KIRO NEWSRADIO: SEATTLE NEWS & ANALYSIS
Curry, pho, adobo & pancakes: How food intertwines with Seattle hip hop
Feb 19, 2015, 6:15 PM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 10:17 am

Seattle's Spekulation (left) and Jamil Suleman like their Curry-NA-Hurry.
(left)
From the Fat Boys to Weird Al, food has been slow simmered into the lyrics of many songs. And here in Seattle, hip hop and food go together like pho and siracha. A couple years ago, DJ Sabzi, from the Seattle hip hop duo Blue Scholars, rapped about pho and the latest culinary collaboration comes from south Seattle hip hip artists, Jamil Suleman and Spekulation. The song is called Curry-NA-Hurry
Jamil says the song was written about his college experience.
“Part of the anecdote was just writing a song about having to cook curry really fast for really cheap. Because, as we all know, as a college student you’re pretty much living off ramen. For me, growing up as an Indian American, I just learned how to cook curry off the top, really fast.”
And there’s more! Last year, Geo, the other half of the Blue Scholars, launched an intensely popular Filipino pop-up restaurant with his wife, who is now “hood famous” for her Ube cheesecake.
“It’s called Food & Sh*t,” says Geo. “I think of each creation, each course, almost as a track. And each menu is like an album.”
There’s always a DJ and the menu and music changes monthly.
“Then we try to have the music match a little bit of the menu,” says Geo. “Last night it was just a straight, slow jam R&B playlist. We just thought spicy, sexy. This mochiko chicken with this mango habanero sauce came out and as soon as it hit the tables D’Angelo’s “How Does It Feel” started playing. Perfect.”
Seattle chef Tarik Abdullah, who was recently a semi-finalist on ABC’s The Taste, also incorporates hip hop into his pop-up brunches. He calls his events A DJ and a Cook.
“Why not have my two favorite loves under one house? Music and food. I do communal tables. A DJ and a Cook is a culinary, communal, musical experience. So you’re basically sitting next to someone that you have no idea who it is, and you have no choice but to talk. You’re going to sit here and enjoy this crackin’ food and that really nice guest you never met. And you get to listen to some Biggie.”
Geo’s pop-up also insists on communal seating. All of the guys insist that hip hop meshes with cooking and eating so well because it’s all about community.
“Hip hop really started in the south Bronx when there was no instruments,” explains Jamil. “So they were digging in the trash and finding records. So, you know, the whole idea of just using what’s there. It’s almost like hip hop was a potluck. To kind of recreate it is almost an automatic vibe to me. Food, hip hop, community, music, dance, you know.”
Jamil, who has lectured about hip hop at the University of Washington, wants the hip hop, community and food bond to go even deeper.
“There’s a project that we’re working on right now called Beat Box Garden. The idea is to get local hip hop artists to grow gardens in and around their own neighborhoods and then bring out youth to basically come visit them. Because the youth love hip hop. And so as a way to connect them with sustainability and community, growing food and cooking food and music.”
All of these rappers and chefs acknowledge there’s nothing new about pairing hip hop with food, they’re just doing it their own way. It really all started with The Sugarhill gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.”
“The first commercially sold hip hop record that went national, there are a few bars in that song that critiques your friend’s mom’s cooking,” says Geo, before they all start rapping the lyrics and laughing. “Have you ever gone over your friend’s house to eat and the food just ain’t no good. The macaroni’s soggy, the peas are mushed, and the chicken tastes like wood!”
Back to Curry-NA-Hurry; it might be a song about cooking, but if you’re looking for an actual recipe for Indian curry, you may want to look elsewhere.
“I have a lot of aunties who got a little on my head about the ingredients in the said recipe in [the] song.,” says Jamil. “I mean, you know, the order of said coconut milk might be before or after we simmer the meat. I got a call about that.”