Daudi Abe

by Daudi Abe Author Daudi Abe, KEXP DJ Larry Mizell Jr., and Questlove In 2023, I moderated a conversation with producer, DJ, Grammy-winning musician, and Oscar-winning filmmaker Questlove in Kane Hall at the University of Washington. For me, the highlight of these kinds of events is often time spent in the green room waiting for the program to begin. As I, Questlove (who Chuck D called “the Quincy Jones of hip hop”), and KEXP DJ and event host Larry Mizell, Jr., chopped it up, Questlove...

Any discussion about the roots of Seattle hip-hop must begin in the Central District (CD), the traditional home of Seattle’s African American community. As Dr. Quintard Taylor wrote in his book, The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era , “Black Seattle through much of the twentieth century was synonymous with the Central District, a four-square-mile section near the geographic center of the isthmus that constitutes the city.” Although...