Seattle Hip Hop Show Generator 1.0

I walked into the half-full venue, noticing that a single guy was on stage, DJing, presumably, in front of a projection screen that read "Chop Suey Screen Graphic". The music might have been bumping but the crowd was not jumping. This was my first introduction to the Seattle hip hop scene.

Before I get into the bulk of the blog (randomly generating your own Seattle Hip Hop Show experience), let me remind everyone that I have serious sample size issues with all of this. I don't claim to be a hip hop expert by any means (necessary) and I am sure that if I went to a few more shows (a massive "if", at this point) my position would change and become more confidently stated. With all of that said, here are some thoughts on the evening:

• The act we bought tickets to see, Fresh Espresso, was unavailable due to illness. Bummer. We saw them on NYE and I thought they were pretty good... Flowers and Raftmate and the others fell in love with them, so it was particularly disappointing to them.
• I felt less white than I was anticipating. I mean... I'm pretty damn white (culturally and pigmentation-ly) but while it was a more... urban scene than I'm normally frequenting, I felt less un-hip (hop) than I was thinking I would. Maybe it was because I had thoroughly prefunked, or maybe because, well, it's Seattle. And Seattle Urban is less urban than other cities? I dunno.
• There were a lot of special guests. The people on the stage were moved off and on with every song. I'm actually slightly surprised that Natty didn't contribute to a song or two.
•  I love making fun of things I don't understand (climate change, women) and hip hop definitely fits the bill. As a result of the number of special guests, about 10% of the audience actually were performing that night! It made mocking the performers slightly more tricky... and while the performers, themselves, didn't deserve mockery (at least at the tip of my ignorant tongue)... the structure did.

Over the two acts I saw, I noticed that things were rather... formulaic. Setting aside the music (which I don't claim to know anything about in terms of quality) there were structural consistencies between songs and performers.

Here's my report on Spaceman, the second act we saw that night (ignore the parenthetical numbers for now):

• Spaceman opened with a dark stage. Robotic voice implored/chastised/explained something to the crowd as Spaceman (one guy with sunglasses and a stocking cap) waited.
• Spaceman invited a special guest on stage. (4)
• Ol' D Seatown (5,4,7, 6), a black guy wearing a baseball cap and baggy jeans with a t-shirt (1, 9, 3, 3)
• Spaceman and Ol D' Seatown denigrated the current state of hip hop for a bit (7) and then began a "Space-MAN!" chant (6) and then started it again (6) before Spaceman invited up another guest to the stage
• Diamond (7, 4, 3, 2), an African American wearing a baseball cap and a baggy hoody with jeans (3, 9, 7, 3)
• Spaceman, Ol' D Seatown and Diamond started a song (8)  about hip hop, women, and money (9, 5, 1). I found the references to women distasteful.
• Diamond and Ol' D Seatown left the stage, and Spaceman performed a song, solo (10), about how Seattle bitches love money (1, 5, 6).
• After he completed that song, Spaceman implored the crowd to make some noise (1) and then implored the ladies in the house to make some noise (2) before performing another song (9)... this one about Seattle, ho's and the need to get up and stand up (6, 4, 8).
• Following this rousing song, Spaceman again told the ladies to make some noise (2) but they didn't make enough, so he told them to do it again (2) and then he invited another special guest up
• C Midnight Guru (7, 3, 8, 7), a white kid wearing a t-shirt and baggy jeans and nerdy glasses (8, 4, 10).
• C Midnight Guru came on stage and assisted Spaceman in denigrating the current state of hip hop, claiming they were going to bring it back to previous glory (7). The two then performed a song  about how Spaceman and C Midnight Guru were smoking chronic and getting bitches (7, 10, 4).
• C Midnight Guru left and Spaceman performed (10) a song about smoking weed and bitches that smoke weed (4, 7, 7) .

OK. I just made that performance up (other than the first bullet and the "Spaceman" name) using my Seattle Hip Hop Show Generator template (below). But, seriously. That was close enough to the real thing. The numbers in the parentheses were the numbers that I "rolled" on the ten-sided die (ten-sided dice are also known as "D10") and that helped generate the performance experience.

In case you can't make it to Chop Suey to check out a Seattle Hip Hop show, grab your ten-sided die (or visit this site in another browser window, making sure to select D10) and make your own!

Start off with selecting an artist (do a Web search for one, imagine yourself as the star, or use the "Special Guest Generator", below). Create a Song Preamble, and create Song Content. Repeat as long as you'd like. I chose to go until I got to five songs.

Make sure to enjoy your special guests!

Performance Flow
Instructions: Roll a 10-sided die and check against the Song Preamble list. Document and follow instructions. When "Start performing song" comes up, roll three times from the Song Content list.


Song Preamble

1. Implore crowd to make some noise [Roll again]
2. Implore ladies to make some noise [Roll again]
3. Invite Special Guest out [Use Special Guest Generator; Roll again]
4. Invite Special Guest out [Use Special Guest Generator; Roll again]
5. Invite Special Guest out [Use Special Guest Generator; Roll again]
6. Begin artist-specific chant [Roll again]
7. Denigrate current state of hip hop [Roll again]
8. Start performing song
9. Start performing song
10. Start performing song

Song Content [Roll Three Times]

1. Money 
2. Women (polite) 
3. Women (denigrating) 
4. Women (denigrating)
5. Women (denigrating)
6. Seattle
7. Chronic
8. Getting up/Standing up/Making noise
9. Hip hop
10. The performer

Special Guest Generator:
Instructions: Roll a 10-sided die and check against the Name One list, the Name Two list, the Name Three list, and the Name Order list. Document and follow instructions. Generate results from each of the remaining Special Guest Generator lists and return to the Performance Flow list.

Name One

1. Da
2. Fresh
3. Rip 
4. Kid
5. Ol'
6. Puff
7. Guru
8. Tone
9. Tre
10. [Roll Twice]

Name Two

1. A
2. B
3. C
4. D
5. E
6. F
7. G
8. J
9. Z
10. [Roll Twice]

Name Three

1. Black
2. Blue
3. Diamond
4. Green
5. Ice
6. JayJay
7. SeaTown
8. Midnight
9. Smoov
10. [Roll Twice]

Name Order

1. One
2. Three
3. One Two
4. One Three
5. Two Three
6. One Two Three
7. Two Three One
8. One Three Two
9. [Roll Again, Reverse Results]
10. [Roll Again, Reverse Results]

Race 

1. Black
2. Black
3. Black
4. Black
5. Black
6. Black
7. White
8. White
9. Asian
10. Pacific Islander

Ensemble

1. T-shirt, baggy jeans with exposed underwear
2. T-shirt, baggy jeans with exposed underwear
3. T-shirt, baggy jeans with exposed underwear
4. T-shirt, baggy jeans with exposed underwear
5. Track suit
6. Sweater with collared shirt underneath
7. Baggy hoody and jeans
8. Stocking cap [Roll again]
9. Baseball cap [Roll again]
10. Outfit change [Roll Twice, with period of shirtlessness due to on-stage costume change]

Glasses

1. None
2. None
3. None
4. None
5. Sunglasses
6. Sunglasses
7. Sunglasses
8. Sunglasses
9. Nerdy glasses
10. Nerdy Glasses