Silver Shadow D “See’A’Look” * Produced by Silver Shadow D. Cuts by DJ Shmix
KeyNote Speaker “Questions” *** Produced by KeyNote Speaker
Orbitron “Movement” **** Produced by Big Zo
Bishop I & King Khazm “Stop The Violence” * Featuring Jerome Mitchell. Produced by King Khazm
IaMcHaMeL “Jokes On You” * Produced by Third Eye Bling
Spyc-E “SpaceTime” * Produced by Boombox Massacre
Abyssinian Creole “Sinners” ^ Produced by KeyNote Speaker
Seattle’s Key “Living” ^^ Produced by BrainGotBlaps
Julie-C & 2XStormz Vicious “Slim Chance” * Produced by Depth175. Cuts by DJ Shmix
AudioPoet & Beatbox Panda“All Up In Ya Face” * Cuts by DJ Shmix
Mid Century Modern “Left Behind” ^^^ Featuring Docawhoo. Produced by Docdawhoo
Beats to the Rhyme “Soul Snatchaz” * Featuring Frank Saga, Lil Fax Machine & Izaya Brown. Produced by Depth175. Cuts by DJ Shmix.
3N’1Rekcordz “3 Fly Minds” ^^^^ Produced by Gabriel Teodros
* Recorded by Robbin Clemente at Emerald Street Studios. ** Recorded and mixed by DJ Sayeed at The Temple. *** Recorded by Dume41, mixed by KeyNote Speaker. **** Recorded and mixed by Alonzo Ybarra at Beacon Skillz. ^ Recorded by Abyssinian Creole, mixed by KeyNote Speaker and Dume41. ^^ Recorded by Keyuntae Ward. ^^^ Recorded by King Khazm at The MAD Lab. ^^^^ Recorded by Chris Dean at Boomhouse Studios. All songs mixed and mastered by Dume41 unless noted. Art by Spen1. Layout by King Khazm.
206 Zulu would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who participated in the 22nd Anniversary celebration last weekend at Washington Hall! The Two-Oh-Sicks: Town’d Out Northwest Hip Hop Compilation album is now available on 12”, CD and popular streaming platforms!
Friday, February 20, 2026
Join us at Washington Hall to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of 206 Zulu! It’s going to be a night full of good vibes, fresh beats, and the exclusive release of the Two Oh Sicks compilation album. Don’t miss out on the party where music and memories collide. Come ready to dance, connect, and get Town’d Out!
Featuring: 2xStormz Vicious & Julie-C, 3N’1 Rekcordz, Abyssinian Creole, AudioPoet, Beatbox Panda, Bishop I, IaMcHaMeL, Jerome Mitchell, KeyNote Speaker, Mid Century Modern, Seattle’s Key, Silver Shadow D, Spyc-E, T.H.C. and DJ Topspin aka Blendiana Jones!
About 206 Zulu: 206 Zulu a non-profit organization dedicated to providing accessible spaces while serving communities through the upliftment, preservation, and celebration of Hip Hop culture.
Washington Hall 153 14th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122 7:30pm | $15 Adv. / $22 DOS
Due to popular demand Comedian Sammy Obeid (Netflix, Conan) performs LIVE again in Seattle on February 14, 1:00pm at Washington Hall.
💙 Sammy Obeid: In Love with Seattle! 💙 February 14, 2026 | 1:00 PM | Washington Hall
Fresh off sold-out shows around the world, comedian Sammy Obeid returns to Seattle for a special Valentine’s Day afternoon performance.
With his signature blend of cultural observation, math-inspired wit, and hilarious storytelling, Sammy delivers punchlines that will have you laughing long after the show is over. This is an afternoon meant to be shared. Make it part of your Valentine’s plans and enjoy world-class comedy in one of Seattle’s most iconic venues.
Doors 12:00 pm | Show 1:00 pm
Lebanese-Palestinian American, born in Oakland, California, Sammy Obeid double majored in Business and Mathematics at UC Berkeley and then turned down a job at Google to be a comedian. Now the host of 100 Humans on Netflix, he’s also appeared on NBC’s Last Comic Standing and America’s Got Talent, as well as TBS’s Conan, and is best known for his world record of performing comedy 1,001 nights in a row, a story featured in both Time Magazine and The New York Times.
