And I’m just chilling in my skin
Different comes natural, why fake or why pretend?
We invent our own moves

In just a few years I’ve watched our local hip-hop scene transform from a handful of misfits at a Westlake cypher into a movement that sells out shows every weekend. Nonetheless we run away to LA or Atlanta to further pursue our careers because we feel like Seattle will never “blow up”, whatever that means. Stylistically we still lack maturity, media easily throws us into this and that category or “wave”, our music always a poor imitation of something more profound, our movement only an emulation of movements that took place elsewhere and have since passed.

In “We Don’t Sound Like Yall” we dispel the notion that our city doesn’t have its own culture or its own sound. The song is a declaration of our unique flavor and unrelenting individuality, but the underlying point is that being yourself is not something that should require a whole lot of effort. Like Tay says early in the opening verse, “I don’t even try, it’s just the way that I was built.”

The song originally debuted on KEXP and appears as part of the 4 the Love of Music compilation. The song for download here is the original version, which was created and recorded at the Cloud, capturing a different energy on the track.

Photo by Blake Diamond