MELI DARBY, STG, Do206, DEEP CELL, PETER BIGELOW, FUCKJERRY, SWISHAHOUSE, POSSI, CRISPY, OC NOTES, VITAMIN D, WARSAME, DARKALINO, KALIE SANDSTROM, ANTHONY LINEBARGER, J. MOORE, ISABELLA DU GRAF, SHANNON PERRY, EMILY MOSER, DAVE B, GREGORY DEANDA, MAYA SAMAHA, MICHAEL WATTS, BUDO, TIFFANY TRAMMEL, CESAR CLEMENTE, JOSH D, MOELASSES, OLD GROWTH, TRYFE, EMERALD PEAKS,
F R E S H G R E E N S , N I G H T S H I F T, C O G N AT E , A N D D O M M A R C E L L I U S
© 2017 TOP TREE
An overlooked screenplay by Glenn O’Brien and Cookie Mueller about drug culture has new life thanks to a boutique publisher and archaic law enforcement policies that still govern much of this land “Drugs” was written in 1984 and went unpublished until Kingsboro Press remedied that in 2016. What was deemed a tragicomic stage play from two of the quintessential characters that defined an era smothered in mind altering substances. A few months ago the surviving author, Glenn O’Brien, hosted an unrehearsed reading at the Anthology Film Archives in NYC. Leo Fitzpatrick, Josh Safdie and other notable New Yorker’s from the creative culture ranks offered to lend a voice to the brazen cast of oddballs penned by Glenn and Cookie. As Cookie is no longer with us the sombre celebration of this undiscovered work was better late than never. >>>
ACT ONE: SCENE II There is a Peter Fonda “The Wild Angels” motorcycle poster on the wall. A lava lamp has been added. One of the walls is painted in Day-Glo. John and Jim are sitting at the table breaking up a brick of marijuana and weighing out ounces of it, bagging them. Psychedelic music is playing, maybe “Eight Miles High” by The Byrds and incense is burning. Jim rolls a joint and lights up. They each take a puff or two. JIM: Well… what do you say? JOHN: Intense… pretty intense. JIM: It’s dynamite, man. JOHN: Two bills is a lot of bread. I almost passed on it. JIM: Shit, it’s totally worth it man. There hasn’t been a lid in this town in two weeks. We can sell all of this today and then pick up a couple more keys. JOHN: I am pretty buzzed. This is, like, two toke pot. JIM: I am royally fucked up dude. The last weed we had you had to blow two bombers to get this ripped. JOHN: It’s heavy duty. No doubt. JIM: If we got a dime more a lid we could get an extra key tomorrow before Lanny splits town. JOHN: I think we could move five or six by then. But who’s gonna pay twenty a Z? JIM: Twenty is righteous. We could get more, but there’s no sense getting greedy. JOHN: Everybody’s used to paying ten. JIM: That’s for regular Mex man. This is like Acapulco Gold. JOHN: It doesn’t look gold to me. JIM: Well, what color is it? JOHN: Sort of greenish brownish reddish. Sort of. JIM: Okay, so it’s Panama Red. JOHN: Panama Red? I thought it came from Mexico. JIM: That’s where Lanny copped, man, but it could be from Panama. If it’s red it must be from there, right? But I mean who’s ever seen any Panama Red? JOHN: Okay, so let’s throw out this Mexican newspaper before we get too wrecked. JIM: They speak Spanish in Panama. JOHN: Yeah, but look, it says Mexico right here. JIM: Panama, Mexico, what’s the difference? JOHN: I’m out of baggies, do we have any more? JIM: Yeah, on top of the refrigerator. JOHN: Do you think the A&P is getting wise to us? JIM: What do you mean? JOHN: We buy a hell of a lot of baggies. JIM: We’re like student types, dude. Students eat a lot of sandwiches and brownies and shit. JOHN: I don’t know. JIM: If you’re worried, buy like a big loaf of Wonder Bread and a large pack of bologna next time man. JOHN: Maybe I should start going to the Pick-N-Pay every other time. JOHN: We need to get all of this bagged before the horde of heads arrives. JIM: No, man. Leave some. They really like to see the brick.
