This story was originally published in Vol. 34, Issue 3 (November 2023)
To celebrate Disability Awareness Month, the Center for Intercultural Learning and Affirmation (CILA) invited renowned Seattle hip-hop artist King Khazm, born as Daniel Kogita, to WSU Vancouver as part of his “Hip-Hop and It Don’t Stop” tour. The event took place on Oct. 17 in the Firstenburg Student Commons, where King Khazm shared the history and cultural importance of hip-hop in the Northwest and around the world to an audience of students and faculty.
King Khazm is a hip-hop artist and emcee who has been active in the Northwest hip-hop community for over 25 years, introducing the art, music and cultural importance of hip-hop to communities around the world. Khazm explained that a significant moment in his life was the car accident that left him unable to walk at the age of five.
As King Khazm took the stage at WSU Vancouver, he expressed his heartfelt gratitude for the invitation to speak and acknowledged the significance of the event taking place during the 50th anniversary of hip-hop’s beginnings in the Bronx. The event was not only a commemoration of the genre, but an autobiographical tapestry woven through the threads of his life, his community, the experiences he has gone through and the transformative influence hip-hop has had on his life.
Khazm began with a freestyle before going into his background. Born and raised in Seattle, he defines himself as a multi-disciplinary artist: a music producer, a community leader and organizer, and visual artist.
Later in the event, he walked the audience through the foundational pillars of hip-hop: emceeing, DJ’ing, breakdancing, as well as graffiti and mural art, forms of artistic expression and resistance to the status quo, two defining themes of the hip-hop genre. While he touched upon these four elements, he gave special attention to the ethos of the hip-hop community.
Khazm highlighted how his crew members often practiced multiple elements of hip-hop, a testament to the group and the genre’s interdisciplinary nature. He also introduced the audience to “The Bad Lab,” a studio he set up not just for himself but also for other budding artists and members within his crew.
Steven Edmonds, a sophomore social sciences major, heard about the event on Instagram and was immediately interested.
“I’ve been getting into hip-hop more recently,” said Edmonds. “I found a music artist that’s a rapper with Lyme disease, he raps about his struggles with that, and his diagnosis. And I really enjoyed that. And so I wanted to come here to get [an] introduction into the culture.”
Edmonds’ favorite aspect of the event was about the roots of hip-hop. They previously thought of it as just something cool, but the event gave them an understanding of hip-hop as a culture with a life of its own. When asked if they want more events like this on campus, the response was a resounding yes.
“Oh absolutely,” said Edmonds. “I love music so much, it’s a huge part of my life. I would love to see more.”
Sawyer Barrigan, the Campus Director for CILA, collaborated with fellow CILA members to organize the event for Disability Awareness Month. Barrigan shared that during the planning process, they came across Khazm on Instagram and recognized him as an ideal person to speak at WSU Vancouver.
“Upon finding King Khazm and discussing it with our student leaders, our office was excited to bring him to campus,” said Barrigan. “It took us around 8-10 weeks to fully design, plan, and implement this event.”
While others may see a wheelchair as a limitation, for King Khazm, it was the beginning of his journey diving deep into arts and the boundaries of his imagination, advancing his skills through his inspirations from comic books and graffiti art. That transformative event in King Khazm’s life transcended physical boundaries and led him to use his imagination to heal through expressing himself in many artistic endeavors. He later stated that these inspirations led him to his first graffiti pseudonym, “Khazm,” symbolizing a crack exposing the underground. This seemingly dark nomenclature celebrates the unearthing of something hidden.
“The meaning [of the word], ‘chasm,’ is a crack in the surface of the Earth,” said King Khazm. “When you look at a kind of metaphor for who I am, I like to expose the underground. So kind of the idea of being under the ground like we’re in the trenches was something that really resonated with me.”
Some of King Khazm’s earliest influences were Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and The Fat Boys. These artists were the initial ones that got his attention, a significantly different sound than the ones the youth of today may be used to hearing, signifying hip-hop’s incredible versatility and creative potential.
“I started really getting involved in hip-hop at a very young age, some about just the pureness, the rawness of hip-hop,” said King Khazm. “To me, [there] was something really unique about it because it was just, it was just raw you know? The wordplay and the lyrics and the drums, you know, the beats. It was just really, completely different.”
King Khazm’s message to the youth is to “Just be bold, be unapologetically you and just explore your individuality.” He later alluded to the nature of hip-hop being like a “cornucopia of cultures and identities,” and how it allows you to flip it and make it yours.
King Khazm mentioned the early shows he produced in venues such as in Seattle Center, the Nu Black Arts Theatre in Washington Hall, and the Redmond Firehouse (otherwise known as the Old Firehouse Teen Center). These shows were largely about having fun and sharing their talents in the Seattle hip-hop community, a community that is extremely diverse and abundant with talent, he noted.
Amplifying the resonance of hip-hop wasn’t restricted to local events; King Khazm and his crew understood the importance of media representation.
“There weren’t a lot of avenues for awareness, and so we started really seeing the importance of representation in the media,” said King Khazm.
His activism and community involvement led to the founding of 206 Zulu, an organization that employed hip-hop as a lens for education, community empowerment, and social justice. Through a myriad of activities, ranging from working in juvenile detention centers to organizing events and festivals, 206 Zulu sought to make a transformative impact. King Khazm explained that their community-based model found international relevance, reinforcing the appeal of hip-hop as a tool for social change.
King Khazm’s unique journey through hip-hop is not just as a medium for artistic expression, but a catalyst for personal development. His personal trajectory from an artist to a community leader and entrepreneur bears testimony to hip-hop’s transformative force and the fuel it can bring to drive someone forward. King Khazm’s oration wasn’t just a retelling of his life but an invitation for everyone to recognize the transformative potential of hip-hop.
“The essence of hip-hop is about building community and expressing your creativeness, creativity, innovation and uniqueness,” said King Khazm.
Norman Helgason, a staff writer of The VanCougar, contributed to this report.
Shawyan is a junior studying computer science at WSU Vancouver.