# Raz Simone
**Raz Simone** is the stage name of Solomon Samuel Simone (born 1990), an African American hip-hop artist, songwriter, and activist from Seattle, Washington, who came to national attention twice: first as the debut signee of the label 300 [Entertainment](https://www.edgepedia.org/entertainment) in 2014, and again in June 2020 for his role in Seattle's [Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone](https://www.edgepedia.org/capitol-hill-occupied-protest) protests.[1](https://www.yourtango.com/2020334537/who-raz-simone-meet-activist-and-rapper-accused-being-warlord)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name / birth | Solomon Samuel Simone, born 1990 in Seattle, Washington[1](https://www.yourtango.com/2020334537/who-raz-simone-meet-activist-and-rapper-accused-being-warlord) |
| Label | Founder of Black Umbrella, a Seattle artist collective and production company; first signee of 300 Entertainment (Lyor Cohen, Todd Moscowitz, Kevin Liles), January 2014[2](https://www.xxlmag.com/300s-first-signee-rapper-seattle/) • [3](https://www.powmag.net/p/question-in-the-form-of-an-answer-raz-simone-talks-seattle-hip-hop-signing-to-lyor-cohens-new-label) |
| Debut EP | *Solomon Samuel Simone*, early 2013[4](https://erenow.org/modern/emerald-street-history-hip-hop-seattle/8.php) |
| Debut LP | *Cognitive Dissonance*, March 2014, released in partnership with 300 Entertainment[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf) |
| Later albums | *Trap Spirituals* (2016), *Closer* and *Drive Theory* (2018), *Members By All Movements* (2019), *5 Good Reasons* (2020)[6](https://music.apple.com/us/artist/raz-simone/681872950) |
| 2020 activism | Took a leading role in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ); media coverage labeled him a "sheriff," "warlord," and "terrorist"[1](https://www.yourtango.com/2020334537/who-raz-simone-meet-activist-and-rapper-accused-being-warlord) |
## Early life
His voice carries what one profile calls "an amalgamation of black, white, Christian and street dialects," the result of exposure to a wide range of communities; he has pointed to that exposure as an advantage over people who never left their home block.[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf)
At 17, his girlfriend became pregnant. Working multiple jobs while in school, he concluded no one cared that he had a child coming, and he began selling drugs. He hid the pregnancy and the street life from his mother for months, a period he describes as his darkest.[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf) Writing became the outlet: he wrote poetry until he realized he was writing raps.[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf)
His music career began in a band. For several years he fronted Razpy & the Vigilantes, a fledgling punk-rap group, and in 2010 his first solo songs surfaced on YouTube, one in a video shot by the Central District rapper and producer Sam Lachow. The two later collaborated on the EP *Good Reasons*, popular in 2012.[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf)
## Black Umbrella and 300 Entertainment
**Black Umbrella** began, in Simone's own account, as an artists' collective when he was around 19: artists helping artists, including videographers and animators, sharing skills across disciplines such as voiceover, acting, and scriptwriting.[3](https://www.powmag.net/p/question-in-the-form-of-an-answer-raz-simone-talks-seattle-hip-hop-signing-to-lyor-cohens-new-label) By 2014 it had become a one-stop-shop company through which he released EPs, toured, and created his own visuals.[2](https://www.xxlmag.com/300s-first-signee-rapper-seattle/) As a teenager he also ran a private underage club called The Spot in downtown Seattle, at 1st and Jackson, hosting events and speaking events.[3](https://www.powmag.net/p/question-in-the-form-of-an-answer-raz-simone-talks-seattle-hip-hop-signing-to-lyor-cohens-new-label)
In early 2013 he released his first solo EP, *Solomon Samuel Simone*, which drew the attention of 300 Entertainment executives [Lyor Cohen](https://www.edgepedia.org/lyor-cohen), Todd Moscowitz, and Kevin Liles. The result was a partnership between the newly created 300 label and Black Umbrella, making Simone 300's first signee.[2](https://www.xxlmag.com/300s-first-signee-rapper-seattle/) 300 was then pitching a data-driven, digitally efficient alternative to what it called the industry's bloated model, with Simone as its first artist.[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf) In interviews he framed the deal as gaining tools to perform in a larger arena rather than giving up control, saying he liked to control variables and describing his Seattle approach as very DIY.[3](https://www.powmag.net/p/question-in-the-form-of-an-answer-raz-simone-talks-seattle-hip-hop-signing-to-lyor-cohens-new-label)
## Albums and touring
After the first EP, Simone toured and released his first full-length album, *Cognitive Dissonance*, in March 2014.[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf) The album takes up subjects including domestic violence, drug dealing, and violence, balancing melody and gravity, and its themes, while informed by a distinctly local Seattle experience, are written to complicate the city's self-identity rather than simply celebrate it.[5](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf) • [3](https://www.powmag.net/p/question-in-the-form-of-an-answer-raz-simone-talks-seattle-hip-hop-signing-to-lyor-cohens-new-label) A second part, *Cognitive Dissonance, Pt. 2*, followed in 2015 with the track "These Words."[6](https://music.apple.com/us/artist/raz-simone/681872950)