There’s a knock at the door. They freeze for a moment. John gets an ethnic looking tablecloth and covers the table and everything on it. Jim grabs an aerosol can and sprays the room with it. JIM: God, I hate pine scent. Why do you always get pine scent? JOHN: That’s all they had man. JIM: Cedar is better. It’s cleaner and more refreshing. JOHN: Does it look clean in here? (Loudly) Coming! JIM: Yeah, it’s cool. JOHN: Hey, roach in the ashtray. Jim takes a roach out of the ashtray and swallows it. JOHN: Who is it? JAVA MAN: Hey, it’s Java Man. JOHN: It’s only Java. JOHN: Java Man, I taught you the secret knock, man. JAVA MAN: Oh shit. Sorry. I’m a little fucked up.
Virginia’s 2016 sensation D.R.A.M. stopped by Capitol Hill to do some real-ass music with the Seattle Rock Orchestra as part of Google’s GOODFest concert series — and chopped it up with Top Tree about “Broccoli,” holding mp3s hostage and his “trappy-go-lucky” sound coming soon
D.R.A.M. made his music debut in 2014 with his independently-released “#1EPICSUMMER” mixtape, but it took a solid year for its lead single “Cha Cha” to catch on nationally. 2016 saw him releasing his first proper major-label studio album “Big Baby D.R.A.M.,” a success on all fronts carried by the runaway success of its even bigger lead single “Broccoli.” On a random December Monday at Neumos on Capitol Hill, he headlined a one-night only bill that also included Seattle’s own The Flavr Blue and the Seattle Rock Orchestra backing both sets — perfect for an artist whose name stands for “Does Real-Ass Music.” He treated those in attendance to orchestrabacked versions of his already instrument-heavy hits including “Cash Machine”, “$”, and new album closer “Sweet VA Breeze” (one of the highlights of the setlist, and the first time he had ever per formed the song live). The performance was livestreamed by Google and can still be seen on YouTube. Top Tree: Hey man, how’s it going today? Where are we talking to you from? D.R.A.M.: “I can’t complain, you know. I just landed in LA, I’m finna do the Cali Christmas show with Power 106, and I’m excited. I get to meet Ice Cube, he’s performing as well and it’s gonna be really really dope to meet one of the legends.” TT: Oh, nice. Did you listen to a lot of N.W.A. and Cube and West Coast stuff growing up? D: “I listened to all of the popular music from that time. I was born in ‘88 or whatever... You know “Flava In Ya Ear” by Craig Mack, “Big Poppa.” When I was a small child I was living in Jersey so it was more “Brooklyn Zoo,” ODB and stuff like that. But it was more so when I became a teenager that I started studying a lot of my influences’ discographies. You know like A Tribe Called Quest, OutKast — that’s when I really was put on to Andre 3000, and just like, how amazing his artistry and how he’s always evolved, changed, flipped the script.” TT: That’s cool you bring up Andre, he’s definitely one of those artists that’s always pushed the envelope creatively. You do a good amount of that in your music, too. It’s not quite traditional rap, it’s not purely R&B, you’re using a lot of bigger band and instrument sounds rather than conventional rap beats — How would you describe your sound, or what would you say your signature sound is like? D: “Well I really didn’t have anything coined at first, but the songs that are popular now, “Cha Cha,” “Broccoli,” “Cute,” “Cash Machine” …
that’s a “trappy-go-lucky” sound. A happy, positive sound and vibe but it still hits very hard. The sound in general as a whole, my dude put it the best way. He said it was a mix of ODB, George Clinton and D’Angelo. So I’m gonna just run with that.” TT: Wow, that’s actually really accurate. You mentioned “Broccoli,” though. That ended up getting radio play across the country and going like double-platinum. Did you see that coming? D: “Absolutely not, man.” TT: The radio success was kinda funny given the subject material. Like it’s got the piano riff, it sounds kinda cartoonish, you have Lil Yachty on it. It could almost be a kid’s song if it wasn’t about weed... D: “It’s actually not really a weed song! To be honest, when I went and did that hook, that was just a freestyle off the top of my head. ‘In the middle of the party bitch get off me’… like the only thing I could think of was ‘in the cut I’m rollin up my broccoli’ … And then as far as my verse, the only time I ever speak of tree is ‘I don’t smoke if it ain’t fuego’ but the basis of the record is really just us talking about our lives.” TT: I guess that’s true. But going back to that first project, the “#1EPICSUMMER” mixtape, I think the first song I ever heard from it, even before “Cha Cha,” was that super -long “#1EPICRANT (Ode to the Struggle Rappers)” song. You’re talking about some pretty specific stuff on that, how did it come about? D: [Laughs] “Ohh man. Well where I’m from in Virginia, we’ve seen a handful of people achieve literally the world in music. Us coming from that area, so many people wanted to do it that struggle rap became like a thing. It was living in the ‘post’ of the era that I’m from. The after-dust of nothing else really coming from Virginia for like 15 years. There’s a lot of people with talent out here… but some people like to write rhymes about, you know, just what they’re going through in life, and it’s really just a lot of problems and struggle and stuff, so that’s ‘struggle rap.’ There’s also hip hop purists. I was born in ‘88 so I respect the game, I’m a student of the game, but I’m also a huge fan of the way that music is heading right now. I really don’t let any time period of music dictate what I got going. With that song I had put out the whole project, and me and my boy Gabe were like we’re gonna make this thing so long and drawn out that it could be a separate EP and sound like somebody from around the way’s whole project. And also, I consider myself a singer first, but it was to kinda show that I definitely do have quote-unquote ‘BARS.’” >>>
against anything... like when Dipset was wavin’ hard it was Dipset City out here. We were big fans of Lupe, we were big fans of all of the Uptown shit. Then when the South started taking over, we were with that shit, we were also listening to Three 6 Mafia, UGK — we really didn’t have our own thing to the point where it’s like everybody dresses this way, everybody listens to just this. In the DC, DMV area they have go-gos, they have a distinct look, it’s like a for real thing out there. We got our little slang and stuff like that, but not like a ‘team.’ There’s so many different influences and so many different angles that we could approach things with, just because we opened our ears to literally everything, even the West Coast. If you go to parts of Virginia Beach you’d be like ‘they look like they from Santa Monica or somewhere,’ out there with the shoes and the shorts and all that. But I always describe the 757 as not too fast, not too slow, but sometimes not slow enough.” TT: That’s what’s up. Speaking of legendary artists, you had Erykah Badu featured on your latest album. We recently heard something about you possibly doing an album together, is that true? D: “That’s definitely going to happen. It’s really official, you didn’t hear speculation, you heard facts. I cannot give you a time for when it comes out, but I promise to God it is a real thing and it’s happening.” TT: You’re definitely going in on that one. And if we’re hearing it right, there’s a line where you kinda pre-empted the hype around “Cha Cha”... you kinda already knew it was going to be a thing? D: “Exactly, man. With ‘Cha Cha,’ we had it going crazy in our area, but a whole 2 ½ months before we released it on the Internet, we made people come to our events just so they could hear the song. Everyone was asking for the mp3 and we held it hostage like it was the ‘80s or something.” TT: That’s awesome. Going back to the Virginia thing. You guys have had some of the biggest, most influential artists come out of there. Timbaland was everywhere, The Neptunes were everywhere. You can even still hear their sounds and kits being used in songs today. What’s up with Virginia, or why do you think it’s produced artists of this magnitude? D: “It could have a lot to do with it being the melting pot of the East Coast. It’s really right there in the middle. And we didn’t discriminize
TT: Word man, congrats. How did you two meet, or how did it feel when you found out she was a fan of your music? D: “It just happened off of a mutual love for one another’s sound. I grew up listening to her, and we finally got in contact with one another. We linked, talked about music and other stuff, and we really vibed. It almost felt like a necessity for us to make music together. And that’s how it started. “Wifi” is the preview, so stay tuned for the rest.” TT: You’ve come a long way in the last couple years, but you’ve definitely kept doing you the whole time and you seem like you’re still having a great time. What’s the secret to staying happy and staying yourself through the blowup and sudden fame? D: “To give out the energy that you want to get back. If you approach a situation with love, positivity, an overall good vibe — 9 times out of 10 it’s gonna come back to you in a grand way. So you know, just do it like how you want it to be done.”
As told to TOP TREE • Photos by Chernsicle & Carson Allmon
TOPTREE.
