_{Photos by Justin Renney}

The homegrown phenomenon known as Big Tune had it’s star-studded finale last night—De La Soul gave an all-too brief performance (though they made sure to do the raucous “Rock Ko.Kane Flow” so they could throw some shine on the track’s producer, 206 legend Jake One), and superfuckinproducer Just Blaze gave a VH1 Storyteller-style narrative as he played his hits from Jay-Z and Freeway to Cam’Ron and MF Doom. Awesome.

The house was PACKED and excited just to be reveling in the pure hiphop tent revival that is the beat battle. Charles nailed it when he said that the nature of hiphop is a celebration, bitches! The contestants, including DJ Babu (Dilated Peoples/Beat Junkies) and S-1(Strange Fruit Project), squared off from opposite sides of the stages; all frosted with the signature crowd-smashing moves, from garden-variety “conductor” hand flourishes to Blue Scholar #2 Sabzi’s athletic Blades Of Glory vogue-ups (FLASH! AAAAHAAA!).

The final round found our very own Seatown contenders Sabzi and Dyme Def’s Brainstorm (who re-enetered the running after an earlier loss to Sabzilla thru a Wild Card selection) being the last men standing (or dancing or whatever). Both played valiantly but it was Sabzi who walked away with the prize—some sweet monitors, and the option of working with either Redman, Young Buck, or Kweli on a track down in L.A.. I wasn’t a fan of his tepid TV On The Radio flip, but there was truly no iller beat than his super-hype Flash Gordon theme.

It is now that I will say that I think hometown advantage played a part in last nite’s proceedings. I felt like a very ill producer named Cambo (whose beats the hosts had earlier mocked as “very Fergie”) might have been robbed in his round against Sabzi by the zealous 206 crowd. I know, how could I be mad at a 206 win? Truly, I’m not—but I did feel the victory was sullied by the lack of impartial judges, and some of the crowd did too, some even booing before the final round like assholes. Fuck it though! Seattle’s rep for hiphop production is impeccable, and the good folks at Red Bull just varnished it a lot more.