A steady release schedule followed: *Trap Spirituals* in 2016, *Closer* and *Drive Theory* in 2018, and *Members By All Movements* in 2019, the last with guest spots from the Sacramento rapper Mozzy on "About It," "C'est La Vie," and "Give You Time."[6](https://music.apple.com/us/artist/raz-simone/681872950) By the release of *Drive Theory* in 2018, Simone described himself as less concerned with industry politics than with his impact on humanity, and that record was his eighth album.[7](https://fomoblog.com/2018/09/21/slidin-thru-raz-simone/) In 2020 he released *5 Good Reasons*, a project with Sam Lachow, and singles including "Shoot at Everyone" and "Fingeroll."[6](https://music.apple.com/us/artist/raz-simone/681872950) • [8](https://scstudentmedia.com/raz-simones-soloman-samuel-simone-ep-keeps-seattle-music-running-high/)
In 2016 he opened for [Macklemore](https://www.edgepedia.org/macklemore) and [Ryan Lewis](https://www.edgepedia.org/ryan-lewis) on a series of U.S. tour dates, a pairing noted for its friction, since Simone had recently criticized the song "Macklemore & Chief Keef" and questioned whether the "[Thrift Shop](https://www.edgepedia.org/thrift-shop)" rapper appropriated homosexuality and rap music for his own work. For the tour's kickoff he greeted about two dozen fans in person and organized a caravan of supporters to travel with him.[9](https://seattlemag.com/food-and-culture/qa-seattle-rapper-raz-simone-1/) In 2014 he appeared on the Sasquatch! Music Festival's Memorial Day weekend lineup alongside Sam Lachow and Gifted Gab.[10](https://time.com/4160/sasquatch-music-festival-2014-lineup-outkast-robyn/)
## Place in Seattle hip-hop
Simone sits inside a Seattle hip-hop tradition that prizes representing home and being willing to be different, characteristics identified in the Museum of History & Industry's exhibit *The Legacy of Seattle Hip-Hop* as the two that most define the city's emcees; the exhibit displayed his jacket alongside Macklemore's on its timeline of the scene.[11](https://mohai.getanchor.io/exhibits/the-legacy-of-seattle-hip-hop/index.html) The city's 2013 breakthrough year, when Macklemore and Ryan Lewis's "Thrift Shop" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and *XXL* printed "The New New: 15 Seattle Rappers You Should Know," coincided with Simone's debut EP, which a Seattle hip-hop history timeline lists among the year's key releases.[4](https://erenow.org/modern/emerald-street-history-hip-hop-seattle/8.php) Within the scene he collaborated widely, appearing on the 2016 posse track "Young Seattle 4" with Dave B., Key Nyata, B Skeez, and Gifted Gab.[6](https://music.apple.com/us/artist/raz-simone/681872950)
## 2020: The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
In June 2020, following [George Floyd](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-floyd)'s death, protesters in Seattle declared a several-block residential area around a shuttered police precinct the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), a cop-free protest space.[1](https://www.yourtango.com/2020334537/who-raz-simone-meet-activist-and-rapper-accused-being-warlord) Simone, then a local rapper, took a leading role in the zone, and media coverage variously called him its sheriff, a warlord, and a terrorist.[1](https://www.yourtango.com/2020334537/who-raz-simone-meet-activist-and-rapper-accused-being-warlord)
The specific act that drew wide coverage was the distribution of a weapon. The episode made him, for a news cycle, one of the most talked-about figures in American protest coverage, though his own framing emphasized supporting Seattle: he had already stated that his core mission was "putting on for the city."[9](https://seattlemag.com/food-and-culture/qa-seattle-rapper-raz-simone-1/)
## References
1. [Who Is Raz Simone? Meet The Seattle Activist And Rapper Accused Of Being A 'Warlord', YourTango (2020)](https://www.yourtango.com/2020334537/who-raz-simone-meet-activist-and-rapper-accused-being-warlord)
2. [300's First Signee Is A Rapper From Seattle, XXL (2014)](https://www.xxlmag.com/300s-first-signee-rapper-seattle/)
3. [Question in the Form of An Answer: Raz Simone Talks Seattle Hip Hop, Signing to Lyor Cohen's New Label, POW (2014)](https://www.powmag.net/p/question-in-the-form-of-an-answer-raz-simone-talks-seattle-hip-hop-signing-to-lyor-cohens-new-label)
4. [Timeline of Seattle Hip Hop, Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle](https://erenow.org/modern/emerald-street-history-hip-hop-seattle/8.php)
5. ["Gold From Here On: Raz Simone narrates Seattle's unconscious," Encore Arts Seattle / The Price at ACT (2014)](https://encorespotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/the-price-2014-ACT-encore.pdf)
6. [Raz Simone, Apple Music artist page](https://music.apple.com/us/artist/raz-simone/681872950)
7. [Slidin' Thru: Raz Simone, FOMO Blog (2018)](https://fomoblog.com/2018/09/21/slidin-thru-raz-simone/)
8. [Raz Simone's 'Soloman Samuel Simone EP' Keeps Seattle Music Running High, The Springfield Student](https://scstudentmedia.com/raz-simones-soloman-samuel-simone-ep-keeps-seattle-music-running-high/)
9. [Q&A with Seattle Rapper Raz Simone, Seattle Magazine (2016)](https://seattlemag.com/food-and-culture/qa-seattle-rapper-raz-simone-1/)
10. [See Outkast, Robyn & Royksopp, Soundgarden and Frank Ocean at Sasquatch This Summer, TIME (2014)](https://time.com/4160/sasquatch-music-festival-2014-lineup-outkast-robyn/)
11. [The Legacy of Seattle Hip-Hop, Museum of History & Industry](https://mohai.getanchor.io/exhibits/the-legacy-of-seattle-hip-hop/index.html)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Music › Music scenes › Transnational genre scenes › Hip hop scenes worldwide › Artists, groups, and people: Hip hop scenes worldwide › West Coast rap (Bay Area and Los Angeles)*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license