.AGENCY
TIME: 4:20 PM DATE: JANUARY 3, 2017 CITY: Seattle, Washington ADDRESS: 925 E. Pike St. LONG/LAT: -122.32/47.61 TEMPERATURE: 38°F
Seattle’s nationally respected car club Eazy Duz It wants you to know what lowriding is really about, and how it changes lives
The license plate holder seemed out of place. Here was the Eazy Duz It lowrider club, Seattle bred from bone to car tilage and this Los Angeles dealership on the side of the 110 Interstate near USC’s campus was bolted on every bumper: “FELIX Chevrolet. 3330 S. Figueroa at Jefferson. Since 1921.” “Thats a famous chevy dealership in LA. You kinda put the LA approval on it by putting that on,” Keo, founding member of Eazy Duz It, explains. “That’s where it started you know, so anything that can pay homage or respect to LA, it goes with it. So it became a trend on its own.” >>>
Seattle adopted lowriding, like so many other cultural cornerstones it made its way up the West Coast with the migration of the people connected to it. Local crews like Showtime and USO were icons to those who would go on to found Eazy Duz It, partly because lowriding in this climate is like having a hockey team in the desert — just straight up confusing. “Everybody from Vegas and LA admires us because of the challenges and obstacles we have to deal with just to get certain things done,” Keo points out as he provides the back story to Seattle’s scene. “Painting, chrome, all the resources, it’s a big challenge over here. It’s way cheaper and more accessible in LA — in one block you’ll have a painter, an interior guy, a chrome guy. Over here you gotta wait, it’s like ‘oh it’s too cold to paint, oh man the chrome guy’s in Eastern Washington.’ But we still make it happen.” In many ways the respect that has come their way is in relation to the audacity of having a car club in Seattle, and not looking off-brand for a single day since Keo put all the parts together in 2010. “Seattle’s roads are fucked up man,” Keo says shaking his head. “If I tell people how I lowride when I go to Vegas and stuff they’re like man how do you do it? Man, it’s passion. The roads in LA and Vegas are smooth as hell, it’s built for these cars. Over here it does not make sense man. But we like to go on Alki, Rainier Ave, down by Seward Park, downtown like 1st Ave. But the roads are definitely not lowriderfriendly here.” Growing up in the Seattle neighborhoods where the pizza man wouldn’t deliver in broad daylight, a tie that binds many of the members currently pushing Eazy Duz It to national attention and local fame, it was lowriding that shielded them from the harsh realities waiting right outside their doors. “Lowriding as a young boy kept me away from bad people I knew and kept me at home sanding on a bike frame I had a dream about and wanted to build,” Joey — an Eazy Duz It member since day one who can weld, paint and install anything — recalls. “When I was in 7th grade my dad threw away all my Lowrider Magazines when I started messing up in school,” Pitra, who specializes in custom painting and body fabrication for Eazy Duz It, points out. “Just recently I reminded
him of that time and then showed him a new issue with my name in one of the features.” Eazy Duz It is often mistaken for an older club, because values matter to them. Quality counts, shor t cuts are corny as shit and always have been. The club has a concept, and you can it see from a mile down the road without binoculars. “Long story short, I love it so much that I feel like I owe something to lowriding,” Keo says thinking back to his origins. “I used to draw ‘em, build model cars, bikes, you know, up until now. I feel it deserves more respect, a more positive reputation than what it has now. That’s part of our mission actually in the club, to preserve and promote lowriding the right way. I want to show people that hard-working average guys like this can make it happen. Not only that, but none of these cars are possible just by yourself. You need a club, a crew, to really have the same vision to really put their hands on it. If this car was built at a shop, it would’ve cost over $100,000 because a lot of it is labor. But because of the love and the club having the same vision, you just took off like 80% of the cost.” A club shows out when a new car debuts, it makes time in schedules that include families and blue-collar problems for a photo shoot like the one this magazine requested, but that’s what you see. What you don’t see is the horsepower that brings these mobile sculptures to life in a garage to be named later. The community bar ters ser vices and skills so members have a hand