Southend hip-hoppers Helladope have been a fixture on the local scene for a while now. Whether filling in opening act slots for shows, dropping guest verses on other Seattle rappers’ tracks or wildin’ out onstage during sets from friends and fellow artists like THEESatisfaction and Mash Hall, Tay Sean and Jerm have slowly but surely made a name for themselves. Over the last few weeks things have been kicked up a few notches, with the duo opening for both Goodie Mob and Snoop Dogg – two marquee names in rap’s big scheme of things.
Those two huge gigs (and likely fodder for stories to tell their grandkids someday) had Helladope primed for their album release party at Nectar on Friday. As the headliners on a bill including other big local names Mash Hall and Candidt (from the Oldominion crew), it was their night to shine.
But as the night got started with sets from State Of The Artist and Candidt (joined onstage with JFK and other Ol-D members), the crowd immediately seemed less receptive than at other local rap show with fewer hands in the air, less noise being made when called for and so on. When Mash Hall stormed into “Hi-Fivin My Cousin” to kick off another one of their always high-energy sets, the audience was largely still. With its cruising bounce and Weezy-sampled slump, that track usually sets it off and gets a huge audience response. When they breezed through “Whitney” with the same animated vigor they always provide and were only rewarded with semi-enthused cheers, I knew something was amiss and found myself wondering why. Was the Fremont crowd not taking to these acts as easily as a Capitol Hill crowd (which doesn’t make sense since I witnessed Mash Hall kill shit in front of a sold out High Dive)? Or were there simply not enough people in the building that were hip to this music and were just looking for someplace to go on a Friday night?
Either way, Gatsby and Bruce Illest finally got the crowd warmed up to them with “Get Your Ass to Mars” and “Can You Stand the Reign,” the latter of which finally provoked a booming “MAAAAASH HAAAAAALL” call-and-response. Job well done, dudes. Hip-hop shows are a bitch in the sense that the quality of an artist’s set is hugely reliant on if people happen to be feeling it or not, and I wondered how this sour crowd would feel about Helladope’s unconventionally spaced-out style.
However, the Cloud Nice homies took the stage and immediately seemed to grab the crowd with the R&B-infused grown-ass-man swagger of “Just So You Know,” sending cats into a grooving, two-stepping frenzy. With the ball immediately in their court and the crowd a few drinks deeper, Helladope displayed enough energy and stage presence to go with their tight flows, smoothed-out singing and outer space beats. Just when it seemed the two might lose crowd attention, they brought out SOTA for “Extrahelladope” or THEESatisfaction for “THEE Trip,” and once again it was on. Towards the end of their set things even got a bit nuts when they went into the heavy, head-bobbing thump and shouted hook of “This Is My Planet,” getting the audience to scream along despite most of them having no previous knowledge of the lyrics.
In a sense, Helladope’s exuberant performance of that song was a testament to that night’s set. They went into a somewhat hostile environment as the headliner for one of their first times ever, rocked it like they knew they could and completely won the crowd over. They legitimized the buzz surrounding them and validated themselves as one of Seattle’s premiere hip-hop acts. No longer were Helladope just an opener that’s simply part of the crew – this was their album release party, their night, and yes, their planet. And it will be interesting to see where their cosmic travels take them from here.
