It’s one of those cool moments, when you see someone you know up on stage performing.  It’s even cooler when you remember that person reaching a point in their day to day life as a game tester in Kirkland.  To the point of quitting to follow their real passion in music.

Back in 2004 I started working at Nintendo america as a temp worker testing video games, which isn’t as fun as it sounds, but a job none the less.  I ended up hanging out with a couple musicians and artist out there, who have gone on to new paths in life following their dreams.  One of those being Alexie Saba, also known as Sabzi of the Blue Scholars.

Alexie, started out at Nintendo the same day as me and we ended up on the same game for our first project.  So we kinda chilled together while we got our bearings at our new job.  He spent his free time doodling or writing while we ate lunch or waiting for new builds of the game we were working on.  Being a vandal or a graffiti artist myself, his graffiti doodles sparked a conversation and we would vibe on art and music.  One day I hoped ride back to Seattle with him.  He drove an old junker Dodge minivan that didn’t have a back seat in it, and even riding in the back among the crates of records that he hauled around with him was better than the bus.  So I was into it.

A lot of the temp testers out there were content testing games for Nintendo, it was kinda of a milestone for the nerds.  They had finally gotten a job where they got paid to do what they liked, and were stoked to be there.  You could always tell Alexie didn’t have that same ahh factor some of the other testers had for working at Nintendo.  You could see his mind was somewhere else.  Whether it was his constant doodles of graffiti or just the look he had of wanting to be doing something else that he had about him.

I remember one day one the way home, he was talking about making music and how that was what he really wanted to do.  “Just play shows and make music” he said.  Sitting on the floor in the back of his minivan amongst his crates of vinyl, I didn’t really know how serious he was but it wasn’t hard to believe.  At the time I had never heard of the Blue Scholars, but you could tell he had faith in his DJing.

A few weeks later, after a few more projects and riding home listening to hip-hop in his mini van.  He said something about leaving the testing job, and he just smiled saying  “Gonna stay home and work on my music.”  Being an artist myself, I totally understood what he was saying, and was stoked he had that drive.  He was talking about having a cd release party soon and invited me, but I kinda blew it off.  Man did I miss out.  A couple days later Alexie quit Nintendo.  I didn’t think to much of it, there was a pretty high turnover rate out there so folks were disappearing all the time.

Fast forward a few months, I was at a show on Capital Hill seeing some music with another guy from Nintendo.  My co-worker elbowed my pointing up at the dj.  Once I looked up there, he leaned over saying something to the effect of “isn’t that ‘that guy'”  Holy cow it was!  He had really quit to chase his passion, and it was working for him.  I weaved through the crowd up to the side of the stage, and gave him a wave and a thumbs up.  He smiled over at me and flipped me a quick peace sign and went back to scratching.

So here some 15 years later, it is so rad to have him and his music as the focus of our A-pop class discussions.  Wow, so cool.  Life is so crazy, it really makes me smile to look back on that day he left to follow his dreams.  So many folks try to make it, and never do, but he did it.  I’ve owned several of their albums and heard them on KEXP a million times and every time I hear them. I think if the time we hung out at work, or the jams we listened to on the way home.

It’s rad to see artist from Seattle make the main stream, but it’s even cooler when you have met them and got to watch him follow his dream.  I dig the fact that him and Geo put out music that hits home to Seattlites, but it’s great to hear the messages about their culture and the struggle of the people around them that they put into their songs.  I can’t wait to see them live again, and I get to tell him we talk about their music as a crucial part of today’s Asian American popular culture.