Renton High School

Last night I was at a listening party for Beacon Hill hiphop group Helladope's "Return to Planet Rock" album. Verdict: It's one of Seattle's best hiphop releases for 2009. Tay Sean and Jerm rapping and singing on synth-funk makes other groups in town seem anal retentive. It's so good, it's almost British.

At the party, I met 10-4 Roger. He DJs Fridays at Baltic Room on Capitol Hill.

I'd previously blogged about his excellent remix of Helladope's already unimpeachable two-step masterpiece and "Return to Planet Rock" standout "Just So You Know," so we talked about that. Roger reminded me he also did beats on ex-local group THEESatisfaction's lo-fi Afro-psych odyssey "Snow Motion," a fact I'd forgotten or ignored after favorably reviewing it last August.

Listening now, I can hear it, the similarity between THEESatisfaction's Roger-produced "Cabin Fever" and the "Just So You Know" remix. Both songs have a downward movement in their synthesizer melodies, and rhythms that play with time, a little.

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Roger informed me he and Stasia Irons, the main rapper in THEESatisfaction, went to school together at Renton High. Dyme Def went there, too, he said. All three members: Brainstorm, Fearce Villain, and S.E.V.

Interesting that one class of students could produce 10-4 Roger's cartoony, dubby synth-rap, THEESatisfaction's weird/dark art project, and also Dyme Def's famous-sounding club bangers. The difference in approach to hiphop between songs like "Cabin Fever" and, say, "Pickupyaflow" is truly vast.

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There must be something in the water down in Renton.