The Hip Hop community is mourning the passing of Mtulazaji “P.E.A.C.E.” Davis, a visionary emcee, cultural craftsman, and founding force within the legendary Freestyle Fellowship and Project Blowed movements. Known for his lyrics, voice, and cadence—all charged with dynamism—P.E.A.C.E. moved fluidly between rapid-fire bursts and a smooth Texas drawl, always laced with unmistakable California cool. A fearless improviser and one-man theater of rhyme, he fused mind-bending wordplay with sharp lyricism, often steeped in burn-yo’-shit-down sentimentality. P.E.A.C.E. was a cornerstone of L.A.’s underground, a scene that helped reframe the narrative of West Coast Hip Hop.
More than an emcee, P.E.A.C.E. was a griot: a truth-teller and cultural guardian who used rhythm and rhyme to document history, reflect his reality, and pass knowledge to those coming next. He transitioned on October 24, 2025, at the age of 51, leaving behind a powerful body of work and a legacy that continues to inspire lyricists, and freestylers worldwide. The outpouring of respect and reverence across the Hip Hop community speaks to the depth of his impact.
P.E.A.C.E. rose from the fertile creative soil of South Central Los Angeles, where Hip Hop wasn’t just entertainment—it was a lifeline. In the early ’90s, while commercial radio flooded the airwaves with G-flows, a different current emerged from the Good Life Café, a modest health food store turned open-mic sanctuary. There, young emcees like P.E.A.C.E. reimagined the art form, not by denying the raw truths of their environment, but by elevating the tools used to express them.
The Good Life stage with the founder & owner, Janie Mae Scott aka IfaSade (center)
The Good Life became an arena for artistic innovation, giving rise to a wave of forward-thinking artists and groups, including Medusa, Of Mexican Descent, Abstract Tribe Unique, Volume 10, The Nonce, Chillin Villain Empire, the Grammy-nominated Skee-Lo, and young members of the Atban Klann, who would later evolve into the Black Eyed Peas. A strict no-cursing policy and high standards for originality pushed artists to sharpen their craft and raise the lyrical bar, leaving an imprint that continues to shape underground scenes today.
This cultural moment is powerfully captured in This Is the Life (2008), a documentary written and directed by Ava DuVernay, herself a former Good Life regular. The film chronicles the brilliance, community, and creative rigor of that era. It was more than a venue—it was a workshop, a proving ground, and a living archive of Black innovation and resistance. For P.E.A.C.E.’s musical genius, it was a perfect home.
As a founding member of Freestyle Fellowship, alongside Aceyalone, Myka 9, and Self Jupiter, P.E.A.C.E. helped redefine the possibilities of Hip Hop. Their landmark debut, To Whom It May Concern… (1991), recently Grammy-nominated for its reissue, was self-released, uncompromising, and urgent. It was a declaration of artistic independence. In addition to the four emcees most often credited, key contributors like J. Sumbi and M.D. Himself helped shape the sound and ethos of the group. All were forged at the Good Life Café and later became pillars of the Project Blowed movement.
Freestyle Fellowship
Freestyle Fellowship’s follow-up, Innercity Griots (1993), is widely hailed as one of the greatest underground Hip Hop albums of all time. With polyrhythmic flows, layered narratives, black empowerment and spiritual depth, it offered a blueprint for generations of emcees searching for something more profound than surface-level storytelling.
While his work with Fellowship was foundational, P.E.A.C.E. also carved out a lane entirely his own. His 2000 debut Southern Fry’d Chicken captured the raw spontaneity of his live presence—humorous, densely packed, and rhythmically complex. He followed with Megabite in 2004, a deeper dive into abstraction and introspection. Though not widely known in the mainstream, both albums are respected in underground circles for their originality and fearlessness. They were not made for easy listening, and that was never the point. P.E.A.C.E. wasn’t about convenience. He was about exploration.
Album art from Southern Fly’d Chicken (released 2000)
He stood out for his voice—both literal and artistic. His verses bent time, language, and expectation, delivered with sharp humor, a jazz musician’s ear, and a poet’s command of phrasing. His flow was shape-shifting and unpredictable, yet always in control.
