The regular Stop Biting hip-hop night happens once a week at Lo-Fi on Eastlake. It is Seattle’s longest running hip-hop night. We had a chance to chat with one of the main men involved in SB, DJ absoluteMadman, to get his perspective on the evening. 

Jake Uitti: Spekulation tells me Stop Biting is the longest running hip-hop night in Seattle. What was your first night there?

DJ absoluteMadman: I honestly can’t remember, it was so long ago!  The night started around March in 2004 by djs Bumblebee, Kamui, Hideki & hosted by MC Sage.  Once the night spread to 2 rooms a few months later, Introcut started running the front room & brought me & our friend REI on.  Bumblebee & Hideki are now living in Hawaii, Kamui is in New York, & REI had to move back to Indonesia.

JU: What does the night mean to you? What do you think it means to the hip-hop community in The Town?

aM: The night to me is about quality DJs playing quality music.  All the residents have different styles, but are really phenomenal at what they do.  The fact that we have two rooms to have two different vibes is something that’s not commonly found in nights.  We can have cutting edge beat stuff in the front room and have that classic bboy/bgirl Hip Hop vibe in the back room.  I talk with people all the time that are visiting/on tour from other cities and their mind is blown when they see what’s going on, they tell me they have nothing like this where their from.. New York, LA, SF, etc…  They may have it on a one off/monthly level, but not a weekly level.

The one thing that stays constant, is you can expect to see breakers doing their thing in the cypher.  This also means that the djs in the back room are going to be playing some uptempo bboy/bgirl cuts for them to dance to.  If it’s Hip Hop, House, Breaks, Funk, Soul, whatever it’s going to be a shifting blueprint that makes that energy happen.

JU: What’s the top one or two things you would want to add/change about Stop Biting?

aM: If any thing could be changed about Stop Biting I’d say getting some outside sponsorship that would help out with money for booking larger acts/djs.  Up until now we’ve been putting our own money on the line to meet larger artists’ guarantees and it can definitely be very stressful at times.  It’s all part of the business of throwing shows though.

Check out more about the night here. And watch a video from DJ absoluteMadman’s record release a few years ago at Stop Biting: