As much as I consider TheeSatisfaction’s mantra of “Whatever you do/Don’t funk with my groove” to be the local hip-hop lyric of the year (runner up: “Life’s too short/Like an Ewok” off Sol’s “Paint”) the crew Nu Era have a solid contender to overthrow TheeSat on the cut “Nu Tang.” If you aren’t familiar with Nu Tang (I wasn’t until I heard this song), they are a trio of MCs — Turtle T, Andrew Savoie and 5 Flat — that come from separate groups in Dyno Jamz, Hush’d Puppies, and 5 and Brown.
The track is off the group’s Sink or Swim record, which you can download for free, and features Kung Fu Grip, another crew making some noise locally. The pairing of the two groups works great and I especially dig right around the 1:20 mark when the beat flips and the track more or less does a complete 180 from a banging, quick-fire-flow joint to a slowed down, smoothed-out jam. It’s also at that point when the lyric “Nu-Tang Clan, Two-hundred six chambers” pops up. How sick is that?
But aside from featuring some clever wordplay and taking a phrase that’s been established nationally and claiming it for Town use, “Nu Tang” is a song filled with energy and creativity and shows that Seattle’s hip-hop scene has a promising, vibrant future.