What truly set P.E.A.C.E. apart was his presence; his technical skills. His ability to stack syllables, flip cadences, and pivot mid-bar was legendary. But it was how he embodied the moment that made him unforgettable. When he stepped into a cipher, he didn’t just rhyme. He opened a channel. His freestyles were more than routines. They were rituals—acts of communion between rhythm, breath, and divine timing.
To witness P.E.A.C.E. rhyme was to see someone channel the unknown, summoning bars from the ether with the ease others draw breath. He freestyled with tone, gesture, and energy as much as with words. His performance was a kind of intense meditation, a surrender to the now. Even if you never met him, the lesson was clear—in every grainy video, battle tape, or bootleg freestyle. He taught through presence, courage, and craft.
He wasn’t just a rapper. He was a messenger of vocal style. A cultural artisan grounded in values that birthed Hip Hop: truth, expression, community, resistance, joy, and discipline. He thought differently, moved differently, rapped differently. He never watered down his vision for mass appeal. He never chased industry relevance. And yet, his presence echoed in ciphers around the world. In every spontaneous verse where language is honored over volume and soul outweighs trend, his influence lives on.
P.E.A.C.E. taking a break to draw while in the studio recording Innercity Griots, Photo by Ola Kennedy (O-Roc), 1992.
In just 51 years, P.E.A.C.E. came through, broke ground, and transcended, leaving behind an impeccable body of work and a constellation of song features and freestyle cipher memories. Without question, we’ll be digging back through archives, dusty tapes, and scattered uploads, still chasing the rhyme lessons he left behind.
But we can no longer catch this Master of Ceremonies live. With that mischievous grin you can hear in his recordings, P.E.A.C.E. mockingly reminds us: “You’re out of time — I’m already gone… Already.”
In the spirit of 206 Zulu and our mission to uplift the artists and architects who shaped this culture, honoring those who stood in the cipher—today, we remember P.E.A.C.E.
For me, and for many, one of P.E.A.C.E.’s most unforgettable public moments came at Scribble Jam 1999, then one of the most respected freestyle battle tournaments in the country. That year, he faced off against two formidable emcees: Dose One and later Eyedea, in battles that would become etched into the collective memory of freestyle heads everywhere. Eyedea ultimately took the crown, but everyone knew the most dynamic clashes happened on the road to the top.
That’s where two future friends, P.E.A.C.E. and Dose One, went head-to-head. Here’s the play-by-play:
The crowd? Electric. The DJ drops the needle on Gang Starr’s “Full Clip.” The stage? Set.
In his battle against Dose One, P.E.A.C.E. put his full mastery on display: the lyricism, the theater, the good medicine. Those who’ve witnessed his freestyles often say he had a way of ramping up — strategically, intentionally — envisioning the end of the verse before the first bar even dropped.
And from the jump, his strategy was clear.
Knowing Dose One was a fan of West Coast underground, P.E.A.C.E. threw the first jab:
“…You’re not Busdriver…”
Invoking one of Project Blowed’s fastest and most unorthodox emcees.
He planted the seed. Then closed his round with a smirking challenge:
“You been standing up here, doing what you done did, all this first round rap… (pause) it ain’t shit. I’ma save mine for later, just to explode — so come with that old fast rap so I can take it out of control.”
Dose One took the bait.
Matching pace for pace, he dove straight into P.E.A.C.E.’s terrain — rapid, intricate, breathless. At the time, Dose was riding high with the Anticon collective — a crew known for eating emcees in battles and redefining the edges of experimental Hip Hop. He held his ground, then capped his verse with a theatrical jab:
“…kiss my ass.”
But by then, it was clear: P.E.A.C.E. wasn’t just battling — he was tracking Dose One. Setting tempo. Laying traps. Commanding the energy. He wasn’t just in the cipher. He was holding the fire.
His second round? Part comedy. Part commentary. Part performance art. Rhyming at near-incomprehensible speed, he absorbed Dose’s energy and flipped it — then dropped this line:
“Listen to me man, I can do it on American Bandstand, I can do it without a band, I can do it without a mic in my hand…”
And then — He threw down the mic. Rapping loudly so the audience could hear:
“…and I can still keep rapping, and keep fucking you up.”
