In 2011 friends that met initially through the hip-hop scene bonded into family through their common passion for music and activism. United through their desire to build for their community and destroy what was causing it harm BLDNDSTRY was formed. These local Hip-Hop musicians from Hilltop and Tacoma, WA began a journey. They formed a crew with a goal of using their actions, art, Hip-Hop and intellect to battle the gentriFUCKation that was occurring on Hilltop.
BAD’s first action was to oppose police presence in the neighborhood and demand that no extra officers were to be patrolling the area. Along with the community, BAD convinced new gentrifying neighbors to join our call and ask for extra after-school programs, extra art programs, extra youth programs, and extra services for People living in tents, and not extra police.
Members of BAD realized that the city had no low-income housing and no cultural preservation of the Black Community in their plans for the future of Hilltop. Hilltop is the cultural and economic epicenter of the Black Community in Tacoma. Through an aggressive campaign of lobbying local politicians and council-members, attending city-council meetings, organizing the residents of the community to write letters and make calls; BAD and the community forced the government of Tacoma and the real-estate developers to add a substantial amount of true low-income housing into the neighborhood, transitional housing, and art and business space dedicated to Back residents and long-term residents of the neighborhood.
In 2017 journalists from the News Tribune and the Seattle Times exposed that the Tacoma Police had illegally bought, obtained, and used what is called a “sting-ray device”. This device is used to collect information from cell-phones, take photographs, and spy on an area without detection through a machine that is as small as a briefcase and can be easily concealed in any police-vehicle. Whikid (a founding member of BAD) along with the ACLU successfully sued the Tacoma Police Department and received economic reparations and forced reform in regards to the usage of the sting-ray devices.
BLDNDSTRY has also been busy feeding and clothing the tent population of Hilltop. During the quarantine of 2020 BAD supplied families with meal-boxes. BAD has a home base in Hilltop where the crew records their music, writes, creates art-work for their cause, and has FUN. Extended BLDNDSTRY family members include Cousin Cam who brings energy, family-vibes, and his camera skills to all our events and sessions. He has featured vocals on our second album as well. Don James AKA Ace Loner is our first collaborator and Hip-Hop brother. Catch his videography and directing skills in BAD videos and his unabashed MCing prowess on our albums. John Retherford AKA Budaho is a BAD brother also. His film-making and musical contributions have been helping BLDNDSTRY from our earliest inception. Albums are available on all streaming platforms, our bandcamp page, and our website.
BAD’s first action was to oppose police presence in the neighborhood and demand that no extra officers were to be patrolling the area. Along with the community, BAD convinced new gentrifying neighbors to join our call and ask for extra after-school programs, extra art programs, extra youth programs, and extra services for People living in tents, and not extra police.
