The Foundation was a long-running night started in the mid-'90s by Sureshot, Supreme, Soul and myself at a bar in downtown Seattle called the Art Bar. Sureshot, Supreme and I deejayed a bunch of different places (Re-Bar, Crocodile, etc.) to finance our record label, Conception Records, but with Soul promoting, it took off. At first it was called Nitty Gritty because we were playing rare groove, but after awhile it morphed into almost all hip-hop, and we called it The Foundation (the ad-lib at the beginning of the Group Home song "Tha Realness" made me think of it). A bunch of different people started spinning with us and the night got huge — I would always try to spin first so I could play underground stuff that wouldn't really work for the dance floor later on. At one point they showed the flyer (designed by Modern Dog) on MTV because it was one of the longest running hip-hop nights in the country. Anyway, long story short, Emily and I moved to New York in 1999 and it went on for several years after that. Tuesday night the original cast of characters re-unites at the Lodge. It will be a fun party, you should come over.Nas "Memory Lane" (Prod. DJ Premier) from Illmatic, 1994
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Update: Thanks to everyone who came out, it was cool reconnecting with a bunch of different people from way back and dusting off some old cuts. Special thanks to Soul and Alonso for putting it together, to Marcus for hosting, and to Kutfather and J. Moore for emceeing.