♪♪
[ Vehicles passing ]
-The idea behind taking ownership
of what was just a restaurant and a bar
was to create a space where the neighborhood
can come together and share with each other.
[ Door creaks ]
The actual word "hidmo," in Tigrinya,
the language spoken in Eritrea, where I'm from,
they are the traditional huts
that you would find in the countryside in the villages.
It literally means "home," like a home,
and we like to say here that Hidmo means "home,"
and we like that Hidmo is a home for lots of different things
in the Central District.
[ Speaking Tigrinya ]
Thank you.
[ Bell rings ]
[ Indistinct conversation ]
Our doors are open to any individual, organization,
or entity that exists whose goal it is to build community.
And just so you guys know, because it's an all-ages show
and the bar's not gonna be open,
I'm gonna do last call like at 7:00,
which is in about 20 minutes, so...
Yeah.
-Whoo!
Yeah.
♪ Ah, yeah ♪
♪ Ah, ah, yeah ♪
♪ Ah, ah ♪
[ Singing indistinctly ]
-[ Singing in foreign language ]
-Whoo!
-Hidmo is also a space where the untold stories can be told.
Obviously, it's no secret that the Central District
is being heavily gentrified right now.
I mean, since 1983, this area has gone through drastic change,
and so we thought it would be really good
for everyone to have the chance to participate
and have a voice in what happens.
And we do it here through, you know, art and music
and just allowing, you know, a space to exist
that kind of honors that history.
-How are you all feeling tonight?
[ Cheers and applause ]
Damn straight.
That's more like it.
-[ Rapping ] ♪ And not even tell me that I can't do it ♪
♪ Yes, I'm a woman ♪
♪ A black woman, and I'm questioning everything ♪
-It's a community center without being a community center.
I tell people, like, "This is really a community center
masquerading as a restaurant."
I know there's kids that used to be scared
walking from Washington Middle School
to their house at the Manor just like three blocks away,
and when they found that they could come into Hidmo,
they felt safe on that walk all of a sudden.
-Prophetic revise, division revise,
rewritten comprised, sort of divides,
neatly surmised and categorized,
stole your prize with that demise was quite simply put
a token.
-♪ Yes, I got a lot of tricks up my sleeve ♪
♪ It's so damn good ♪
-Around our first-year anniversary,
we had a community officer come in and tell us
that some of the neighbors were feeling
that our existence on 20th and Jackson --
Hidmo's existence on 20th and Jackson --
was creating a negative vibe, basically.
They called us an "attractive nuisance."
[ Drums playing ]
♪♪
So while we thought we were brining in all this art
and all this music
and providing a space for youth and providing a space for women,
we found out that our neighbors thought we were a huge nuisance.
♪♪
-We're trying to do positive things.
There's all-ages events here in a time
when there's not many things for kids to do after school.
We're trying to make this a safe place in an unsafe world.
We want to create more of those,
and not just in Hidmo but throughout Seattle.
-Where are you?
You're two minutes away?
Okay, everything better be tuned and ready to go
because you guys are supposed to be on like right now.
They were tuning the drums.
They're on their way here. He said he's two minutes away.
Ugh, they're gonna give me a heart attack!
Oh, my gosh!
I was born in a little country called Eritrea.
It's in northeast Africa, north of Ethiopia,
and right on the coast of the Red Sea.
When I was born, it was a province of Ethiopia,
and there was a really, really bitter civil war happening,
which my dad was a rebel fighter in.
Both my parents took all at the time six of us kids
and left Eritrea.
We were refugees in Khartoum, Sudan,
and after, you know, 2 1/2 years,
there was no way for us to get educated
and there was no way for us to just live outside
and free as Christians in Sudan at the time.
And so, my dad gave up the idea
of waiting out the war in Khartoum
and applied for asylum in Germany and in the U.S.,
and our U.S. papers came in first.
And so we ended up coming to Seattle.
[ Guitar playing ]
We were settled in an apartment on MLK and McClellan
in August of 1983.
At the time, there were seven kids,
two parents, and my little baby brother Tommy was on the way.
And he was actually born in that two-bedroom apartment
on MLK and McClellan.
-[ Speaking Tigrinya ]
-Are you gonna talk in English to me?
[ Conversing in Tigrinya ]
Mm-hmm.
In a lot of families that immigrate,
there's this huge cultural divide
between the kids and the parents because the kids are growing up
as a different culture than their parents are,
and so one of the things that I started doing last year
is running the East African Club at Mercer Middle School.
I think it's important for them to have
older East African women in their lives.
-Even though I don't speak in my mother's tongue,
let there be no confusion about where I come from.
You couldn't tell I'm Ethiopian, born in a foreign land,
Scottish and Irish dad, had more indigenous roots further back.
I barely knew them, though, who were mostly in my mom's family.
-Hidmo's not only the physical space on 20th and Jackson.
It exists to increase dialogue
and kind of broadens the dialogue.
It allows more people to be involved in the dialogue.
-[ Singing indistinctly ]
♪ Had an accidental rhythm ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
-If you don't know what to write, that's okay.
But just put the pen to the page and write anyways.
Even if you write, "I don't know what to write."
I've started songs saying, "I don't know where to begin."
That was the beginning
of one of my favorite songs I've ever written, so...
-Sometimes, you might not be a writer,
but when you read other people's writings
and when you listen to other songs,
you start thinking, like, "Man, I got a story like that."
-This is yours.
I hope I do it justice.
She's very unhappy because her hair is very nappy.
In case you don't feel the same, look at your face.
She was told she was awesome, but she lost some.
