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i///u takes first place at Sound Off! 2019

March 2nd, 2019: MoPop

Dan Ray March 6, 2019
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i///u takes first place at Sound Off! 2019 March 6, 2019

Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).

i///u performing at Sound Off! 2019. // Photo by Peter Cozens

For the 18th year, MoPop’s Sky Church was filled with a host of local, youth talent for Sound Off!, an annual battle of the bands competition for PNW acts aged 21 and under. Featuring hip-hop jazz group Huey and the InFLOWentials, Baja Boy’s indie pop, neo-soul from i///u, and rapper Alex Cade, this year’s finals were wonderfully diverse. With multiple local music organizations present and streamed live on KEXP by DJ Abbie Gobeli, this positivity-filled event certainly brought the community together.

While i///u ultimately took home the title of champion, all four finalists got a multitude of prizes, from high-quality instruments to the ability to record two songs with KEXP to the chance to perform at Bumbershoot and Northwest Folklife. Baja Boy grabbed second place. Huey and the InFLOWentials came in third, with Alex Cade rounding out the group in fourth place.

Huey and the InFLOWentials

This group kicked off the night with their uber-groovy brand of jazzy hip-hop. The group looked slick AF, with Huey in a black, patent jacket, and back-up vocalist Theron Lutes in a sparkly black dress, but opening up the night got the best of Huey’s nerves. His (and the band’s) sound was on point, but the energy was diluted. Compared to the semifinal, where Huey dashed back and forth across the stage hyping the crowd, he barely moved.

When Lutes left the stage for one song, it opened up the space for Huey to relax a little. The second half of the set was definitely more energetic than the first, especially when Lutes reentered. Looking and sounding like an r&b goddess from the early 2000s, Lutes was hard not to pay attention to, even though most of her performance was just “oohs” and “ahhs” used to enhance the tracks. At only 16 years old, this woman already knows how to work a crowd; no matter where she looked, you felt like she was staring right at you.

While Huey and company performed almost the same set as they did at the semifinal, they mixed up the order of the tracks and added small inflectional changes which helped differentiate the two performances. It was impressive how well this group varied the energy of these tunes. Some of the lyrics were even changed. It’s hard to say if this was intentional or if Huey just forgot the lyrics during the prior round, but, either way, the differences were effective.

Baja Boy

Throughout my time with Dan’s Tunes, I’ve edited a fair amount of pieces about Baja Boy. All of them come in with raving reviews and pictures of frontman Christian Taylor consistently standing in one spot, barely visible under his signature bucket hat. All of this greatly confused me, until this performance, when I was finally able to see them live.

Taylor opened up his set alone. He told the crowd his band was coming, but first, he wanted to play a song he’d never done live, because Sound Off! is for new things. He played a mesmerizing melody that casually shook off any nervous energy in the crowd remaining from Huey’s set. Then, his band joined him.

The whole indie-pop group has a lackadaisical — but not lazy — aura. They vibe like they live somewhere between Seattle and California that isn’t Oregon, but rather somewhere up on a magical mountain floating above the clouds on a track between the two states. They were understated, but awesome.

Calmly lollygagging underneath the bucket hat, it’s no surprise that Baja Boy earned second place. Already ahead of a lot of the other Sound Off! 2019 groups with a ten-track album released, Baja Boy touts a polished, consistent sound, with a stage presence that conveys killer confidence. Leaning into the groove, aware of but somewhat unphased by their audience, Baja Boy earned their keep in this competition.

i///u

On the opposite end of the spectrum as Baja Boy is Sound Off! 2019 Champion i///u, who, as I’ve said before, did not earn this win. Their performance was more engaging than at the semifinal, but, even so, I would have given them second place, tops. They also played a very similar set to their semifinal (I can’t say whether Baja Boy and Alex Cade played similar sets or not, as I wasn’t present at their round, but it’s likely all the bands just did little revamps), and while the energy was higher, it was also stale.

Even bassist Scott Elder, the one shining spot of this neo-soul septet, contributed to this staleness through his almost-exactly-the-same commentary throughout the set. While there’s definitely something to be said about consistency, there’s also something to be said about switching it up, especially when it’s likely a lot of the same patrons attended both shows.

Lead vocalist and flutist Katyrose Jordan, who contributed most of the nervous energy of their set during both the semifinal and final rounds, gets credit for emitting 40 percent less nervous energy than last time. For real, that’s a big difference, and I give her a lot of credit.

However, it wasn’t enough. Instead of grooving to the beat, Jordan had a tendency to bounce nervously — still on-beat, but somewhat frantic. Midway through the set, most of i///u sat down on stage while Jordan picked up her guitar. It was a slower take for this big band, but pleasant. Afterwards, Jordan said to the crowd, “if you went to sleep, we’re gonna wake you up.” And she meant it.