in the creations, even when it’s not their name on the registration paperwork for the DMV. It takes a village to raise a lowrider. “Unless you’re a millionaire or have all the skills in the world and can do it yourself, you need help,” Keo mentions as he tries to illustrate the way it works. “You need a welder, you need a painter, you need an interior guy, and that’s what I did. I got everybody together that has the skills, or even that didn’t have them but could learn them and bring something to the table. Like say I did hydraulics, we got the engine guy here, we got the painter here, so we bartered. That’s another reason it works. And not only that, but don’t put a price on your skill. If you paint and I do hydraulics, don’t say yours is wor th $10,000 and mine was $5,000 and I owe you $5,000 now. Just take it as you win and I win.” >>>
to know about the 20 years underneath that sparkle. “It really is a lifestyle because you have to adjust your life to it,” Keo breaks down recalling all his sacrifices to get on the road. “You gotta work an extra shift, pick up another job just to make it happen. If you look at me now you might just see this car and think I’m rich, or I’m a baller or whatever, but they don’t know that it took 20 years in the making. That’s the difference that a lot of people don’t understand.” “Bartering service is like having money,” Joey adds. “If you have a skill use it to help others and show your not that person that's all about money. Set examples for others to share skill so everyone can come up together.” “I prefer to barter when it comes to my car club members,” Pitra notes speaking personally. “It gives us the opportunity to get two things done and the extra money can go towards parts.” On this day there’s not a generic, imitation part to be found. The crew gathers at White Center’s Burger Boss, a favorite drive-in style hamburger stand that is centrally located, and happy to see the increase in business when they turn up. The devil is in the details, and it’s apparent how the extra money spent on par ts is shining. The Brougham D'Elegance with the pillow tops in a red so rich you can taste it catches the eye of a passer by, she can’t contain her excitement as she shares her opinion that the hydraulic cylinders and pumps in the trunk look like an arsenal of weapons. But that’s never the case when they find the car’s frame that will one day dilate pupils the way they are on this night. “My buddy actually found it for me in Ballard. I didn’t believe him, I was like ‘yeah right,’ Keo remembers vividly. “He bought it off the original owner that passed away, and he had it for under a year, he just used it for picking up christmas trees. Just had nothing but pine needles in the back. And I just went up to the house one day and asked if it was for sale, and he was like ‘you know what, yeah — let me ask my wife.’ And then the rest is history after that. But he told me he wasn’t gonna sell it to me if I was gonna just buy it and flip it, or sell it right away. I was like ‘nah I’m not gonna do that, this is my dream.’ It featured in Lowrider Magazine for the November 2016 issue, and I wanted to get a hold of the guy to show like ‘hey man, I never sold it. Look, 20 years later I still got it.’” We all see the flash of color and brilliance when it pulls up at the stoplight, but Keo wants you
Misconceptions are everywhere when it comes to lowriding, but most visibly in the mainstream media. Many immediately consider “hopping” something Keo compares to the macho element of burning rubber in the Hot Rod culture that fathered their art form. The base element of lowriding is cruising it’s transportation — but upgraded to make a maniacal commute magical again. “Mainly get asked if ‘don't gang members drive lowriders?’” Joey comments without any hard feelings. There’s so much more staring back at you if you can detach yourself from some Danny Trejo looking boogeyman that Hollywood script writers implanted in your brain. These are good people. They work for a living. Some have gang affiliations, but no more than the kids bagging your groceries at Safeway do. This is about style and substance, not image and marketing. “With our club, you can see each car is different, but they’re the same,” Keo says getting to the heart of the matter. “Different paint, different schemes, different this and that, but it’s all the same formula. The same 13” rims, the same hydraulic pumps, the same type of interior… So you can look at this car, look at that car, and you can tell they’re the same club. That’s what a lot of people lose when they come into the game.
