A couple weeks back, while at the Rendezvous for that Porter Ray/Royce the Choice/Steezie Nasa show, Seattle's own Sye Hollywood introduced me to his dude D Valley, who gave me his newest release, Hotels & Trap Houses. I already had a copy of his Live from the Hood Vol. II somewhere in a precarious stack of music sitting near my workspace (a bombproof bunker deep under Seattle), but he assured me that this latest from his 2nd Life Ent. was the one to peep.

So peep I did—and found Hotels thankfully a good cut above the typical outdated trap-star stuff that clogs the half-dozen shoe boxes that compose my local rap archive. The Mackned-laced "Where We Be," for one, reminds me favorably of the spacey hustler music of Oakland's Main Attrakionz. Valley is unmistakably and specifically Central District though, abetted by some of the young criminal-minded talent from there to the Soufend to Oaktown, including Avatar Darko, Carey Stacks, and Joe Blow. Still: The grind, the acquisition of money, the status—all this figures heavy into Valley's worldview with little else. As a result, over the course of Hotels, you barely get a feel for who D Valley is besides what he does and what he has. Street rap, even the best stuff, tends to stick to the same subject matter—in a beyond-cluttered market, a little personality really goes a long way. That said, if you're a fan of concrete raps from your city, you won't be let down here.

Continue reading »