This line made it incredibly clear that she does not have confidence in herself as a performer, and that’s where I completely lost interest in their set. Yes, it was a slower song, but — straight up — if you think your music is boring enough to put an audience to sleep, you’ve got some problems (unless you’re Jeff Bridges).

However, with Jordan on vocals, flute, and a brief moment on sax, it’s clear she’s a talented musician. i///u as a whole produces complex, extraordinarily musical tunes that are great recordings. Their last song of the set, which was —no surprise — written by Elder, was actually fantastic. But, this is a competition based on live performance. One good song is not enough to justify a win.

Throughout the competition, Sound Off! organizers made clear to the audience that this is a competition about stage performance. While i///u definitely has a loud, dedicated fan base, fans don’t equal talent. As a group out of UW, these kids have friends, and that’s awesome, but Sound Off! isn’t (supposed to be) a popularity contest, and, I’m afraid, this year, the most popular kids won.

Alex Cade

Last up, in fourth place, was Alex Cade, who should have won. The Seattle-via-Detroit rapper owned the stage from the second he stepped up. With simply a DJ and a mic, he filled up the stage better than the seven-piece before him.

In an approximately 25 minute set, Cade not only got almost the entire audience to get out their phone flashlights (in a fairly well-lit room) and sway to the beat, but he also got everyone jumping up and down to several tracks. He played new songs, unheard by anyone but his team, and, before diving into them, jokingly apologized to Sound Off! Organizer Robert Rutherford for asking the crowd to “get stupid.”

Apart from his swagger, Cade also proved himself as a quality musician. Rapping along to a track, he stayed on beat the whole time. More than that, his songs really told a story. Each track had a specific tone — from sad and serious to fun and funky — but all of them were uniquely Alex Cade. Plus, he enunciated so well that it was easy to understand all of his lyrics, something almost unheard of in live performance, from rappers or otherwise.

Ultimately, Cade’s set was the only performance I wasn’t waiting for the end of. It wasn’t perfect — at one point, he asked the audience to give him a word to freestyle over, and, after being given the word “apple (apple? Seriously?),” he only riffed for about five lines before moving on — but he commanded the crowd, and there were multiple people chanting his name before the winners were announced.

I would say Cade is an up-and-coming rapper, but, honestly, he’s already here.

I briefly caught Cade after the show and told him he should have won. He smiled genuinely before saying it was all good. This kid is a professional, and I can’t wait to see more from him, as well as all the other acts (yes, even i///u). As host and KEXP DJ Troy Nelson said before announcing the winners, these kids are all awesome, and their place within this competition doesn’t mean anything about their future endeavors. Failure (and bad reviews) is just as important as success (and good reviews), kids, and I wish it upon all of you.

Huey and the InFLOWentials opened the Sound Off! 2019 final. // Photos by Peter Cozens
The group performed many of the same songs from their semifinal set, but with new twists.
Performing as a six-piece, Huey and the InFLOWentials are a hip-hop group with a twinge of jazz.
Huey takes off his coat as the energy rises.
Baja Boy was next to perform.
Christian Taylor fronts the group.
Taylor dives into the groove.
i///u hit the stage third.
The neo-soul group is filled with multi-instrumentalists, like vocalist Katyrose Jordan, who also plays the flute.
i///u took home the title of Sound Off! 2019 Champion.
Made up of UW students, i///u has garnered a large fanbase.
Rapper Alex Cade closed the night.
Originally from Detroit, MI, Cade repped Seattle both in song and attire.
The audience pulls out their phone flashlights, per Cade's request.
Cade debuted some new tunes during his set.
Throughout his set, the audience bounced to the beat.
Sound Off! participants gather on stage and await the results.
KEXP DJ Troy Nelson hosted the event.
i///u is crowned the winner and receives one of their prizes: a Gibson guitar. // Photos by Peter Cozens

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Raised by a single mother in the suburbs of Detroit, Dan discovered an early passion for singing, songwriting, and the arts as a whole. She got her BA in English and music at the University of Michigan, where she reported for the school’s paper, The Michigan Daily. She worked as a Senior News Reporter on the government beat, transitioned to arts writing, and eventually became the managing editor of the social media department. She moved to Seattle in 2017. After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic and discouraged about the lack of press surrounding Seattle’s music scene, Dan made the decision to turn Dan’s Tunes, a fully fledged music journalism website focused on showcasing the Seattle area’s musicians, into its own startup. There’s so much music happening in the city that spawned Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Jimi Hendrix — among others — and Dan’s Tunes is determined to find and expose those outstanding acts. The goal is to have satellites in every major US city, uplifting diverse and compelling voices and helping music communities thrive. In 2020, Dan was featured in the Seattle Times’s year-end music critic poll. Other than her musical endeavors (singing, playing ukulele, and auditioning for American Idol four times before the age of 24) Ray is passionate about food and education around the American food system, and she’s also a large proponent of eliminating the stigma around mental health. Ray loves cats, especially her own, who is named Macaulay Culkin (but she’s a lady).