They don’t understand any of that concept. Also I think social media and the Internet kinda kills it. Nowadays they have so many imitation products. The wheels aren’t authentic anymore, it’s more attainable. Back in the day you had to save up for fuckin’ five years to get that one set of rims.” The Internet, as it does in all cases, has changed this world dramatically without apology. Eazy Duz It takes advantage where appropriate but stays rooted in the same soil where the seeds were planted as young men flipping through glossy print magazines for pages they could cut out and put on a bedroom wall with thumbtacks. Parts are easier to find though, ideas can be shared across oceans in milli-seconds — so some good comes with the bad. “A lot of people out here join or start clubs for the wrong reasons,” Keo says on the topic of new media influence. “They want the plaque right away, the status right away, without doing the kind of leg work we do and put into actually building the car. They’ll make a T-shirt, they’ll throw a show, just a bunch of stuff that has no real credibility behind it. That’s what I didn’t like and what made me start a club actually. When I grew up I was looking up to older veteran car clubs in the Seattle area and they were like this. Showtime, the USO and those guys, they were representing like we are now, and that’s just what I was used to growing up.” More than anything it has really ruined what made lowriding shows so special — “debuting” a car. “The bad thing is it leaks out projects before they can debut,” Pitra points out. “The beauty of debuting a big project is the surprise aspect.” “Back in the day when you debuted your car, that was kept secret until the day of and boom, you’re bustin’ out, you’re there,” Keo adds. “But nowadays once the frame is painted and all that it’s on Instagram all day.” Social media has impacted culture with a heavy hand, but the nuts and bolts of lowriding haven’t changed because no app is going to turn that wrench for you. So while engrossed in the production, in workshops with box fans for ventilation, marijuana is occasionally present but most members aren’t that in to it.
“I personally don't smoke marijuana. Guess I'm just naturally high off of paint,” Pitra jokes. The good times are the priorities, however each of them arrives there is just window dressing. Nothing a substance provides can equal the satisfaction of seeing the joy on the face of regular folks going about their day, who come across an Eazy Duz It vehicular masterpiece, and can’t hold back a smile. “There’s those guys with lowriders and if you get this close they’re talking about ‘hey don’t come by my car, stay back’. Why? When I hear about that I hate that, because that’s not what I represent,” Keo concludes. “To me its like man… come one come all, take a picture, do your Vine, this is for you. What makes me happy is if it makes you happy. That’s what lowriding is about. When you gotta act hard like ‘don’t touch my car’, man we don’t need that.”
“I expiremented a lil bit back in the days, when I was growing up. But things change you know, I’m a father now,” Keo shares. “I don’t want to say that the club is about weed or anything like that. A lot of this pattern stuff, the graphics — I do a lot of this. Sometimes weed helps and sometimes it really doesn’t. You get to the end of the day and you’re like shit, I gotta re-do this.” Words by Chernsicle, Mike Ramos, and Barry Joyner • Photos by Chernsicle and Carson Allmon
Seattle rap queen and blunt connoisseur Gifted Gab twists up two of her passions by landing a Swisher Sweets sponsorship on the strength of her bars
Blunts and rap music have gone hand in hand for as long as New Yorkers have been freestyling in corner cyphers — even longer than 25-year-old Gifted Gab has been rapping (since grade school) and smoking herb (since high school). But the Seattle-born-and-bred MC, who has been consistently releasing quality hip-hop projects since her 2012 debut EP “Queen La’ Chiefah,” experienced the ultimate marriage of these longtime passions earlier this year by gaining a sponsorship from storied cigar brand/blunt staple Swisher. It started with Gab stopping by a Swisher Sweets booth at Atlanta’s A3C music convention last year, but initially only resulted in her getting added to a spammy email list. She says that she only reached out to the company to unsubscribe her personal email account from the feed. “I ended up getting a real person’s response back with an apology and all that shit,” she said. “I chilled on it for a minute, but a few months later I took a shot in the dark and just sent them my electronic press kit and an email about my background and what I do and all that. The person I talked to was like ‘oh we’ve actually heard of you.’” Swisher ended up enlisting Gab’s rhyming talents for their Swisher Sweets Artist Project, what they call “an ongoing initiative to provide unique opportunities for artists to create, share, and pursue their passion.” For her first