The crowd erupted.
He picked the mic back up without missing a beat. Still rhyming. A few bars later, he pointed into the crowd and told Dose One he belonged.
“I don’t think so…(inaudible) … the birds in the trees…” “…leave you lying on your back like this G!”
And then — Boom. P.E.A.C.E. dips flat onto his back. Arms and legs sprawled and lifeless. The room exploded.
Dose One’s face said it all — part disbelief, part joy. He knew he was in the presence of something rare.
And then — P.E.A.C.E. got up. Dusted himself off. Mic steady. Rhyme unbroken.
It was a masterclass in timing, vulnerability, and command.
Irreverent. Instinctive. Alive.
He showed us what it looks like when irreverent art and spirit meet onstage.
Now, in the light of his passing, that moment feels transformed. What once felt like performance now reads like poetry.
A metaphor for life.
The mic drops. The body falls. And yet — the flow continues.
That moment was a kind of surrender.
A reminder that sometimes, not even a microphone can hold the weight of what we carry.
P.E.A.C.E. gave his whole body to the moment — and kept flowing to the next world.
On October 22, 2025, Bobby Seale’s 89th birthday, the City of Oakland renamed the intersection of 57th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way to Bobby Seale Way. It’s not just about honoring a legacy. It’s a formal recognition of Seale’s deep impact on the city and his role in helping to build one of the most community-driven movements in modern U.S. history.
Seale, who co-founded the Black Panther Party alongside Huey P. Newton in Oakland, helped develop the Party’s Ten-Point Program, a direct response to the conditions Black people faced in housing, education, employment, healthcare, and policing. But they didn’t stop at diagnosis, they created real-world responses.
While government officials debated how to address poverty, the Panthers got to work. They served thousands of children each week through their Free Breakfast for Children Program, which eventually influenced national school nutrition policies. They opened People’s Free Medical Clinics, where people received healthcare and learned about diseases that disproportionately affected Black communities, like sickle cell anemia—a condition largely ignored by mainstream institutions at the time. They organized clothing drives, childcare, transportation for elders, and legal support. Together, these efforts formed a network of services they called “survival pending revolution.”
Black Panther Adrienne Humphrey conducts sickle cell anemia testing during Bobby Seale’s campaign for mayor of Oakland in 1973. (Stephen Shames)
Bobby Seale made it clear: “Our job is to teach the people. Our job is to serve the people. We are the people’s revolution.”
That wasn’t just rhetoric. It was a framework—one that made care and political education central to liberation.
The Panthers have often been defined by their image: berets, leather jackets, and their right to self-defense. But what often gets overlooked is how organized, intentional, and service-focused they were. Their actions weren’t just reactive; they were proactive, often outpacing government programs in underserved communities.
They were also pioneers of what would later be called “copwatching,” monitoring police activity in Black neighborhoods and holding law enforcement accountable. Long before smartphones and livestreams, they showed up with law books, notepads, and a plan to protect. They didn’t come to escalate. They came to intervene when necessary and observe at all times.
Bobby Seale, chairman of the Black Panther Party, rides a rush hour bus in Oakland, California on April 13, 1973 as he campaigns in his bid to unseat incumbent Mayor John Reading. (AP Photo)
Seale’s politics were never about division. They were rooted in coalition-building. Under his leadership, the Panthers worked alongside Latino, Asian American, Indigenous, and poor white communities. These partnerships laid the foundation for multiracial organizing efforts like the original Rainbow Coalition and sparked international solidarity. While critics often tried to frame him as anti-white, Seale clarified his values: “We don’t hate nobody because of their color. We hate oppression.”
Today, the Black Panther Party no longer operates as it did in the 1960s. Still, its core philosophy continues to shape community action. The legacy shows up in mentorship programs, mutual aid networks, food and health justice initiatives, and youth education projects.