She didn't eat much food because she was from the hood.
She didn't go to school, just stood on a stool.
She didn't have much money and wasn't very funny.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Mine's called "The Hidmo."
-Hey!
-[ Clears throat ]
Man, the food and the cakes got a real good taste.
You could tell that I'm happy by the look on my face.
All my friends eat there, so the time is spent
in the kitchen, where the cook is so confident.
She can make you a dish sophisticated,
it might take a minute, so get some patience.
I might order me some tea while I be waiting.
It's so awesome-tasting, totally amazing,
and I ain't just trying to get you to eat there.
You might not go, but you will see me there.
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Applause ]
-I see everybody's face.
I see everybody's face!
-Hidmo! What's up?
[ Cheers and applause ]
And so Ladies First is a project of ours.
It's the grassroots expression of our mission,
which is to undermine rape and violence in our community.
[ Hip-hop music playing ]
-Ladies First is a monthly all-women showcase
that shares the art and the music and the stories of women.
-♪ I like to sing-a ♪
♪ About the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a ♪
♪ I like to sing-a ♪
♪ About the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a ♪
♪ I like to sing-a ♪
♪ About the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a ♪
♪ I like to sing-a ♪
-I've never been to a place in Seattle
that has been more, like, just --
you just feel at home when you come in.
-♪ Dancing machine with my right foot, left ♪
-The crowds are always so different,
and it's like all ages.
Like, this is a place that I have been waiting for
for a long time.
Like, the mixture, and you're all people from all over town
that just are here to just chill.
-It's the village. It's the village.
-Exactly.
-[ Rapping ] ♪ What happened to community? ♪
♪ Hip-hop is not a fraternity ♪
♪ I'm not an accessory to your crime ♪
♪ A riverbank to your flow ♪
-♪ The sound is polluted ♪
♪ Have you forgotten the source of your own currents? ♪
♪ Currently, hip-hop is a monopoly ♪
-♪ They don't want us to pass "go" ♪
♪ Step up to be heard ♪
♪ Step back to reflect ♪
♪ We in the right direction, but we ain't there yet ♪
♪ So what comes next? ♪
♪ First, look us in the eye ♪
♪ Won't stop the music, time to realize ♪
♪ Step up to be heard ♪
♪ Step back to reflect ♪
♪ We in the right direction, but... ♪
-We thought just our existence was a community-building thing,
so we didn't feel the need to,
like, say, "Hey, Hidmo -- we build community here."
But going through that experience with our neighbors,
we decided to organize an open house.
Well, the open house turned into, you know,
somebody just kind of grabbed the mike
and started saying, "Well," you know,
just pouring their heart out
about how important Hidmo was to them, and then
another person got on the mike, and then another person,
and then somebody who'd never been at Hidmo was just like,
"I feel," you know, "I feel the love."
And the neighbors were present,
and the assistant city attorney was present,
and police officers were present.
Here for dinner?
-I'm here to...
-Oh! You are...
Us going through that experience resulted in thinking about
what we could possibly do about it,
but the gentrification is obviously such a huge issue.
And so we came up with something called
the Hidmo Community Empowerment Project.
We're gonna canvass the neighborhood
and find out what issues the people are thinking about.
We're just gonna take on a different topic
to talk about as neighbors every month,
and so, say if, like, safety is an issue,
what does safety mean to each individual person?
And depending who the person is, where they're coming from,
where they live, how long they've lived here,
what race they are, what gender they are,
you know, that safety is gonna mean something very different,
and so trying to find out if there is a way
that we can all kind of live together
and get to know each other
and, you know, build a sense of community
where it doesn't seem like
a strong sense of community existed anymore.
-♪ My mother's homeless ♪
♪ My brother's hopeless ♪
♪ Never had a daddy, so I guess he don't matter much ♪
-Most of the people that come into the Hidmo
have come from marginalized of the marginalized communities.
Our lives are not pretty.
Our histories are not pretty.
-We spoke of peace.
He pulled out his piece
and made everyone get down on their knees.
-Those stories are here,
and you can't make that look good, you know?
But what is good is that if you really want a community,
then those voices need to be heard,
and so if the neighbors want a model
for things that are possible in the city of Seattle,
they should truly look to the Hidmo.
-[ Rapping indistinctly ]
♪♪
-I always told her, like, if we ever blow up
and make it really big, like,
we're gonna give Hidmo the best that we got
because we owe Hidmo basically our careers.
-Yeah, basically.
-Love Hidmo.
[ Both laugh ]
[ Gabriel Teodros and Toni Hill's "Lovework" plays ]
-♪ 'Sup, y'all? ♪
♪ It's just the sunshine after the storm ♪
[ Woman vocalizing, indistinct rapping ]
♪ We strive to get free like my most style ♪
♪ So fake, just a little bit of know-how ♪
♪ Music raised me, the grace of my first child ♪
♪ It's ageless, y'all I want to ask God how ♪
♪ She put me back together and release what comes out ♪
♪ My mouth 'cause it ain't me, I thank she ♪
♪ But these niggas came through and they saved me ♪
♪ Work is love, and it forced out of face me ♪
♪ And of course, I've been lazy before ♪
♪ But lately, been chasing my heart through a war ♪
♪ Until the day comes that it don't hurt no more ♪
♪ Either way, y'all, I ain't never been poor ♪
♪ Even though I never had no money to show ♪
♪ I've come to know that this flow is priceless ♪
♪ No money can buy it, and no rapper can bite it ♪
♪ We spit good medicine, it shows that you aspired ♪
-♪ Loveworks ♪
♪ Live life ♪
♪♪