production as part of the project, she was featured in a “Convenience Store Session” — a pop-up performance where she performed three songs live inside Mr. Buck’s Liquor Store in Costa Mesa, CA that is now posted on Swisher’s YouTube channel. She said it really was, as they claim “unrehearsed, unannounced, real customers, recorded live.” “Those were really just random people coming into the store to buy shit,” she said. And though the Convenience Store Session was a great first stint with the Artist Project, Gab (whose corner-store snack game is also regarded as somewhat legendary) said that getting that first care package was like Christmas coming early. “I had two big-ass boxes at my front door with every flavor of Swisher and hella T-shirts and shit like that,” she said. “I’m finally on my last box. It’s one of the Summer Twist ones. Lemon something.” After going through all of the different flavors, Gab came up with the following rankings: 1st: Diamond 2nd: Original Sweet 3rd: Tropical Fusion (“the ones in the turquoise pack”) Honorable Mentions: Peach, Strawberry >>>
“I’m a diamond person myself,” Gab said. “I’m not gonna say I don’t fuck with the fruity ones, but after being able to try all of them I’m definitely more partial to the Diamond because they have no added flavor, it’s just natural.” And her thoughts on the often-controversial Grape flavor? “They remind me of the hyphy movement,” she said with a laugh. “I know hella people that still smoke the grape ones like its nothing, but its funny to me cuz the early 2000’s, that was like the only Swisher. You might even get some side-eyes having a regular swisher back then. It had to be grape — or maybe strawberry.” As for the increasingly popular anti-blunt/ tobacco stance that many cannabis users have adopted, Gab agrees to disagree. “They’re right, it’s definitely bad for you,” she said. “It’s straight tobacco. Even if you dump all the guts out it’s still tobacco. But I don’t know, there’s a million things that are bad for you. A lot of people smoke spliffs. Blunts are just more my style. I don’t even drink. If someone’s smoking and they have a joint and pass it to me I’m not gonna say no, but really I personally only roll joints if I don’t have any Swishers or am down to the very end of my weed and am like ‘alright, I’m gonna try to make this stretch.’ But most of the time I’ll fuckin walk a mile just to get a Swisher if I ain’t got one. It’s just better for my lifestyle, it’s how I roll.”
Words by Mike Ramos • Photos by Carson Allmon, Chernsicle, and Courtesy of the Artist
Most rap historians cr edit Br onx rapper Just-Ice’s “Little School,” as the first mention of “smoking blunts” in a rap song. by Lone Ranger called “Johnny Make You Bad So,” New Yorkers fil ganja in fronto leafs (and everyone else trying to find so
Longtime music journalist Jesse Serwer got the original story from Just-Ice himself in a mid-’00s interview he did for an XXL Magazine story:
e Bad Johnny,” from his 1986 debut album “Back To the Old Just like Just-Ice’s track interpolated a 1982 reggae song lling cheap cigars with weed came from Jamaicans rolling their omething they could buy at the bodega as a substitute).
“The reason why a cigar is called a blunt is ver y simple. If you’re old enough, you should remember El Productos. That is the original blunt. Besides a fronto leaf, cause a fronto leaf was always here. Truth is people just couldn’t get a hold of those unless you were Jamaican. So what you used to do is go to the store, get a tray bag of weed and an El Producto blunt. And you would unwrap them like a leaf and then you would put your weed in there and roll it back up. El Producto blunts, they went out of business in I think ‘85, ‘86. After the El Producto blunt, ’cause that was a strong ass cigar, a lot of people couldn’t take the pressure in they chest from the weed and the cigar. So El Producto created a new cigar called the Fino. That’s after the blunt. So that was a little lighter tasting. ‘Cause blunt actually means harsh. Now, a lot of people wasn’t skilled
enough to unwrap the Fino and rewrap it over correctly, so they star ted smoking Phillies. With Phillies, all you had to do was split them open, put the weed in and roll it up. But a lot of people who smoked weed didn’t like Phillies, ’cause it burned too fast.” “Nowadays they got this shit called blunt wraps. To me, that’s like the lowest. That’s the fuckin lowest. I be looking at these kids smoking this weed talking about let’s get blunted up and I’m saying to myself, ‘If you had a real blunt you’d choke to death.’ If you coughing off a blunt wrap which is some manufactured shit, and it’s flavored? See that’s another thing. When I was growing up, none of this shit had flavor to it. The only thing that had flavor was the banana and the lemon and strawberry E-Z Widers.”
Gabrielle Kadushin
ISSUE #3
Featuring
Eazy Duz It, Gifted Gab, Big Baby D.R.A.M.,
M.H. Stein, Cookie Mueller, Glenn O’Brien, El Producto