You see this work carried on by groups like the Black Panther Party Alumni Legacy Network, which provides mentoring and education rooted in the Panthers’ original survival programs. The Huey P. Newton Foundation works to preserve and share the Party’s history in Oakland. The East Oakland Collective runs food and resource distribution programs grounded in self-determination and service. Phat Beets Produce pushes food justice through urban farming and community nutrition in areas once served by the Panthers. And the BPP Veterans Mutual Aid Fund supports former Panther members while demonstrating that community care doesn’t end with the headlines; it is ongoing work.
When you see youth in Oakland learning their history and leading food drives, when you see community-run clinics offering care without insurance, when you hear Hip Hop artists reclaiming voice and space, that is Bobby Seale’s legacy—alive and active.
This is why Hip Hop has always resonated with the Panthers’ energy. Not just in aesthetics, but in function. Artists like Public Enemy, Dead Prez, Kendrick Lamar, and Talib Kweli, along with organizations like Hip Hop For Change (Oakland and San Francisco), have taken up the same call: educate, empower, organize, and build.
Few captured that connection more clearly than KRS-One, who in 1995 delivered this line in Ahh Yeah:
“The Black Panther is the Black answer for real / In my spiritual form, I turn into Bobby Seale.”
If the intersection of 57th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way had the mic, this would be the lyric describing its own transformation—a line that embraces revolutionary Black history and identity. Bobby Seale Way is more than a marker of geography. It holds memory, movement, and meaning.
Happy Birthday, Bobby Seale. You aren’t just a historical figure; you’re an integral part of the cultural framework that continues to inspire.
A night curated by Chimurenga Renaissance, a musical duo by Tendai “Baba” Maraire (Shabazz Palaces) and lyricist/guitarist Hussein Kalonji. Featuring guest collaborations that honor hip hop roots from the PNW, global music, and its connection to modern revolutionary struggles throughout the world.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 206 Zulu Presents: Chimurenga Renaissance Boka Kouyate & The Djeliyah Band Ibrahim Arsalan
Chimurenga Renaissance is the genre-blurring collaboration between percussionist/MC Tendai Maraire and guitarist/producer Hussein Kalonji, heirs to two of Africa’s most storied musical legacies. Born of Zimbabwean and Congolese parentage, respectively, Maraire and Kalonji fuse hip hop with traditional Shona and soukous influences to create something wholly modern yet rooted in ancestral power. Their long-awaited album Nhaka—which means “legacy” in Shona—is a bold cultural statement that bridges continents, generations, and genres. The sons of musical legends Dumisani Maraire and Raymond Braynck Kalonji, the duo carry forward their fathers’ sonic spirits with innovation and reverence, reshaping African diasporic music through a present-day lens they call Afropresentism. From the battle-rap circles of their youth to collaborations with icons like King Britt, to performances at venues like Carnegie Hall, Chimurenga Renaissance have built a sound that’s as rhythmically fierce as it is philosophically urgent. With Nhaka, they offer not just an album, but a movement—a call to reclaim, reimagine, and reconnect.
Boka Kouyate & The Djeliyah Band
The Djeliyah Band is the newest West African Music & Dance Band that’s located in Seattle, Washington. A harmonic fusion between the traditional Djeli music and the modern Guinea music within West Africa, which provides a highlife sound for your dancing pleasure!
Orchestrated by; multi-talented Djeli, Aboubacar “Boka” Kouyaté of Kankan, Guinea, West Africa. Djeli’s have always been next to the king and honored within the West African region as the Traditional Griot.
The band began February 2015 in Seattle, Washington. Hitting the ground with an exciting bouquet of songs, music and dance that includes an inter-active component for everyone’s enjoyment.
Djeliyah Band members bring the beat of Mother Africa.
Band members: Aboubacar Kouyaté: Lead Vocals, Djembé Drum Balaphon and, Guitar. Naby Camara: Balaphone Leif Totusek: Solo Guitarist Daniel Miller: Bass Guitar Paul Huppler: Drum Percussions Afua Kouyaté: Dancer, Administrator Nailah Bulley: Doundouns, Dancer Foluso Mimy: Djembe, Vocals
Ibrahim Arsalan
Ibrahim Arsalan began his artistic career on stage working with such theatrical luminaries as Bob Devon Jones and Mark Medoff. He expanded his repertoire to include dance when he was “pulled” by the master of the academy Capoeira Batuque into his dance company Ballet Folclórico do Brasil for which he danced, drummed and instructed Afro-Brazilian and West African culture and martial arts for 10 years. Arsalan’s Mandingo ancestry would “pull” him once again into another tradition: Jeliya, the art of the Jeli (griot of the Mande). He would spend the next decade of his life learning Kora from his teachers Jeliba Toumani Diabate in Mali and Jeliba Baba in the US and they would push him to begin performing publicly only a few years into his training.
Arsalan has since gained acclaim within traditional circles and beyond for his practice of Jeliya and demonstrating African American culture’s deep roots in this tradition. He’s collaborated with Jerry Bell of the Dazz Band, members of Earth, Wind, and Fire, and Al Jarreau among others; all the while, acting as the official Korafola of the Senegalese Association of Southern California and the Cultural Attaché to the Honorary Consul of Senegal in Los Angeles.
Whenever asked to explain the Jeli he says simply, “I am a bard.”
Part of the Cloudbreak 2025 Music Fest presented by Visit Seattle and King County! Stay in a participating downtown Seattle hotel and receive your FREE LIVE MUSIC PASS to experience select shows for free from November 7-27, 2024.
Just show your FREE LIVE MUSIC PASS and your hotel key card to receive this benefit. Space is limited, and shows are first come, first served.
MADK Productions & 206 Zulu Presents MAD KREW 30th ANNIVERSARY DJ Scene DJ Dev From Above Abyssinian Creole, Mid Century Modern, Hailstorm, Bishop I
Washington Hall 153 14th Ave Seattle, WA 98122
8:00pm 21+ $15 Adv. / $20 DOS Ticket Link Facebook Event Page Part of the Cloudbreak 2025 Music Fest presented by Visit Seattle and King County! Stay in a participating downtown Seattle hotel and receive your FREE LIVE MUSIC PASS to experience select shows for free from November 7-27, 2024.
Just show your FREE LIVE MUSIC PASS and your hotel key card to receive this benefit. Space is limited, and shows are first come, first served.
Sunday, November 2, 2025 6th annual Seattle Hip Hop Film Festival Presented by 206 Zulu & Propadata Films
Washington Hall 153 14th Ave, Seattle, WA 98108
Doors at 2:30pm, Program at 3:00pm $10 Adv. | All-Ages TICKET LINK
Seattle Hip Hop Film Festival 2025 Films
Rebirth Rebirth Directed by Sylysak Taido Paris, France Camps Breakerz Camps Breakerz Directed by Antoine Schierer Gaza, Palestine Rock the Docks Rock The Docks Directed by Dufon Smith Seattle, WA Cuti – Practico RPMCuti – Practico RPM Directed by Antonio Moreno Cutillas Almeria, Spain Watch video Finally Human Finally Human Directed by Alisa Centehua Cruz Seattle, WA Joezee – Facetime Joezee – Facetime Directed by Ben Wickstrand Seattle, WA BCNF Story BCNF Story Directed by James Starlin Shoreline, WA Master of the Ollie Master of the Ollie Directed by Bukue One Berkeley, CA Watch trailer Last of the Nobodies Last of the Nobodies Directed by Colter Olmstead Missoula, Montana Watch video OurStory – James Croone OurStory – James Croone Sr. Directed by Jesse Kogita Seattle, WA Watch video Profondo Nero Profondo Nero – Deep Black Directed by Roberto Pili Sardinia, Italy We Love Dicks We Love Dicks Directed by Lyric Vids Seattle, WA Watch video
NOW ACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS! The Seattle Hip Hop Film Festival is now accepting submissions for the 6th annual festival taking place this November.
We are accepting short films, 15 minutes and under, focused on hip-hop culture. This includes: Narratives, documentary, music videos, experimental, animation, and performance based films with a focus on hip-hop (Djing/Production, Graffiti, Dance, Emceeing).
Early Bird Deadline: April 15, 2025 Regular Deadline: July 15, 2025 Late Deadline: August 15, 2025 Notification Date: August 29, 2025 Event Date: November 2, 2025
Cuti – Practico RPM
We Love Dicks
